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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of institutional changes in Bolivia (2005-2016) in the power structures within the headquarters (HQs) of a Brazilian energy multinational corporation (MNC) and its subsidiaries in Bolivia.

This investigation is informed by a postcolonial South–South perspective. The Brazilian and Bolivian managers were interviewed and drawing techniques were used to unveil hidden power relationships. To achieve the multilayered objective, a Lukesian power framework was integrated into the analysis.

Traces of a postcolonial relationship between Brazil and Bolivia were found, even though Brazil never colonized Bolivia. The power structure within this MNC’s HQ and subsidiaries reflects a postcolonial relationship: local staff members see the Brazilian MNC as the holder of power of resources, process and meaning. Finally, despite its colonizing role, Brazil is depicted as a savior, not an exploiter. Much to the authors’ surprise, the institutional changes in Bolivia – the nationalization of its oil and gas reserves and the declaration of a plurinational state – have not affected the power relationships within the Brazilian MNC.

The contribution to postcolonial investigations within the international business field was carried out in different ways: a review of EMNC literature was conducted in the study for a South–South postcolonial perspective; empirical data from a case within South America were added; a Lukesian power perspective was integrated into the analysis; and finally, drawing techniques were used to unveil hidden power relations.

Using Brazilian communities in the Greater Boston area as the focus of the study, this chapter will address the following main questions: Are there differences between Protestant and Catholic churches in terms of their impact on the creation and development of social capital? And, if such differences exist, how do membership and involvement in the churches’ social networks affect ethnic entrepreneurship? Our preliminary conclusions suggest that there are various differences between the two churches in aspects that have the potential to impact social capital, and that the social networks built around and supported by the Brazilian Protestant churches in Massachusetts have been more effective for social capital formation. In consequence, these churches provide a “safer” environment, with higher levels of perceived solidarity and trust, and as such more favorable for ethnic entrepreneurship initiatives and social mobility. In order to lay the theoretical ground for addressing these questions, we will make a brief review of existing research on the association between social capital and ethnic entrepreneurship. We will also discuss the issue of church-membership as a source of social capital creation and growth, and its effects on ethnic business development.¹

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the factors that influence strategic sourcing decisions to the Brazilian market based on societal and natural values.

A case study method is used because of its suitability for exploring how a Scandinavian multinational corporation can respond to the social context in the Brazilian market by matching, in competition with other firms, its own values, norms and beliefs to those prevailing in the Brazilian market.

The response to the social context in the Brazilian market and the integration with the group's ethical standards comprise certain appropriate corporate social responsibility practices that result in natural and social benefits for the stakeholders, which in turn creates social advantages.

The study is focused on the Brazilian market and would benefit from the availability of data in other emerging country markets that pose potential outsourcing destinations, enabling a comprehensive analysis from an integrated economic and sustainability perspective, including how societal advantages are transformed into competitive advantages.

Management scholars should apply a socio‐economic perspective to strategic sourcing decisions in emerging country markets in accordance with the logic of appropriateness, which enables a broader and more holistic approach towards strategic sourcing decisions, what influences them, how to sustain them, and deciding how to effectively match the requirements of the external institutional setting of the specific emerging country market and how to establish relationships between decision makers on global and regional levels.

In contrast to authors who have theorized about strategic sourcing decisions from an economic market perspective, a socio‐economic approach is taken in this paper to establish an institutional base and a network foundation for analyzing the social context of the Brazilian market.

This chapter explores the adaptation and evolution of stand-alone CSR reporting in two different political economies and late-capitalist countries: Brazil and South Korea. Instead of selecting between new institutionalism and the varieties of capitalism (VOC) approach, this study attempts to explore how the interaction between converging and diverging pressures appears in the adaptation and evolution of stand-alone CSR reporting (i.e., cross-fertilization process) in two countries.

Using qualitative content analysis this study focuses on the frameworks of CSR reports and the way CSR issues are described within the stand-alone CSR reports of four telecommunication companies in Brazil and South Korea.

