Cultural Aspects of Doing Business in Brazil

When doing business in global environment, being aware of impact of cultural differences is one of the keys to international business success. Since cultural differences will affect you and your business success directly. Accordingly, knowing the cultural differences between target country where to startup business and home country is a significance factor to sustain the business.
Here are some facts about Brazilian Cultures’ components. Brazil’s official name is Federative Republic of Brazil but even its citizens do not prefer using whole name. According to last research the population is roughly 200 million and estimated to be growing at about 1.6 percent per year. Young population has a significance share over population. Since 62% of Brazilians are under 29 years of age. Brazil has six climatic regions: tropical rainforest, tropical wet and dry, tropical monsoon, hot semiarid, humid subtropical and subtropical highland. Although most of Brazil lies in the tropics, more than 60 percent of the populations live in areas which are cooled either by altitude, sea winds or polar fronts. While the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro, Recife and Salvador can get extremely hot, plateau cities such as São Paulo, Brasília and Belo Horizonte have mild climates, and the southern cities of Porto Alegre and Curitiba have mild winters. It is extremely important to know for foreign businessman because climate is as important as culture. For example for housing; people get seasonal work because of climate change. It is also important where you put your business your house. We as a housing team should consider the right place and how deal with climate. Brazil’s official language is Portuguese with the almost spoken rate of 100%. English is the most foreign language used in business cases as well. Lastly, 80 percent of Brazilian believe in roman Catholicism but many other religions are introduced by immigrants who settle in different part of Brazil. The important thing is there is a freedom of religion and everyone has a right to choose their own religion.

Brazilian Society
Brazil is a like mixture of races and ethnicities because of immigration and it is resulting in rich diversity. Ethnic make-up is white (includes Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish) 55%, mixed white and black 38%, black 6%, other (includes Japanese, Arab, Amerindian) 1%. Also new race has showed up which called “Mestizos” which means; original Portuguese man married with native women, resulting in giving birth creates new race. Unlike the many European countries, racism rate is surprisingly low. Few people could be described as racist even there is a huge diversity. However, skin color is a symbol of status. Generally people with darker brown skin are economically and socially disadvantaged. Since class system of Brazil is based on economic status and skin color. Even women satisfy 40% workforce, they don’t find a place in upper class business. They are supposed to deal with where the wages are low teaching, administrative support, nursing and cleaning etc. discrimination against women is prohibited but still exists. Men often pull back women in workplace so women stay behind men in business.

Business Etiquette in Brazil
Face-to-face, oral communication is preferred over written communication. At the same time, when it comes to business agreements, Brazilians insist on drawing up detailed legal contracts.
The individual they deal with is more important than the company.
It is important that you do not do anything to embarrass a Brazilian because of their collectivistic culture.

Hofstede Dimensions
To understand Brazilian culture deeply, Hofstede’s 5 dimension help businessman to get better information and comparison to home country.

Power Distance
Brazil has a score of 69 at power distance. Which means; a society that believes hierarchy should be respected. The distributions of power leads power holders have more benefits than the less powerful in society. By this way, Brazilian accepts inequalities amongst people. People at high power distance level feel that he is supposed to apply orders given by superiors without question. Since they are higher in the hierarchy level, managers believe that they are stronger than employees and will not see the equivalent of them.

Collectivism vs. Individualism in Brazil
Brazil is closed to high-context culture in many cases which means, at the score of 62, mostly Brazilian behaves collectivistic and don’t pride himself on individual achievements because he has known group consensus is always better than individual’s opinion. Hence; he loves to use “we” instead of “I”. When the subject is family, its place is at the centre of its social structure. Brazilian cares his extended family parents, children, grandparents, aunts, cousins etc. The importance of family is also evident in Brazilian business culture. For example; generally family members work for the same company, either family owned or otherwise. Since the way of feeling loyalty to the group is almost what he needs. Nepotism is considered as a good thing. It would be challenging for foreign businessmen. Also Brazilian doesn’t like confrontation even though he is right in a case, because the society counts that as a rude thing. Besides, Brazilian prefers implicit language and derives most information from the context of the communication. Words are not as important as context.

Masculinity vs. Femininity
This approach indicates that, the distribution of roles between the sexes.
Masculine features: competition, ambition, career, claims, power, achievement, dominance.
Female characteristics: sensitivity, quality of life, compassion, kindness, sensitivity, understanding. Brazil scores 49 on this dimension, almost in the middle.

Uncertainty Avoidance

A society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it shows the extent to which members of a culture feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations.
Uncertainty avoidance responses to the uncertainties related to daily life. At 76 Brazil scores high on UAI. In Brazil, as in all high Uncertainty Avoidance societies, bureaucracy, laws and rules are very important to make the world a safer place to live in. Brazilians need to have good and relaxing moments in their everyday life.

Long- term Orientation
Short-term oriented cultures expect quick solutions/ results but long- term oriented cultures prefer stable long-term objectives. At 65 Brazil places itself amongst the long term oriented societies and Brazilians easily accept change as a part of life.

References http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/brazil-country-profile.html http://geert-hofstede.com/brazil.html
http://www.communicaid.com/access/pdf/library/culture/doing-business-in/Doing%20Business%20in%20Brazil.pdf