Exporting Culture: a Requirement for Competitive Internationalization*

This paper proposes a concept of “culture for internationalization ” and “exporting culture” –a highly relevant concept for developing countries ’ firms that are likely to follow a gradual internationalization process – based on the strong relationship binding the concept proposed to strategy and systemic competitiveness. These three items are paramount to understand the conditions underlying internationalization as it is characterized by particular traits that make it a key alternative for a firm’s growth and successful perdurability based on competitiveness. “Culture for internationalization ” and its variation, “exporting culture”, overflow the concepts of organizational or corporate culture and involve some major interaction among the micro, meso and macro levels of a national economy in order to operationalize strategies that promote such culture and assure successful firm and economy internationalization. Discussion remains open as to the concept and its applicability with the hope that it contributes to the understanding and creation of appropriate conditions for firms to be able to access international markets with greater advantage and generate as much benefit as possible to their nations, particularly in developing countries