SOMOS
MACHISTAS
Using qualitative research to inform business strategy
SUMMARY
Background: American CEO started new adult education company based in a new market.
Company’s main product is a 10-week course training small business owners on business sustainability and administration.
Problem: CEO needed to quickly generate insights on new user-type, with which he had no previous experience or information.
Main Goals: Understand motivations and business behaviors of new user type, the Paraguayan small business owner.
Test the CEO’s assumptions that…
Machismo is an inhibiting factor to conducting business
Trueque (bartering) is a business norm
The compadrazgo system (nepotism) is a business norm
Key Insights:
Important business norms in Paraguay are sharing tereré
(herbal tea) and speaking Guaraní (indigenous language)
Leverage female machista culture to empower women in business
Key Outcomes: Supported 270 small business owners by incorporating local cultural business practices and norms into curriculum.
“We are growing and we are improving. We use a Tereré class in our curriculum (thank you for the suggestion) and we have a lot of Guaraní that we use in the classroom (thank you for that suggestion, too).”
Jeremi Brewer, Co-Founder and CEO of ELEVATE Global
PROJECT
BACKGROUND
Working as the only UX Researcher on the founding team of a Paraguay-based startup, I conducted generative research to understand a new user group. From January of 2014 to April of 2015, I designed the research project, executed the field work, analyzed and synthesized the qualitative data, and presented business recommendations to the CEO. I conducted all the research in Spanish in order to preserve cultural competency and then translated the findings into English. The project deadlines were all met per the original plan.
Text in image says ROLE: UX Researcher; Date: January 2014 - April 2015; Methods & Tools: Secondary research, Research plan, Interviews, Participant observation, Field notes, Vignettes, Mapping, Affinity mapping, MaxQDA; Practices: Exploratory and Generative Research
CONTEXT
ELEVATE Global was expanding to a new market in Paraguay.
ELEVATE’s CEO had experience launching pilot programs in new markets, namely Mexico and Peru. Based on his past experience interacting with those two cultures, he knew it was important to learn about Paraguayan business culture in order to better adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of Paraguayan business owners.
One of his top priorities upon entering Paraguay was to support female business owners. He was specifically interested in understanding the male vs. female cultures in Paraguay, as he had seen gender norms affect business owners in Mexico and Peru.
I was hired to do exploratory research for ELEVATE Global. I had two months to generate insights. Being the expert in qualitative research, I was given complete autonomy to create the research plan and conduct the field work. Some of the initial assumptions the CEO wanted to test were the effects of machismo (male culture), compadrazgo (nepotism) and trueque (bartering) on small business owners in Paraguay.
PROCESS
Text in image says Research Plan to Secondary Research to Field Work to Analysis and Synthesis to Business Recommendations
I followed a generative research process by first creating a research plan to provide a launching point, focusing on male and female small business owners in the city of Asunción as the target audience.
SECONDARY
RESEARCH
With no prior context or familiarity with Paraguayan culture, I did a deep dive into Paraguay’s history. I came across three common themes that I believed would directly and indirectly affect present-day small business owners:
Paraguay was beat up…a lot
There are a few key events in Paraguay’s history which have left deep scars on the country. The Triple Alliance War, where Paraguay fought against the Allies (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay), lasted from 1864-1870. Over 60 years later, Paraguay fought Bolivia in the Chaco War, where Paraguay lost land and political control of its capital, causing its economy to suffer, and disabling it from recovering like its neighbors.
Mariscal José Félix Estigarribia, “Hero of the Chaco”
Male population was decimated
After The Triple Alliance War, Paraguay’s population of “525,000 in 1865 was reduced to about 221,000 in 1871, of which only about 28,000 were men” (Encyclopaedia Brittanica 2013:1). The war left only women, children, and the elderly to reconstruct a now indebted and destroyed country. At the end of the Chaco War, Paraguay lost up to 69% of its population, of which 90% were male.
Statue of “Las Residentas”, honoring the women who reconstructed Paraguay
Dictatorship destroyed economy
In 1954, General Alfredo Stroessner led a military coup and instantiated a totalitarian and authoritarian dictatorship for 35 years. Stroessner’s dictatorship exiled the intellectual and artistic class, leaving the Paraguayan political economy in ruins. The effects of Stroessner’s dictatorship are still felt in Paraguay’s democracy today.
