Adopting or adapting? The tension between local and international mindsets in portuguese management

Miguel Pina e Cunha

Nova SBE Working Paper Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics

Abstract: One of the effects of the globalization process has been the diffusion of international management mindsets. Such a process of diffusion may be contributing to an increasing homogeneity of managerial practice around the world, but important differences still remain. The research reported in this article analyzes management as a process in the making, i.e. as a dynamic interplay between local culture, history and conditions, and the diffusion/adoption of international managerial techniques. The topic is approached inductively, through interviews with 71 managers based in Portugal. The article makes two main contributions: it analyzes management as a dialectical interplay between local factors and imported management knowledge, and helps to describe management practice in this Latin European country. Results suggest that the change process occurring in managerial practice in Portugal derives from the tension between a parochial mindset, inherited from almost five decades of dictatorship and its confrontation with a new global mindset. Some managers may be approaching this tension dialectically, through the enactment of a synthesis, which some informants interpret as potentially leading to a new Latin managerial touch

Keywords: Global management; management in Latin Europe; Portugal; dialectics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp451

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