Luis Antonio Dib

The entry of Wal‐Mart in Brazil and the competitive responses of multinational and domestic firms

Investigates the entry of Wal‐Mart in Brazil, and subsequent moves of established retailers and new entrants with data taken from secondary sources and interviews with executives. First, internationalization of Wal‐Mart and its entry are discussed, which caused an impact on Brazilian retailing by accelerating the concentration, automation and modernization of the industry. Competitive reactions were classified in four categories: neutralizing competitors actions, establishing competitive advantage, redefining markets, and changing ownership. It is argued that Wal‐Mart’s experience in Brazil could be an interesting source of learning for foreign retailers desirous of entering the Brazilian market as well as for local companies that need to remain competitive to survive.

Avaliação comparativa do escopo descritivo e explanatório dos principais modelos de internacionalização de empresas

Este artigo aborda seis teorias consagradas sobre internacionalizacao - Teoria do Poder de Mercado, Teoria da Internalizacao, Paradigma Ecletico, Modelo de Uppsala, Perspectiva de Networks e Empreendedorismo Internacional - e sua contribuicao para responder cinco questoes basicas: por que, o que, quando, onde e como as empresas internacionalizam (suas atividades). Nao sao revistas as limitacoes conceituais e metodologicas de cada teoria, ja exploradas pela literatura existente na area. Optou-se pela adocao de uma perspectiva comparativa, que aponta as limitacoes descritivas e explanatorias das teorias consideradas em relacao as questoes analisadas. Sugere-se que uma nova teoria geral ou teorias especificas seriam necessarias para lidar com a crescente complexidade e variabilidade dos processos de internacionalizacao das empresas, que nao sao adequadamente descritos ou explicados por nenhuma das teorias aqui analisadas.

Psychic Distance versus Market Size in International Business: Study of Brazilian Exporters

ABSTRACT International Business (IB) theories encompass economic approaches, where firms use objective criteria to select foreign markets, and behavioral approaches, where firms use psychic distance. This study proposes new objective criteria to measure psychic distance and adopts multiple linear regressions with a foreign-trade econometric model adapted to address psychic distance and market size and their relationships with Brazilian exports over 10 years. Psychic distance showed a close relationship to exports from smaller firms, while the market size of the destination country was always significant. This brought original empirical evidence to the validity of IB theories as well as to the exports behavior of firms from emerging economies.

CRIAÇÃO COLETIVA NA WEB 2.0: UM ESTUDO DE CASO EM UMA EMPRESA BRASILEIRA DE CROWDSOURCING

This paper discusses how the participation of consumers in business has evolved in recent years from being merely a way of optimizing costs to becoming a strategic marketing tool and a source of new business models. The more advanced engagement of so-called ‘prosumers’ with firms has been made possible by several factors, but especially by technological evolution. The emergence of web 2.0 has changed the behavior of consumers who now take part in online communities and find new tools for engaging in creation and production processes. Some firms have realized that they can reduce costs and risks and also increase their creative potential, involving customers that are interested in more personalized products and exchanging information and are attracted by the possibility of creating new products in a community environment. This study sought to describe the customer participation process by analyzing company reports and secondary media sources. Peer production, open innovation, crowdsourcing, mass collaboration and collective intelligence constitute some of the concepts developed in the literature to designate this interaction. These definitions were organized chronologically, in an attempt to make their applications in business explicit. A case-study methodology is applied to investigate the use of crowdsourcing by a Brazilian t-shirt firm. An analysis that drew on nethnography was performed in order to gain a deeper understanding of the process. The study concludes with an overview of the opportunities and challenges of crowdsourcing in order to better assess the process in the Brazilian context.

Propensity for Internationalization: A Study of Brazilian Software Firms

The Brazilian software industry dates back to the 1960s, when Brazil was ruled by a military regime. Due to the strategic importance of the software sector, the military government passed legislation (based on the infant industry argument) that limited access to the market for Brazilian computer manufacturers. Although the law does not directly protect software developers, the favorable business climate allowed for their expansion. Ironically, although they were exempt from market protection, the Brazilian companies that survived foreign competition and prospered were the software developers.