Cultural distance and entry mode choices of german companies from the automotive industry in Brazil Distancia cultural e escolha do modo de entrada de empresas alem s do setor automobilístico no Brasil

This study has as objective to analyze the relation between the national culture distance between Brazil and Germany and the market entry mode chosen by this companies when penetrating the Brazilian automotive market. In order to develop the study, literature and academic articles have been consulted as a way to understand the multinationals and internationalization process, but mainly the relation between national culture distance and the choice of the market entry mode of companies willing to penetrate foreign markets, based on the research of Kogut and Singh (1988) and Brouthers and Brouthers (2001). The field study was developed in two main steps: the first one was an online survey designated to the 30 companies of the analyzed universe and two semi-structured interviews administrated to one German automaker and one auto parts company, aiming to go deeper into the information extracted from the questionnaire sent. The obtained results enabled the acknowledgment of a fundamental relation between the automakers presence in Brazil and the attraction of the auto parts companies to the Brazilian market, as well as the relation between the entrance of these companies and the economic cycle, in which Brazil was inserted at that moment. And finally confirm the relation between national culture distance, investment risk perception, and wholly-owned market entry mode choices. Esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de analisar a rela o estabelecida pela distancia da cultura nacional entre Brasil e Alemanha e o modo de entrada escolhido por empresas alem s ao penetrarem o mercado brasileiro, tendo como objeto de análise as empresas pertencentes ao setor automobilístico. Para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho, foram utilizadas pesquisas bibliográficas visando a entender as multinacionais e o processo de internacionaliza o, e, principalmente, a rela o entre cultura nacional e a escolha do modo de entrada de empresas em mercados externos a partir de estudos de Kogut e Singh (1988) e Brouthers e Brouthers (2001), que serviram como base principal para o trabalho. A pesquisa de campo ocorreu em duas etapas: o envio de um questionário para as 30 empresas componentes da amostra e a condu o de duas entrevistas semiestruturadas com uma empresa representante das montadoras e outra das autope as, a fim de aprofundar os dados obtidos a partir do questionário aplicado. Os resultados obtidos permitiram identificar uma rela o fundamental entre a presen a das montadoras no país e atra o das empresas de autope as para o mercado brasileiro, bem como a rela o estabelecida