After meeting with a multitude of businesses, I learned that the capitalistic mindset is not very common there. Instead of focusing on becoming a market leader and growing their company to extreme levels, they focus on maintaining the values of their business that originated from the founder. For example, the bakery we visited hesitated to expand because they did not want to bring the company out of the family, and struggled to find someone they could trust to have the same values as them to manage a new location. Additionally, nearly every company emphasized how important sustainability is to them. For example, Impetus has nearly zero waste in its production. When we questioned them about this, our cultural differences were very distinct. Because to them, sustainability and zero waste is a common practice in business, but to us, it is not.
My perspective on business has definitely changed. I found myself more interested in the businesses that focused on the quality of their product and maintaining their integrity. I also respected these businesses more. In the future, when I begin to look for a job post-graduation, I will keep this in mind. I want to work for a company like a winery, which refuses to sacrifice their time-consuming and very traditional production process. After this experience, I find myself wanting to meet with businesses in the US and compare how different the interactions are, and what they focus on.
I would say my initial interactions were pretty accurate and got further cemented as the week went on. Portugal is an amazing city, and the culture there is completely different. People there focus more on enjoying life, and less on working themselves to death. This is seen in the way employers take care of their employees, and in the care that businesses take with each customer. Even when buying gelato, I never encountered someone who seemed to not care about the experience of their customer.