Historical military commemoration with camouflage soldiers
RESEARCH
PLAN
Interviews and Observations
Since we were starting with a blank page, I used in-depth interviews and participant observation as my primary research methodologies.
I conducted in-depth interviews to build trusting relationships with small business owners over time. In-depth interviews allowed me the freedom to veer from the discussion guide and explore concepts and themes which might not have been obviously connected to the overarching goals. They also provided me with insights into personal motivations, attitudes, and perceptions related to the research goals.
Participant observation served as my behavioral research component. People often say one thing and do another, so I wanted to capture people’s actual behaviors. It also provided me the opportunity to observe interpersonal interactions and group behaviors, allowing me to get a more holistic picture of cultural norms.
Research Goals
The goals of the interviews were to test the CEO’s assumptions of cultural roadblocks he had experienced during his pilot programs in Mexico and Peru. He wanted to know…
Is machismo an inhibiting factor to conducting business?
Is trueque (a barter-system) a business norm?
Is the compadrazgo system (in Mexico, similar to nepotism) a business norm?
PIVOT
Vignettes and Mapping
Within the first two weeks of being in Asunción, I decided to adjust the discussion guide questions and add two additional research methodologies: vignettes and mapping.
In the original discussion guide, I had several questions about the cultural norms of trueque and the compadrazgo system. I quickly learned that none of the people I spoke with had heard of trueque or compadrazgo and, therefore, I determined it best to cut those questions from the discussion guide.
I was pleased to find that small business owners were very willing to speak with me and allow me to sit with them in their stores two to three times a week for three to five hours at a time. Since Paraguayans were so open in their interviews, I thought it would be interesting to add vignettes as an additional methodology. I crafted three different vignette scenarios with the intent of better understanding the logic models for how Paraguayans thought and to see if there were any consistencies or discrepancies in their logicking. This would provide an additional attitudinal layer to better understanding perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors.
The second methodology I added was mapping the small businesses in Asunción. I noticed as I walked the streets that there were very distinct store types and each store type appeared to be owned by a specific gender (ex: a tire store would be owned by a male, a clothes store would be owned be a female, etc). I thought this could potentially be a way to provide additional quantitative evidence to support the qualitative elements of the research.
RECRUITMENT
I found twelve participants through random selection. I walked to local stores and took buses to other commerce areas of Asunción, asking the store owners for permission to interview and observe them in their business locale. It was important to me to observe male-female interaction and so I often selected male-female groups or couples when deciding upon my main participants.
I conducted participant observation in participants’ stores, participants’ homes (via personal invitations), a hospital, a Catholic school, the largest open-market in Asunción (Mercado Cuatro), as well as buses and other locations in the city of Asunción. I formed relationships with my participants by visiting them at least once a week, more often two or three times a week for three to five hours at a time.
My ability to cultivate deep relationships with participants was a strong point of this project. Nine participants invited me into their homes, which showed a deeper level of trust and provided me a more holistic view of them. In many of their homes, I was able to see additional behaviors and to gauge their interactions with other family members (such as mothers, brothers, etc.), which I would not have witnessed in their store environment.
THE FINAL NUMBERS
12 small business owners
7 male / 5 female
Age range
17-56 (male)
32-60 (female)
Socioeconomic status
Middle class
Lower-middle class
INSIGHTS
Machismo is not adultery and drunkenness
Vignette and Interview Insight #1:
In Peru and Mexico, the male culture of machismo means that men are irresponsible drunkards, womanizers, adulterers, and abusers. Participants made it very clear that many Paraguayan men can be drunkards, adulterers, womanizers, and/or abusers, but that does not constitute machismo. Being machista in Paraguayan culture is when men believe women should stay in the house and not work. This is a very different understanding of machismo as compared to other Latin male cultures.
She says that the definition of machismo is that men want women to stay in the house.
“Men don’t want the woman to work.”
