Perceived Cultural Proximity and Presence on a Foreign Market: Lessons from a Research Conducted with Latin European SMES Leaders Operating in Brazil
While cultural distance has been the subject of numerous analyses in international management research, this article explores the notion of “cultural proximity”, particularly that of “Latin proximity”. The data collected from 197 managers of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese SMEs operating in the Brazilian market show that the perception of this Latin proximity, initially shared, evolves in contact with the Brazilian reality. This reveals unsuspected differences that these managers interpret according to their international experience and level of education. This observation leads us to revisit existing work on adjustment and to propose avenues of research to enrich it.