Business in Portugal – Reese Napier

Portugal is a place that is both very similar and very different from America. It is different in obvious way like language and food, but also in more nuanced ways, like the way they view their business. We visited a cork farm in southern Portugal that had business practices that were radically different from the business practices that I was familiar with. To this farmer, money seemed like an afterthought; his business’s main purpose was to harvest cork while also keeping his business in line with his personal ethics. His personal environmental beliefs were reflected onto his business despite the financial repercussions. At first I couldn’t understand why he would do that and I marked off this cork farmer as an anomaly, but as we toured more businesses in Portugal, I came to realize that personal beliefs and business operations were much more in line than they would be in America. America seems to be focused on the bottom line in every situation, and while all of the businesses we visited cared about money to some degree: they were much more willing to sacrifice financial benefits to suit their personal beliefs than we are in America.