International Co-Operations and Entrepreneurship Development: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Even if the need to innovate has always existed, it has been accentuated in recent years due to the acceleration of technological change and the growing world competition: entrepreneurship - meant as the individual capacity to take risk, to produce innovation and to predict and act upon change – becomes a crucial factor of firms’ competitiveness. At the same time, international alliances have been recognised, above all in emerging countries, as the best way to improve local firms’ entrepreneurship and learning capability. However strategic alliances show a high degree of failure, thus posing the need to investigate the factors that can impact on their longevity and success. According to the above considerations, the aim of our paper is to investigate: a) the linkage between national culture and entrepreneurship, b) how culture affects firms’ propensity to international co-operation.entrepreneurship; knowledge; culture; individualism vs. collectivism.

ACACIA : information and communication technologies; the sustainable technology loop dimension

Meeting: Round Table, 26-27 June 1997, Toronto, ON, C

Equipas interculturais : o caso do projecto de mediação intercultural em serviços públicos (MISP)

Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos HumanosO aumento das migrações internacionais, que teve início durante o século XX, veio dar origem a novas realidades sociais. Estes novos cenários passam, inevitavelmente, por aspetos culturais, que irão implicar novos desafios para a gestão dos recursos humanos. O objetivo deste trabalho é perceber como funcionam equipas de cariz intercultural, analisando alguns elementos como as dinâmicas de trabalho, a resolução de conflitos, a emergência das regras de funcionamento e as vantagens deste formato de equipa. Foi desenvolvida uma pesquisa qualitativa, recorrendo ao estudo de caso e ao método etnográfico, utilizando a observação em campo e entrevistas semi-diretivas para a recolha de dados, junto de duas equipas interculturais que realizam trabalho de mediação. Contabilizam-se três exercícios de observação e três entrevistas aos elementos das equipas. Os resultados demonstram que a diversidade cultural se revelou um elemento importante na resolução de problemas das atividades desta equipa e que, os diferentes backgrounds culturais dos mediadores, não impediram a existência de bom relacionamento entre eles.The increase of international migration which began during the twentieth century gives rise to new social realities. Inevitably, these new realities will involve new challenges for the management of human resources. The aim of this work is to understand how intercultural oriented teams operate by analysing some elements such as work dynamics, conflict resolutions, the emergency of operating rules and the advantages of this kind of team. A qualitative research has been developed, the case study and ethnographical method were used, field observations and semi-directive interviews were made for data collection with two intercultural teams that perform mediation work. For the record there are three observation exercises and three interviews with the members. The results show that cultural diversity is an important element regarding the problem resolution of the activities from this team. The different cultural backgrounds of the mediators did not prevent the existence of a good relationship between them