Search results

The purpose of this paper is to understand how congruence influences product evaluations in an international Latin culture context, as moderated by the public vs private nature of the product and user-image vs product-personality congruence.

Participants were recruited from two universities in Spanish-speaking, Latin cultures: Spain – Latin Europe (n=340) and Uruguay – Latin America (n=400). All participants were asked to indicate product-personality congruence (i.e. congruence between one’s self and the product) and user-image congruence (i.e. congruence between a product’s typical user and the product) for two private and two public products.

Two types of congruence (product-personality and user-image) positively influence brand evaluations more for publicly consumed than for privately consumed brands for consumers in both Latin cultures, with effect sizes being greater than prior research in other cultures.

This research supports congruence theory in showing that similarity between a consumer and a brand leads to more favorable attitudes. Limitations include the sole use of student subjects and examination in only two countries of Latin culture.

Regardless of a brand’s personality, brands should seek consumers with similar personality traits, especially in Latin cultures.

This research addresses several limitations in prior research by examining both publicly and privately consumed products in one study, exploring congruence across Latin cultures, and testing products not confounded by addictive properties.

Previous cross‐cultural leadership research has provided limited information about Latin American leadership. In an effort to address this gap in the literature, this paper is designed to aid in understanding the similarities in Latin American leadership. The author proposes that the core of Latin American cultures is a common culture, which has a consistent effect on leader behaviors. Based on this common culture, it is proposed that leaders in most Latin American countries can be characterized as traditional leaders (El Patrón). In some countries, leadership is evolving toward a modern conceptualization of leadership, El Líder Moderno. Preliminary data supported the dominance of El Patrón and a movement in Mexico toward El Líder Moderno.

This paper aims at advancing research on the identification and the first test of the primary steps companies follow to generate and maintain enablers of long-term marketing relationships in cross-cultural business. To achieve the objective, the authors first identify the communication difficulties in generating and maintaining long-term relationships in bi-cultural or multi-cultural settings. They then develop the building blocks, or enablers, that are needed to form and maintain enduring relationships. They finally illustrate the suggested process by describing the use of enablers in two contrasting cultures, the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin, using samples from the United States and Chile, respectively.

Family businesses must be examined within the cultural contexts in which they are bred, nourished, and grown. According to Chrisman, Chua, and Steier (2003), family businesses are launched for reasons other than the desire for dollars and cents (or rupees and yen). In fact, the authors note, “Family businesses… bring together so starkly the economic and non-economic realities of organizational life…” (2003, p. 442). Calls for family business research that extend beyond traditional geographical boundaries to include global comparisons have been issued by Hoy (2003) and others. Fortunately, recent developments in cultural assessment and measurement methodology have provided tools to enable a better understanding of families and family businesses vis-à-vis the use of regional clusters and comparative lenses (Gupta & Hanges, 2004). Gupta and Hanges (2004) note three clusters of the Catholic ethic: Southern (or Latin) Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. As shown in Table 1, more than three-fourths of the population in these clusters follows the Catholic faith. In this study, we examine the spirit of family business in these three clusters.

To stimulate research on Latin American businesswomen's career development and help human resource practitioners design culturally‐adapted advancement programs.

A total of 27 interviews with human resources professional from US Fortune 500 companies with business in Latin America undertaken during 2001‐2003 are the basis for reporting on women's advancement programs in Latin America. A survey of literature on culture in Latin American work organizations provides basis for suggestions about cultural adaptation of these programs. Latin American businesswomen's perceptions of their own career development, recorded in interviews with over 100 businesswomen in six Latin American countries in 2002 by participants in the Women Business Leaders in Latin America project, corroborate these suggestions.

Women's initiatives imported from the USA to Latin America are likely to suffer several shortcomings unless modified to accommodate several common cultural attributes of Latin American work organizations.

Provides a guideline for developing gender diversity practices specifically suited to the Latin American context.

Major cross‐national projects on women, culture and leadership in business to date tend to neglect the Latin American region. This research begins to highlight and remedy that lacuna.

The purpose of this paper is to address the subject of work attitude drivers within the current scenario considering two influencing factors, culture and generation. Both membership of a particular generation and membership of a particular culture can affect individuals' work attitudes. The study considers these two factors in order to analyse five dimensions that are sources of work attitudes: life project, professional ethics, and attitude towards authority, leadership and commitment to the company.

Drawing upon a sample of almost one thousand people from various Ibero‐American countries, the results show significant differences between generations and cultures, particularly when focusing on the life project.

Among its conclusions, the paper points out that Latin America cannot be viewed as a homogenous whole in terms of individual work attitude. On the contrary, it is characterised by a significant degree of national diversity and managers should take this into account when designing initiatives to improve employee motivation.

The contribution that this paper seeks to make is to include the cross‐cultural perspective in the study of attitudes towards work, which has received less attention in previous studies.

