ABSTRACT
Multinational companies (MNC) often face cultural challenges when implementing organizational and business practices, such as quality management in their foreign subsidiaries. This chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of cultural challenges that can emerge in the implementation of German quality management in Brazil. It adopts a multi-level perspective to analyze a significant critical incident a German multinational faces in its Brazilian subsidiary. The chapter reviews the existing literature on the transfer of quality management in a cross-cultural context, with a specific focus on quality management in Germany and Brazil. It discusses our results and develops some possible solutions for overcoming cultural challenges in German-Brazilian collaboration. The German multinational under study belongs to the mechanical engineering industry and produces large construction machinery. In the 1970s, the German multinational decided to expand its operations to Brazil, where it has a production and sales subsidiary in the federal state of Sao Paulo.
