To be on the safe side, or the correct one?

There are almost no Afro-descendants in managerial positions in subsidiaries of multinationals in Brazil.

International corporations seem to follow St. Ambrose, who is believed to have said “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” to explain why he would not fast on Saturdays in Milan, though he would in Rome,

Will Brazilian corporations abroad follow St. Ambrose? They better do, because they will be in deep trouble if they were to stick abroad to familiar home discriminatory practices, like suggested in the paper which I wrote with Paula Bastos, shortly to be published in Thunderbird International Business Review.

The topic is hardly surprising, but the way we elicited the workings of discrimination should awaken some interest in those willing to do well by doing good. We asked anonymous respondents to a survey to react to ambiguous pictures by German Expressionist painters. The respondents were largely mid to high level managers in a Brazilian corporation selling cosmetics and fragrances to women.

The pictures, like Emil Nolde’s 1913 Young Couple, offered respondents an opportunity to express their interpretations and thus voice their unconscious discriminatory stance. Who in Nolde’s Young Couple would be the male? The person in black or the one in green? Who would be more in control of the situation? Who would be the boss of whom?

As it turned out, respondents had no quibbles in identifying the person in black as a male in greater control of the situation, a boss earning a higher salary. Similar responses were elicited from respondents when asked about the characters in 1919 George Grosz’s Café. Also Kirchner’s 1914 Rote Kokotte was hardly identified as a business woman on a night out, suggesting that women must abide by sober dressing patterns even when out of the office. Besides, respondents correctly identified the gender of painters depicting their own bedrooms, suggesting that even the office decoration must reflect a male environment when men are in control.

Mind you, respondents were mostly working for female customers. Food for thought, is it not?

I will soon return on the issue of discrimination against women and Afro-descendants in Brazil.