¶ … Seasons' Cultural Adaptation in Brazil Four Seasons Hotels is one of the most successful companies in the hospitality industry due to exceptional management principles, core values, and business practices. As part of enhancing its growth and market share, Four Seasons had an ambitious objective to enter the French market through opening the first hotel in Paris. This expansion strategy proved successful since the firm was aware and effectively predicted the challenges it would encounter with French culture, particularly in Paris. In addition to predicting these cultural difficulties, Four Seasons developed effective strategies for cultural adaptation through applying a core principle of flexibility. Given the success of its expansion in France, the hotel is considering expanding its operations in Brazil. The success of this expansion initiative would require establishing effective measures for handling cultural issues associated with change management procedures and addressing the surrounding multicultural environment.

Four Seasons' Organizational Culture

As previously mentioned, Four Seasons is one of the most successful companies in the hospitality industry that has made significant strides with regards to cultural adaptation across its global operations. Apart from developing and utilizing effective strategies for cultural adaptation, one of the major factors that have contributed to Four Seasons' success is its organizational culture. Generally, organizational culture is always a reflection of the values and leadership styles adopted by the management and influenced by human resource practices. In essence, organizational culture can simply be considered as a set of shared values, experiences, beliefs, and attitudes of the members of an organization or company (Enz, 2009, p.144).

For many companies in the hospitality industry such as Four Seasons Hotels, organizational culture is a major source of competitive advantage. The significance of organizational culture as a major source of competitive advantage is evidenced in the fact that it enables employees and customers to interact frequently since supervision is not enough to direct employees across their various roles and responsibilities. Therefore, organizational culture is an important management tool that helps organizational leaders to influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of employees.

The organizational culture at Four Seasons Hotels is embedded on service, which is an important aspect of competition in the hospitality industry. The organization has a service culture based on the concept that receiving personal service powerfully in turn contributes to passing the service on to others (Enz, 2009, p.144). As a result, the company competes on service through investing in the quality of experiences of staffs and guests. The organizational culture of service has enabled Four Seasons Hotel to experience superior profitability, growth and reputation across all its operations. The hotel's service culture is evidenced in its dealings with the various stakeholders in its operations and establishments.

Four Seasons Hotel has continued utilizing the service culture because of its belief that customer satisfaction is critical for success in the hospitality industry. To this extent, improved customer service is one of the core competencies and values that govern the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of the company's employees. In addition, management decisions and practices at Four Seasons are largely driven by service, which is vital towards ensuring customer satisfaction and building a strong brand among customers.

Cultural Environment of Business Operations in Brazil

Brazil is one of the emerging markets in today's business world and has attracted the attention of several corporations and businesses that seek to establish their operations in this country. The attractiveness of Brazil as a crucial market in today's business environment is attributable to the fact that it's Latin America's largest economy and the ninth largest in the world. The huge size of the country's population also makes it an important market where business organizations can experience tremendous growth and profitability. Given its large and ever-growing domestic market, relatively stable democracy, and huge natural resources, this country has become a thriving destination for foreign investors (James, 2011). However, foreign investors are still faced by several challenges when operating in Brazil including costly credit, social imbalances, increased corruption, and complex taxation policies and labor environment.

One of the factors that have considerable impacts on foreign investors in Brazil is the cultural context of business operations. Generally, foreign investors and companies are faced with the need to understand cultural differences when establishing their businesses in this country. Brazil is characterized by a multi-active culture through which its people tend to be emotional, warm, and impulsive. As compared to other cultures, the cultural context of business operations in Brazil is largely driven by long-term value. Actually, Brazilians tend to have a long-term value orientation, which is brought by first value preference and orientation. The long-term value orientation...

Since it's a present-oriented culture, people in this country tend to place significance on adaptability and flexibility. Consequently, there is a general lack of planning as Brazilians are seemingly focused on the present though they tend to lean towards long-term value orientation (Granli, 2012).
While positive communication is regarded as a source of great enthusiasm, the country's culture seemingly has a misleading communication style. Unlike other cultures, Brazilians don't prefer direct communication and may consider it offensive. Moreover, showing arrogance on facts should also be avoided when operating in the country. Therefore, communication in Brazilian culture tends to be indirect since information needs to be interpreted and examined on the basis of its context and setting. In addition, the country's culture emphasizes on a relatively informal and personal way of communication and interaction.

Potential Intercultural Challenges for Four Seasons

As the General Manager of a new Four Seasons hotel in Brazil, there are potential intercultural challenges relating to change management processes that are likely to impact the company's operations. These challenges have been identified in consideration of Four Seasons' organizational culture and the cultural environment in Brazil. In order for this hotel to be successful in this new country and culture, it is important to understand these cultural differences and develop suitable measures for cultural adaptation. In light of the cultural environment in Brazil and Four Seasons' organizational culture, some of potential intercultural challenges for the company include

Indirect Communication Style

One of the most likely intercultural challenges for Four Seasons' operations in Brazil is indirect and seemingly misleading communication style. As previously mentioned, Brazilians tend to be more positive and indirect across their interactions, which demonstrates that they prefer an indirect communication style (Granli, 2012). Moreover, these people consider direct communication relatively offensive and unsuitable for communication. While Four Seasons encourages its employees to act friendly and smile at guests, the preferred communication style could be a major intercultural challenge.

This is primarily because communication styles utilized by Four Seasons Hotel are sometimes direct thus more likely to offend Brazilians. The relatively direct communication and interaction style in this company is evident in efforts taken by its employees to create a sense of recognition with guests and show concern for them. In essence, Four Seasons requires its employees to take ownership and responsibility in solving the problems of guests (Hallowell, Bowen & Knoop, 2002). The process of solving these problems may sometimes require direct communication, which is seemingly offensive in Brazilian culture. Therefore, the company is likely to face the intercultural challenge of indirect communication style.

Less Focus on Planning and Punctuality

Given their preference for indirect communication style, Brazilians prefer a less formal and more individual means of interaction, which affects how negotiations are carried out. In addition, Brazilians give more attention to flexibility and adaptability because they have a more present-oriented culture. This increased focus on flexibility and adaptability is characterized by less emphasis on planning and punctuality. In contrast, the nature of Four Seasons' operations requires planning and punctuality, which are crucial towards provision of excellent customer service in the hospitality industry. These two components help in ensuring the company provides timely and personalized services to its customers.

Therefore, Four Seasons is likely to experience the intercultural challenge of less focus on planning and punctuality, which will have considerable impacts on its operations. Some of the major issues likely to emerge because of this intercultural challenge include difficulties in negotiations and fulfillment of various responsibilities in the business process. Actually, a less formal and more personal means of interaction, which is crucial in negotiations, will make it difficult for Four Seasons to build its business relations.

Unpredictable Means of Adhering to Rules and Problem-solving

The other intercultural challenge is unpredictable means of following rules and problem-solving, which characterizes Brazilian culture. In this case, Brazilians tend to deal with their problems and approach rules from an individual and isolated perspective. These people adopt a situation thinking approach since the country is a Particularistic society in which rules are adopted and challenges solved on the premise and context of involved participants. On the contrary, Four Seasons Hotel encourages its employees to take ownership and responsibility to help its customers resolve their problems. Four Seasons' corporate culture relates problem solving to systems through a system thinking approach in which rules are impersonal. This is likely to generate a…