The Internationalization Process Of Brazilian Companies - The Brazilian Multinationals

The growing process of economic globalization places the discussion about the importance of internationalization of Brazilian companies as a crucial option for corporate strategies to develop competition and national performance.

The internationalization of companies plays an important role, especially for emerging economies that formulate policies on sustainable economic growth. In theory, this process of internationalization involves two main instances: (i) serving of the foreign market through exports, and (ii) direct investments abroad, by the establishment of commercial and/or agency representations before implementing production plants.

Although the majority of transnational companies worldwide were originated in Europe, the United States and Japan, a significant change has been observed in the past three decades. In fact, there has been a significant increase in the number of companies from developing economies in the list of exporters of capital.

Experiences adopted in other countries such as (a) the Asian Tigers, the internationalization took place through a partnership between government authorities and the private sector. With small domestic markets, from the beginning, these countries bet on strategies benefitting exports. The most significant Asian model was the Japanese Zaibatsu, large industrial conglomerates. This model was imitated in South Korea, in the form of Chaebol, but Taiwan focused on the development of another type of company, of smaller sizes. In both countries, the state has encouraged the "National Champions" through incentives. On the other side, we have (b) China, the experience of the Asian Tigers served as a model for China. At first, attracting foreign investments into special economic zones and stimulating the Chinese private sector. Exports were stimulated since the beginning, but in 2002, the Chinese Government launched the "Go Global policy" with measures to promote the internationalization of companies in the country through specific actions such as (i) simplification of bureaucratic procedures, (ii) development of guides for investors (iii) conduction of business intelligence activities; (iv) execution of international agreements for promotion and protection of investments; and (v) creation of the Chinese sovereign fund to assist in the internationalization of Chinese companies. The third example is (c) India. In this country, the internationalization resulted from an initiative of the private sector...