Women are machista too
Observation and Interview Insight #2:
Whenever the topic of machismo was brought up in regards to men, informants would almost always bring up the topic of women also being machista. Being machista is when women are demanding and commanding. They are the decision-makers and the rulers of the house and family. Women are also seen as machista in a business context. The concept of machista was widely shared via social media videos and memes. Women being machista stems from Paraguay’s history of losing the majority of its male population and women stepping into men’s roles to “lift up the country.”
“During the war, all of the Paraguayan men had to go to battle, so they left their wives and kids at home, alone. When this happened, the women had to take on the man’s role at home and began to order [people around]. For this reason, the situation between men and women is very interesting and has caused a lot of tension in society.”
No one is 100% machista
Vignette, Observation, and Interview Insight #3:
When first asked about the culture of Paraguayan men, all Paraguayans stated that all men are completely machista. However, as people told stories about men in their own lives, they often shared that their men were the anomaly. Every one of my participants had at least one, if not multiple, examples of men in their family being outside the machista norm. Not one man in Paraguayan society fully inhabits the machista model.
Despite her grandfather’s amazing example of fatherhood, “his son, my uncle, is super machista. Yes he is a womanizer. Yes he lives a parallel-life…The difference is that my uncle is a present father with his kid…The prototype for a dad would be my grandfather and my uncle. I prefer this for my kids, not a dad like my dad.”
Speaking Guaraní improves business relationships
Observation Insight #4:
Small business owners would almost always conduct business transactions in Guaraní, Paraguay’s indigenous language. Business owners who were fluent in Guaraní would exclusively conduct business in Guaraní with contractors, in negotiations with customers, and while “talking shop” with fellow business owners. Guaraní is less intimidating than Spanish and a more inclusive language for all Paraguayans.
He decided “to learn Guaraní to do operations with the workers.” One day, he entered a job where there were a lot of workers and the bosses “talked to them in Spanish” and when they did that “the workers shied away” but when he began to speak to them in Guaraní, they opened up. So, he decided to learn Guaraní to be speak better with the workers, because he worked a lot with workers in his job.
Sharing tereré is an important social activity
Observation and Interview Insight #5:
All Paraguayans take time throughout their day to share the herbal tea drink tereré with their coworkers, neighbors, or friends. It’s a time for people to take a break from their activities and socialize with one another. Being unable to do so is offensive.
“Construction workers get together at 12pm and 3pm and pass around the tereré for like 40 minutes. The American bosses don’t understand why their workers stop working in the middle of the day, but it’s normal for the rest of the country. Everyone does it.”
Corrupt government is holding back economic progress
Observation and Interview Insight #6:
Many participants received university degrees and chose not to participate in their fields of law, architecture, engineering, etc. because they believed that small businesses would stimulate the Paraguayan economy. They often expressed their frustrations with the government’s suffocating restrictions and taxes on small businesses. Social media and memes spoke extensively to government corruption and political scandals.
“There is a lack of employment here. A lot of people go to work in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, the US.”
“The government eats all of the money and doesn’t leave anything for the rest of the country.”
CONCLUSION
With generative and exploratory research, you go where the data takes you. The most important aspect of this process was that the goals of the project were met, in unexpected ways.
The original assumptions of the CEO were challenged at every turn. Doing business in Paraguay and working with Paraguayan small business owners was not going to be a simple “rinse and repeat” process as he had found possible in Mexico and Peru. It may seem obvious to say this, but not all Latinos are alike. Paraguayans have very different perceptions and attitudes than Mexicans and Peruvians (the cultures the CEO was most familiar with).
An unexpected outcome of the research was bringing more empathy into the startup’s understanding of Paraguayans and their culture. Helping employees understand why tereré was an important social bonding practice and teaching some common Guaraní phrases to help foreigners appear less intimidating were both vital in building relationships between employees and users.
Rachel Schwartz conducting a cultural sensitivity training for ELEVATE employees. Employee nationalities are Mexican, Paraguayan, and American.
OUTCOMES
CHALLENGE #1
The original problem the startup sought to solve was that small business owners didn’t know how to run sustainable businesses due to lack of business knowledge.
