Japanese Expatriate Managers in Japanese Subsidiaries in Brazil: Why Not Learning-driven?

It has been said that international assignments are traditionally “demand- driven” (DD) that is a way of expatriation of executives focused on control, solution of problems and transference of tacit knowledge. Besides that, according to the international literature, “adjustment” is the determinant factor for success in overseas assignments and Japan usually sends their own executives to subsidiaries in other developing countries for “DD” purpose. However, according to the initial empirical study and in-depth interviews, it seems that Japanese expatriate managers in Brazil were sent to learn how to adjust the local staff to their philosophy instead of adjust themselves to a new complete scenario. This paper found that “adjustment” would not be fundamental for Japanese expatriate manager’s success in their assignments to Brazil, since they were under a special “learning-driven” type of expatriation process. This paper also highlights the challenges of the Japanese expatriate managers in Brazil and their contribution to the development of local staff under the internationalization process.

Managerial skills required by innovative and technology-based firms

This paper aims to investigate the Business Administration professional profile specifically required to manage innovative and high technology-based companies. It is a qualitative study outlined by an exploratory-descriptive research, supported by questionnaires and interviews addressed to a sample of executives of technology-based companies, located in São Paulo metropolitan region, Brazil. Accordingly, modular innovation arises from the existence of an architectural knowledge improved in association with the conceptually destroyed knowledge's component, meaning that architectural innovation arises from an improvement in the knowledge of the parties allied to the architectural knowledge's destruction. Results show that managers see innovation as one essential pillar for competitiveness and commonly associate innovation with team expertise related with the structure for this purpose. However, to instill innovation as an organizational discipline, it is necessary to redesign organizational processes, namely those considered critical to innovate. The company must revise its management model aiming to emphasize innovative behavior, which means readiness to respond to external environment change's requirements. Moreover, once it is necessary to change the manager's mindset about innovation, higher education institutions also have to adapt their Business Administration courses according to both changes, essentially concerning a more dynamic and more diffuse business environment in comparison to their curricular contents. The institutional pragmatism generates professionals who reach the job market with a historical and non-managerial overview on innovation. Nevertheless, results highlight that attitude is more appreciated than knowledge, or business management skills, what makes managerial behavior a key element in the innovation process in technology-based firms.