Even though CSR reports in both countries have become similar due to the convergence of frameworks of CSR reporting, the key themes and the representation on each theme are still embedded within each form of market economy: a hierarchical market economy (HME) in Brazil and a network market economy (NME) in South Korea. From a cross-fertilization perspective, this chapter shows that the adaptation and evolution of CSR reporting occurs at two different levels of CSR reporting.

This study has three major values. First, it explains the two different levels of the adaptation and evolution process of CSR reporting by bringing a dynamic cross-fertilization view. Second, it provides a qualitative study that focuses on the content of CSR disclosures instead of the quantity of those disclosures. Lastly, it contributes to the academic and practical research on CSR in late-capitalist countries and in two under-researched types of political economies.

The purpose of this study was to assess whether internal marketing tends to influence the perception of bank employees regarding the strategic orientations of banks toward the market, brand and value. The authors also aimed to determine whether employees' organizational commitment mediates the relationship between internal marketing and the three strategic orientations and whether they influence bank employees' perception of obtaining a competitive advantage.

The authors conducted a survey with 832 bank employees using an online questionnaire. The authors performed data analysis by modeling structural equations with data estimation using the PLS-SEM.

The results showed that internal marketing positively influences bank employees' perception of banks' strategic marketing orientations and through that their perception of a competitive advantage. The authors also note that organizational commitment can partially mediate the relationship between internal marketing and the strategic orientations tested in this study.

The findings indicate that banks' investment in employee valuation tends to generate positive results in relation to their adherence to marketing strategies, with the potential to result in a competitive advantage.

The results demonstrate the strength of internal marketing in the strategic orientations of banks, indicating that having employees who are committed to their bank contributes to the delivery of a high-quality service focused on the external customers, generating a competitive advantage.

This chapter discusses the adoption by Brazilian companies of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods for individual workplace conflicts. Brazil is an interesting case to study ADR due to its high level of institutionalized individual workplace conflicts and its extensive workplace statutory regulation. Investigating the case of three Brazilian private companies of different sectors and sizes, I found that Brazilian companies are developing their own ADR practices, focusing on ombudsman offices (OOs), instead of using the mediation and arbitration methods that are predominant in the United States. I argue that the adoption of the ombudsman can be explained by institutional and workplace level factors, which include the characteristics of Brazilian industrial relations system, each company’s human resources (HRs) strategy, and the relationship between companies and unions. Furthermore, I discuss how the usage rate of the OOs might vary according to the OO’s internal structure and its functioning rules. The cases provide important insights for scholars interested in ADR in general and in Brazilian industrial relations system, as well as union leaders, HR managers, and other practitioners dealing with workplace conflicts globally.

This paper investigates discrimination against women within the Brazilian labour market using firm-level data from the World Bank Investment Climate Survey. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the female employees in the Brazilian labour market are paid less than their productivity warrants due to the existence of discrimination.

Based on employer discrimination model proposed by Becker (1971) that considered the proportion of female employees as a proxy for the extent of discrimination, the authors estimate the profit function using OLS analysis, and regress it on the proportion of female employees and other firm characteristics. To address the endogeneity problem caused by unobservable productivity shocks, the authors employed the methods proposed by Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003), respectively.

The results indicate that the proportion of female employees has positive effect on firms’ profit in 2002, but has no effect in 2007. This finding gives evidence of the existence of discrimination against female employees within the Brazilian labour market in the early 2000s, while the gender discrimination was reduced overtime.

This paper’s main contribution is to provide an approach that differs from that of previous research to determine whether discrimination exists within the Brazilian labour market. This paper also provides policy insights for Brazilian labour market.

Software industry, one of the most knowledge-intensive industries, in Brazil has increased opportunities of evolution. Its competitive advantage relies on the efficiency of the organizational knowledge management, but the knowledge hiding, its antecedents and moderators are still understudied. This study seeks to identify a new antecedent to knowledge hiding, such the occupational stress.

The author focused on the moderating effect of social self-efficacy and emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between occupational stress and knowledge hiding in software industry in Brazil. The author collected data from 189 software industry Brazilian employees in 30 firms using a time-lagged research design.

This study demonstrated that employees with high levels of social self-efficacy (SSE) and emotional self-efficacy (ESE) or both have more tendency to engage on knowledge hiding behavior comparing to their colleagues with low SSE and ESE. This study showed that SSE and ESE related positively to rationalized hiding, evasive hiding and playing dumb.

