CULTURAL DISTANCE AND ENTRY MODE CHOICES OF GERMAN COMPANIES FROM THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN BRAZIL

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.