SOLUTION #1
I discovered that many Paraguayans were highly educated in various fields and did not need to attend a business course. I explained to the CEO that small business owners were struggling to create sustainable businesses due to restrictive government rules and regulations on small businesses. I recommended he re-evaluate selling the business course product and focus more on the English course product.
CHALLENGE #2
The CEO wanted to better understand how to support female small business owners. In other countries, the CEO had seen women fall behind in business because of cultural norms working against them.
SOLUTION #2
I explained the differences between Paraguayan machismo and the machismo the CEO was familiar with in Mexico and Peru. It was important for me to explain the concept of females also being machista in Paraguayan society and recommended he not be as timid in recruiting more women to attend his business classes. The CEO made concerted effort to attract more women to business classes by advertising to women in universities. His first two Paraguayan hires were both women.
CHALLENGE #3
The original product was entirely in Spanish.
SOLUTION #3
Since Guaraní was a beneficial business language for small business owners, I recommended including some common Guaraní phrases into the curriculum. Doing so would also build trust with users. As a result, the CEO began learning Guaraní and now requires all instructors to know and incorporate key Guaraní phrases in the classroom to create a more comfortable environment.
CHALLENGE #4
Users were not allowed to bring tereré into the classroom because people were “wasting” too much of class time sharing tereré.
SOLUTION #4
I explained to the CEO it was offensive to prohibit sharing tereré and helped him understand the important social components of the practice. He allowed tereré back into the classroom and went a step further to dedicate a section of the curriculum to tereré.
CHALLENGE #5
No one on the startup’s founding team were Paraguayan or had any understanding of Paraguayan culture. There were several cultural hiccups, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings which could have been avoided in the early days of the company.
SOLUTION #5
I created a cultural sensitivity training for current employees and future hires as a part of the ELEVATE on-boarding process in order to help foreigners navigate the Paraguayan culture.
Overall, my research and recommendations contributed to 270 small business owners graduating from the company’s education program by incorporating local cultural business practice norms into the curriculum.
REFLECTIONS
Consulting for a startup is no easy feat. While there were several challenges inherent in startup life, I gained a ton of experience in conducting, analyzing, and applying qualitative research to a business context.
WHAT I WOULD DO AGAIN
My recruitment methods were a key contributing factor to the success of this generative research. My ability to quickly find the right type of participant and create a deep relationship of trust within a two month period was critical in discovering important and nuanced insights.
Field notes are often overlooked as a research methodology, but this became one of the most important methodologies I used throughout the project. My ability to write highly detailed notes during my observations and then expound upon them into richer field notes provided me an important opportunity to really immerse myself in the data daily. These insights later provided ideas for vignettes and context for interview responses which were at first unclear.
Conducting the entire project in Spanish and learning some Guaraní was vitally important to gaining participants’ trust and understanding undertones in the data. I wrote my field notes and observations in Spanish which proved helpful in analyzing and synthesizing the data into nuanced patterns, which otherwise might have been lost in translation.
WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
Starting day zero with a brand new founding team of a startup was exhausting and draining. As this was my first startup experience, I was unaware that the daily confusion was a normal part of starting a new company. Even though everything was constantly changing, this actually provided me with an unusual amount of autonomy to explore and discover within the research goals. I was able to truly be the only qualitative research expert on the team and had an unusual amount of influence within the startup, which you don’t tend to find in more established companies.
I added mapping research methodology to my project and this ultimately wasted a lot of my time and did not produce usable results. In the future, I now know that sometimes it is okay to only get qualitative insights and outcomes from a project. Not everything needs to be quantified in order to learn something new or prove a point. I do want to continue increasing my familiarity and use of quantitative research methods in the future.
My presentation of recommendations and qualitative data to the startup team were mainly verbal, informal discussions. The only “physical” deliverables given to the team were 1) a cultural training slide deck for on-boarding new hires and 2) my thesis paper which was sent eight months after I left Paraguay. I now understand a helpful and actionable deliverable to provide clients is an insights deck with punchy, to-the-point slides outlining the most important aspects of the research goals, insights, and business recommendations. Founders don’t have time to read a 30-page thesis and need something they can quickly refer to base strategy in research.
If there’s anything above I did well or could improve upon, please reach out via email below! I welcome feedback.