Leveraging competitiveness upon national cultural traits: the management of people in Brazilian companies

This paper aims to discuss the leveraging of competitiveness upon cultural traits. Since the globalization process has raised a series of challenges for companies around the world, companies have sought to respond mainly through the adoption of management practices proved to be successful elsewhere. However, due to the anchoring of many management practices, especially those of human resources, in the socio-cultural context of a country, the import and/or transfer of management practices between different contexts risk resulting in changes which may be only superficial. There are, however, some exceptions. Some managers have chosen to build their companies' competitiveness through management practices firmly anchored on the cultural traits of their countries, instead of looking for practices from successful companies. This process is obviously not simple because it requires from company leaders first the capacity to re-signify the cultural trait in a different manner, i.e. to perceive it as a source of competitiveness for the company and, second, the competence to build a management practice upon this cultural trait so that it will leverage the competitiveness of the company. In order to illustrate how typical cultural traits from a country may leverage the competitiveness of a company, we present the case of Natura, a Brazilian cosmetics manufacturer, which has constructed much of its competitiveness through the adoption of management practices anchored in some typical Brazilian cultural traits. The analysis of the case demonstrates that this process of developing competitive management practices is feasible, but it must be based upon a solid system of values that the team leader practises or wants practised. Otherwise, it is unlikely that the management practices will stand or that people will be committed to them.