Germano Glufke Reis

Os valores dos administradores de empresas mudam ao longo da carreira? Relações entre prioridades axiológicas e tempo de formado

The hierarchy of personal values guides choices, attitudes and individuals behaviors. One aspect that has drawn attention of researchers is to understand the extent to which the values (axiological priorities) of a person undergo changes over time in different stages of his/her life and career. This study aimed to identify the variation of individual values within the time since graduation of business administrators. For this, the Schwartz values survey was administered to a sample of 179 professionals who graduated from the School of Economics, Business and Accounting at the University of Sao Paulo, between 1967 and 2008. Anova was calculated at the level of motivational types of values and bipolar dimensions. The results indicate variations in the axiological profile of the subjects, as the time since graduation increases. This change moves the prioritization from stimulation and hedonism values (openness to change) in the first years after graduation to a greater emphasis on security, tradition and conformity (conservation) in later stages of the subjects careers. There is also a shift in prioritization of values that serve individual interests (early career) to values that serve collective interests (in later stages). Other results, as well as implications and possible causes, are also discussed.

Europe in the Internationalization Strategies of the Multilatinas

The increasing presence of firms from emerging countries, especially from the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), in the world scenario, is a remarkable characteristic of the ‘third wave’ of internationalization. The two first ones were generated by the expansion of North American and European firms (in the 1950s and 1960s) and by Japanese firms (in the 1980s). Currently, the so-called emerging country multinationals are taking a stand in the global economy (Goldstein, 2007; Sauvant, Mendoza, and Irmak, 2008; Ramamurti and Singh, 2009).

Assessing emerging multinationals’ “Global Mindedness” profiles

Despite the relevance of developing a global mindedness (GM) in order for firms to explore global opportunities, extant literature on GM has mostly focused on developed country multinationals, overlooking its relevance to emerging country multinationals which have unique features and internationalization patterns. In addition, the studies addressing the impacts of GM on internationalization have mostly relied on the assumption of homogeneity rather than differentiation of GM among multinationals of the same country. This study addresses this theme by exploring GM diversity among Brazilian multinationals. For that purpose, a previously developed multidimensional GM scale is adapted and validated by means of a pretest and a confirmatory factor analysis with Bayesian estimators, and used as the basis for a hierarchal cluster analysis, later optimized by means of the K-means algorithm. As a result, a GM taxonomy is identified, encompassing fully globally minded, cross-culturally skilled, international market-oriented, and domestic market-oriented multinationals. To illustrate the taxonomy, four case studies involving major Brazilian multinationals are brought to the fore by means of interviews and secondary data. The configurations identified points to the need to study GM in conjunction with both institutional and economic factors in order to explain singularities of the internationalization of emerging companies and also differentiations among firms from a single emerging country.

Impacts of Global Mindset and Psychic Distance on the Performance of Brazilian Subsidiaries

The literature has emphasized the importance for multinational corporations to develop a global mindset in order to operate in the challenging environment of global business. It has been argued, for instance, that ‘global managers’ should develop global and integrative perspectives (Kedia and Mukherji, 1999). Furthermore, Bartlett and Ghoshal (1992) comment that global managers must also have ‘a broad, non-parochial view of the company and its operations, yet a deep understanding of their own business, country, or functional tasks’ (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1992: 132).