Acknowledging that the Latin American cultural concept of "machismo" influences the way in which Brazilian managers tend to use authority rather than communication when resolving disputes with subordinates, a study compared Brazilian and American male managers' self-reported preferences for resolving disputes with employees and peer managers. Forty American and 40 Brazilian males in middle and top management positions each read a packet of four scripts describing various problems that a manager might have with an employee or another manager of equal status. Subjects were then interviewed to determine how they would resolve the problems. Responses were assigned to one of three classifications: communication, organizational power, or mixed approach. Results indicated consistent differences between American and Brazilian managers in their preferred ways of resolving disputes with employees and peer managers. American managers appeared somewhat more flexible as indicated by their greater use of communication strategies, while Brazilian managers appeared much more likely to respond rigidly and authoritatively to real and perceived insubordination. The only instance in which Brazilian managers were likely to use communication was when an employee appeared justifiably reluctant to take on a new task not included in his or her job description. Although it appeared that Brazilian managers are more authoritarian in their treatment of employees than are American managers, it should not be inferred that they are less communicatively competent than American managers. (HTH)