The New Export-Culture In Latin America

Global Business Languages
Volume 12 Issue 1 Security and Business Languages 5-24-2010 Article 12

The New "Export-Culture" in Latin America
Germán Torres
Georgia State University

Recommended Citation
Torres, Germán (2007) "The New "Export-Culture" in Latin America," Global Business Languages: Vol. 12, Article 12. Available at: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/gbl/vol12/iss1/12

Copyright ©2010 by Purdue Research Foundation. Global Business Languages is produced by Purdue CIBER. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/gbl

Germán Torres
Georgia State University

THE NEW “EXPORT CULTURE” IN LATIN AMERICA
ABSTRACT The challenges posed by the global economy have caused a significant shift in economic and business culture in most Latin American countries on a number of fronts: greater emphasison export-oriented industries; greater government help and incentives for small business creation; and a sustained drive toward major business efficiency and competitiveness, including greater emphasis on the acquisition of foreign language skills as a way to foster exports. This article will review such developments and identify the challenges and opportunities they present for Language forBusiness programs in the US. In his one-act drama “El censo,” Mexican playwright Emilio Carballido (1962) presents a situation typical of most small, family-owned businesses in Latin American countries. As one of the characters explains, the enterprise is a small sewing shop whose market is exclusively local: neighborhood women who like the quality of the goods manufactured. Also typical of the time isthe shop owners’ distrust of the role of the state regarding the control and regulation of small businesses, thus the characters’ attempt to impede a government official from carrying out his duties. That was then. In today’s economic climate small firms such as the one featured in Carballido’s piece— particularly in an industry such as clothing—would be exploring ways to enter the export market.And the government, far from over-taxing and obstructing the growth possibilities of the small firms, would offer a wide range of assistance to help them achieve their international objectives. Such trends announce a significant shift in economic and commercial culture on two main fronts: on the one hand, they represent a definitive break with the earlier policies of import-substitution, i.e.,producing mainly for the domestic market. On the other, they place small and medium-sized firms—pequeñas y medianas empresas or Pymes, as they are known in today’s literature—at the forefront of the new economic policies in most countries in the region. The present study will review the rationale behind such changes, identify key features of the new policies, and conclude by reviewing some of thechallenges and opportunities they present for our programs in language and international business.

Global Business Languages (2007)

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SMALL BUSINESS IN HISPANIC CULTURE them unab Disregard—even disdain—for small-scale business ventures has long been as in a trait sp Hispanic culture, quite possibly a legacy of Spain’s general attitude due commercial activity. In Spain itself, suchprejudices go back to the toward t the m Reconquista, a period when the national ideal was embodied by the Christian econ soldier in the struggle for reunification against the Moorish invaders. According Bank to Angus Mackay, “[. . .] merchants and artisans [. . .] often found that throu economic wealth and status was not paralleled by any participation in the and t local power structure” (52).Commercial activity was relegated to a secondary limit Even during the brief Spanish Renaissance the so-called “ideal status. nece caballeresco” looks contemptuously on most commercial enterprises. Spanish critic José Antonio Maraval, for example, observes that by the end of the THE XVth century it is generally accepted that large-scale commerce enhances the In La merchant’s honor and social...