Overcoming liability of outsidership in China: The experience of Brazilian companies in developing Guanxi

In light of discussions on corporate internationalization, a theoretical approach advocates that the main barriers to internationalization are related to the burden of being outside international relationship networks, that is, so-called liability of outsidership. Given China’s relevance to Brazil and the complexity of that country’s business relations (guanxi), this study aims to investigate how Brazilian companies operating in China develop guanxi as a means of overcoming liability of outsidership, based on Chen and Chen’s theoretical framework (2004). A descriptive and qualitative study was conducted analyzing multiple cases in four Brazilian companies from the services sector with offices in China. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Data were treated by content analysis using NVivo 8.0 software. The results identified the motives behind internationalization to China, the difficulties encountered due to the liability of outsidership, the significant benefits of guanxi, and activities carried out in order to develop it. This study is expected to contribute to generating knowledge on the internationalization of companies to China