Bob Myers writes:

And you somehow think that sort of thing is unique to Italian
companies?

No. It afflicts companies in Latin countries to some extent, depending on how
macho the country and culture are. Some other non-Latin countries have the
same problem. You can recognize a culture like this by its high levels of
poverty and corruption.

After ~30 years of working in various aspects of the engineering
profession, with a goodly load of supplier qualification work in
that time, I can tell you with some confidence that the country in
which a given company is located has precisely zero to do with
whether or not they're going to be an acceptable supplier.

My experience and training have shown significant cultural differences that
cannot be ignored.