Mexican Business Culture

Mexican Business Culture: Essays on Tradition, Ethics, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, and the State is an edited volume by Carlos Coria-Sánchez and John Hyatt that seeks to correct misconceptions and stereotypes about doing business in Mexico. The co-editors are respectively a colleague of mine here at UNC Charlotte (in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies) and a former student of mine who has now lived for years in Mexico. The authors of the chapters are a mix of both Americans and Mexicans from an array of different disciplines.

The upshot is that consulting trade books about doing business in Mexico can be a dicey thing. Corporate culture and entrepreneurship are certainly different than in the United States, but not necessarily for the reasons we assume, and certainly not for the reasons we absorb through stereotypes. Further, the relationship businesses have with the state has evolved after the PRI lost its hegemonic hold on power. Coria argues that too many narrow analyses represent "Mexicanism" where "Mexico and Mexicans are what the authors want them to be, not what they are" (p. 23).

If you're thinking of doing business in Mexico or want to know more, go check it out.