Remuneração por desempenho no futebol brasileiro: uma análise cultural sob a perspectiva dos executivos

Abstract

In recent years, pay for performance has aroused particular interest from Brazilian soccer clubs and relative attention from the media. Inspired by executive compensation models and motivated by European soccer success cases, pay for performance was adopted in Brazil as a way to mitigate economic, financial and sports problems. However, while considered a viable and even suitable solution for many organizations and clubs around the world, its adoption in the country has been resisted. Based on this problem, the present study questioned the extent to which pay for performance would be effectively suitable for Brazilian clubs and athletes. It sought to analyze wheter pay for performance structure in the Brazilian soccer is consistente with the values of the national culture. Five theoretical propositions were developed to guide the discussions, examined through an integrative approach by a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative stage, an exploratory survey was carried out with 35 soccer executives affiliated to the Brazilian Association of Soccer Executives (ABEX). In the qualitative step, four interviews were conducted as a way to deepen the results found in the previous stage. The evidence presented along these stages enabled the validation of only two of the five theoretical assumptions. Although these results suggest a supposed pay for performance inadequacy, the conflicting elements could be justified from a cultural point of view. Clubs, in general, seem to have adjusted the different pay for performance components to the brazilian cultural values. Therefore, this study inferred that pay for performance is appropriate to the Brazilian soccer. Particular emphasis can be given to individual compensations. Incentives based on performance goals, although of an individual nature, seem to reinforce the brazilian cultural values, while incentives based on individual actions (goals and assists), although widely spread in European soccer, contradict the brazilian collectivist values. Two reflections were suggested from these conclusions. Firstly, the resistances initially mentioned do not appear to be related to pay for performance, but rather to their structuring from the players' individual actions. Second, cultural differences lead to differences in management practices.