Exploring the Interpersonal Transaction of the Brazilian Jeitinho in Bureaucratic Contexts
研究了巴西组织中一种名为“jeitinho”的非正式问题解决策略，聚焦其在工作环境中的人际交易过程，特别是非正式社会资本和“simpatia”的作用，并基于巴西贝洛奥里藏特的一项伙伴关系可持续性项目的定性数据加以说明。
This paper is a contribution to the existing body of literature on the Brazilian jeitinho (pronounced jaytcheenyoo) as an informal problem-solving strategy in organizations. The jeitinho is a social mechanism that entails bending or breaking the rules in order to deal with difficult or forbidding situations. It is a particularly useful informal strategy to ‘get things done’ in work organizations. The paper focuses on what is involved in the interpersonal transaction of the jeitinho in work settings, acknowledging in particular the role of informal social capital and a highly valued interpersonal attribute in Brazilian society known as simpatia. The first part of the paper explores the defining features and historical roots of the Brazilian jeitinho; the second part provides a theoretical contextualization of the discussion through a brief review of academic works on bureaucratic dysfunctions and informal strategies to deal with these problems; and the third part illustrates the operation of the jeitinho with data from a qualitative study of a partnership sustainability program based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.