The purpose of this study is to identify the main cultural factors that influence Latin American consumers’ intentions to purchase US brands. Although culture and cultural orientation have been well researched in international business and marketing literature, there is a lack of research on the relationship between consumers’ cultural orientation and their bias towards foreign and domestic products.

The paper reviews the extant literature with a particular emphasis on the key constructs of consumer ethnocentrism, consumer xenocentrism, conspicuous consumption and consumers’ national characteristics. Based on this review, the authors propose a conceptual model showing the influence of cultural orientation on the selection of US brands in Latin America.

The review of the literature shows that previous studies support the proposition of cultural orientation and preferences for foreign versus domestic products among Latin American consumers. Accordingly, in their conceptual framework, the authors posit that consumer ethnocentrism negatively influences the selection of US brands, while xenocentrism does the opposite. Conspicuous consumption is posited as moderating the influence of consumer xenocentrism on purchase intentions of the US brands. On the other hand, national characteristics of consumers in Latin America are posited as moderating the influence of both consumer ethnocentrism and consumer xenocentrism on the selection of US brands.

The authors also present important theoretical and practical implications that contribute to the growing body of research on consumer acculturation and country of origin effects, providing a better interpretation of consumer behaviour in the context of international and domestic markets.

This study fills a significant gap in the understanding of the impact of cultural orientation and conspicuous consumption on selection of US brands in Latin America. Its conceptual framework can provide the basis for future empirical studies and also improve understanding of emerging markets.

Drawing from our current original research on cultural trends in Latin America‐based multinational firms, this paper challenges the stereotypical perception of Latin America as a homogeneous region and explores the cultural distances among groups of multinational employees. After collecting surveys from 733 employees across eight multinationals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, we establish that, much like it happens in other lumped‐together regions of the globe, such as “East Asia” and “Africa”, Latin American countries present significant differences in the way firm employees respond to situations where cultural traits are at stake. By researching these countries, we recorded significant variation in aspects such as the treatment and place of women in the workplace, attachment or detachment to formal rules, formal organizational hierarchies, and structured business planning, in addition to varying levels of tolerance to invasion of privacy. Implications of the study include the need to develop methodologies that adequately capture cultural differences within large geographic blocs and business practices that prepare the expatriate, the international manager, and the policy maker for the different realities they are bound to encounter in different countries.

This paper aims to determine the level of awareness and implementation of family‐responsible parameters: policies, enablers, practices, and culture, in Spanish and Latin‐American companies, and how they impact work‐life balance.

The study uses data from different national IESE's Family‐Responsible Employer Index surveys in Spain (1,000 companies) and five Latin‐American countries (1,155 companies), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru, done between 2006 and 2008. This is a structured questionnaire that assesses the stage of development the organization is in regarding four main family‐responsible parameters: policies, enablers, practices, and culture.

Latin‐American countries get a slightly higher number of companies that are fully supportive of work‐family balance environment than Spain, but with lesser formal policies implemented and a stronger presence of enablers and practices. Policies are important but might not be as effective if not accompanied by the example of managers and staff as well as by a deep understanding of the cultural value placed by them on work, family and personal life.

The survey‐based data used limits insight into causal relationships. Qualitative and longitudinal studies are needed in order to clarify motives for individual and organizational decisions regarding work‐life initiatives. Data collected are from one source only: employer's management. Multi‐source studies must follow and include the public sector.

This is the first comparison between Spanish companies and companies from five Latin‐American countries regarding work‐family policies, enablers, practices and culture with such an ample number of companies. Findings will aid HRD practitioners in developing work‐family initiatives and help researchers to address new questions in cross‐cultural comparisons.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence regarding the springboard regionalization strategy implemented by multinationals entering Latin America and the organizational networks developed to serve this end.

Using the organizational network approach, a typology is developed to explain the Springboard network. Quantitative analysis is used, in the form of logistic binary regression, to study these networks composition.

From a sample of 154 subsidiaries extracted from the AMADEUS intelligent database, three categories for multinational’s networks are created, with the Spanish subsidiary acting as the leader: strategic centers (SCs), administrative centers (ACs) and regional headquaters (RHQs). Findings provide evidence of cultural features, industry behavior and the multinational’s size and entry mode influence these networks organization.

It is proposed that culture and historical ties have evolved together and management scholars should be aware of this phenomenon. Specific limitation that this study exhibits is the data provided by AMADEUS and the fact that R&D information for both the Spanish and the Latin American subsidiary were not available.

Staffing composition and expatriate corporate policy should consider the springboard effect to manage springboard networks.

Industries and authorities in all countries involved should be aware of their role in MNC strategies for regional expansion.

It is argued that a network of subsidiaries within the multinational can participation in the springboard behavior, which is determined by the culture that the multinational originates from, as well as the Spanish culture, creating a particular type of leadership.