The author’s main contribution relies on the finding related to the joint role of social self-efficacy and emotional self-efficacy on engaging employees under occupational stress conditions in knowledge hiding behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how demographic variables – such as age, gender, professional status, type of employment situation, and hierarchal level – affect perceived fear of failure in the workplace among Brazilian employees.

For this purpose, the authors applied the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory – (Conroy, 2002) to an intentionally non-probabilistic sample of graduate students from a university in Rio de Janeiro.

The results indicate that in terms of the sample, Brazilian civil servants have relatively higher indices of fear of failure than employees of private companies, despite the high stability related to their type of employment situation.

The statistical treatment of the data indicated the occurrence of the phenomenon of “false low scores”, putting in evidence some limitations related to studies about the expression of feelings, especially negative ones, like fear. The authors also highlight the need to adjust the fear of failure construct and its scale to the Brazilian organizational setting.

Employees’ emotions, such as fear, have a real impact on organizational performance. Many factors contribute to the feeling of fear in the workplace. This, in most cases, is perceived as damaging, negatively effecting organizational dynamics. However, there are those who see a positive side to fear, as it prompts greater effort to attain results. The research, assessing the occurrence of this feeling among Brazilian employees, intends to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities related to the workplace.

O objetivo principal deste artigo é explorar como variáveis demográficas – tais como idade, gênero, status profissional, tipo de vínculo empregatício e nível hierárquico – afetam a percepção do medo de errar no ambiente de trabalho entre empregados brasileiros.

Com esse objetivo, foi aplicado o Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory – PFAI (Conroy, 2002) em uma amostra não probabilística de estudantes de pós-graduação de uma universidade do Rio de Janeiro.

Nossos resultados indicaram que em nossa amostra, funcionários públicos brasileiros apresentaram índices de medo de errar maiores do que empregados de empresas privadas, apesar da alta estabilidade que possuem, relacionada ao seu tipo de vínculo empregatício.

O tratamento estatístico dos dados indicou a ocorrência do fenômeno de “falsos índices baixos”, destacando limitações relacionadas a estudos que tratam da expressão de sentimentos, especialmente de sentimentos negativos, como é o caso do medo. Nós também chamamos atenção para a necessidade de ajustar o construto do medo de errar e de sua escala de mensuração para o ambiente organizacional brasileiro.

As emoções dos trabalhadores, como o medo, por exemplo, têm um impacto real no desempenho organizacional. Muitos fatores contribuem para a ocorrência do medo no ambiente de trabalho. Isso, na maioria dos casos, é percebido como algo prejudicial, afetando negativamente a dinâmica profissional. Contudo, existem aqueles que veem um lado positivo no medo, como um potencializador de esforços em prol de melhores resultados. Nossa pesquisa, considerando a ocorrência desta emoção entre trabalhadores brasileiros, visa a contribuir para uma melhor compreensão das complexidades relacionadas ao ambiente de trabalho.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the factors that can influence the tacit knowledge sharing (KS) in two different cultures by investigating information technology professionals (IT) in Brazil and Indonesia.

A survey method was used and a standard questionnaire was applied. The sample size comprised 115 respondents from Brazil and 86 participants from Indonesia. A partial least squares analysis was used to assess the structural and confirmatory models and test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that, in both cultures, IT workers who are committed to the organization are more likely to engage in tacit KS behavior. Similarly, strong social ties play an important role in the willingness to share tacit knowledge. Also, there are major differences between the organizational cultures; for instance, whereas Brazilians seem to be influenced by team-oriented cultures, Indonesians seem to be indifferent.

Limitations include the small sample size as only two cultures were chosen to assess the differences and the representation of just one professional category (IT).

This paper provides theoretical contributions as the literature lacks a macro-level analysis on the KS comparison between countries. The results advance the comprehension of tacit KS phenomenon by testing in a cross-country comparison the mediation effect of organizational commitment. To practitioners, this research presents important empirical contributions indicating how organizational culture, social environment, personality traits and employee commitment impact an individual’s willingness to share tacit knowledge with their coworkers.