Este artigo explora a noção de apoio social e de eficácia simbólica das práticas terapêuticas oferecidas pela Igreja Messiânica entre os migrantes brasileiros no Japão. Uma grande parcela destes trabalhadores enfrenta problemas de saúde relacionados à pressão no trabalho, isolamento social e dificuldade em comunicar-se. Este trabalho baseia-se no modelo etnográfico. Durante a pesquisa de campo foram realizadas frequentes visitas e entrevistas com líderes e membros do grupo nas cidades com grande concentração de brasileiros. Neste contexto, a Igreja Messiânica percebe um ambiente propício para desenvolver suas práticas de cura. Por outro lado, o grupo mobiliza os membros em prol da difusão de sua doutrina e ideais.

This paper explores the role of social support and the symbolic efficacy of Messianic Church's therapeutic practices among Brazilian workers in Japan. Many of these workers face health problems related to the stress in the work environment, difficulties of communication and loneliness. This research is based on the ethnographic model. During the fieldwork period frequent visits and interviews were conduct with leaders and members of the group in different cities with large concentration of Brazilians. In this context, the Messianic Church finds a good environment to develop its support activities. Behind these activities, however, the group mobilizes the members to work for the diffusion of their ideals.

This study attempts to empirically investigate how firms' experiential knowledge and the decision to invest sequentially in the host country are associated with the performance of their overseas subsidiaries. This research advances prior studies by adopting an objective performance measure based on the profitability ratio at the subsidiary level. Using a random-effect model of GLS regression applied to a panel data of Japanese firms established in Brazil, the results provide theoretical and practical implications showing that experiential knowledge is positively associated with subsidiary profitability. Local experiential knowledge can be acquired by managing subsidiaries for a long time in the host country, but also by increasing the number of investments in the local market. In practical terms, the subsidiary profitability ratio becomes higher when the parent firms have established more than five investments in the host country, although further investigation is needed to examine the direction of this relationship. Moreover, there is a significant association between subsidiary performance and the parent firms' experience in culturally similar markets to Brazil. The benefit of learning from international markets suggests that operating in countries with a similar culture transforms their experience into a competitive advantage.