Longitudinal analysis of entrepreneurship and competitiveness dynamics in Latin America

This study analyzes the relationship between entrepreneurial dynamics in Latin-American countries and the level of competitiveness these countries show. Based on the research conducted by Wennekers et al. [Small Business Economics, 24(3):293–309, 2005] that demonstrates a U-shaped relationship between the country’s rate of entrepreneurship and its level of competitiveness and economic development, we hypothesize that Latin-American countries have a descending behaviour under the U-shaped curve approach. The results from three regression models support this hypothesis and suggest that competitiveness and economic growth deter entrepreneurial dynamics on Latin-American countries. We discuss that Latin-American countries need to improve some structural factors to achieve a high level of entrepreneurial dynamics.

Dollarization in Latin America: seigniorage costs and policy implications

This paper examines the seigniorage costs of official dollarization in 15 Latin American countries. We show that the total costs can be decomposed into two components: seigniorage transferred to the U.S. and seigniorage lost due to greater financial stability in the dollarized country. Results indicate that seigniorage costs and their components are significant, yet differ considerably across countries. A cluster analysis is performed to sort countries into homogenous sub-groups. At a stage with five sub-groups we find groups with increasing seigniorage burdens. At a stage with two sub-groups we can identify candidates for possible seigniorage revenue-sharing agreements with the U.S.     

Emergent directions for human resource management research in Latin America

Research in this special issue converges around important HRM challenges that will shape the direction of academic research in the future. We argue that the nature of these challenges, such as balancing global and local HRM approaches, focusing on people while aiming at performance and, in general, managing in a hybrid cultural and economic system, requires reframing strategic HR in terms of social contract theories. Such theories consider multiple stakeholders and focus research on the employment relationship as unit of analysis, which fits well with the pre-eminence of person-centred management over merely profit-centred goals. We propose theoretically anchored research to guide strategic HRM practices, taking into account Latin America's culture-specific humanistic approach and its labour market institutions.     

HR's strategic role within MNCs: helping build social capital in Latin America

In this article, we adopt a holistic perspective in considering the impact of the country's environment as well as the multinational corporations (MNCs) strategy on human resource (HR) practices. More importantly, we argue that within MNCs human resource management (HRM) is playing a central role in the process of balancing local and global forces. HR can be critical in helping MNCs' deal with local differences while also helping the company implement practices that are critical for its global strategy. Specifically, we argue that HR plays a key role in developing social capital, which may provide the necessary ‘substitutes’ for formal control that would otherwise be neglected. Our contribution lies primarily in outlining how this new role of creating human capital confers on HR the task of filtering mission-critical practices through a ‘localization mesh’ that ensures success. In addition, given the importance of social capital as an informal mechanism that allows MNCs to coordinate and integrate activities, we suggest ways in which an MNC can build social capital within the context of the Latin American pan-regional cultural values.     

Propensity for participative decision making in Latin America: Mexico and Peru

Increased subordinate participation in management decisions has been a recognized trend in developed Western organizations in recent decades. This study examines a manager's propensity for engaging in participative decision making (PPDM)in two emerging Latin American nations, Mexico and Peru. Although these two nations possess some degree of cultural similarity, two key differences were identified. First, Mexican managers who believed that PDM reduces a manager's power base were also likely than others to see a positive link between PDM and organizational effectiveness. In contrast, Peruvian managers who believed that PDM reduces a manager's power base were less likely than others to see a positive link between PDM and organizational effectiveness. Second, Mexican managers operating in participative organizational cultures were less committed than other managers to participation as a management philosophy and to their organizations. In contrast, Peruvian managers operating in participative organizational cultures were more committed than other managers to participation and to their organizations. Conclusions and directions for future research are also presented.     

Individual, organizational and environmental determinants of new firm employment growth: evidence from Latin America

New ventures are increasingly playing an important role in Latin American economies. However, little is known about the determinants of new firm growth in this context. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the factors influencing new firm growth in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru. Individual, organizational and environmental factors are included in an empirical model, which is tested using data collected by face-to-face interviews with 582 entrepreneurs. Different specifications of employment growth and regression approaches are employed. Results suggest that growth strongly depends on the characteristics of the entrepreneur. National environment and firm-related factors are also important factors in determining growth.

Circular economy in Latin America: A systematic literature review

The purpose of this study is to identify circular economy concept trends of Latin America with regards to Europe, in which a systematic review of literature (SRL) was made using Scopus data in order to define the search, to select the relevant articles, and to analyze the results. Seventy‐one articles from Scopus were reviewed, and the analysis was complemented by the analysis with 57 documents from other scientific Web browsers such as Mendeley, Scopus, Academic Google, ScienceDirect, and SciELo which sum a total of 128 documents which the majority have come from Europe. Main concepts were identified, barriers and trends. The main conclusion was which the current concept is not very clear; in spite of Europe knows that limitation, Latin America is making the same mistake implementation.     

History Repeats Itself: Child Labor in Latin America

Child labor occurs on almost every continent in the world. Very few countries seem to escape this exploitative phase as they develop into fully industrialized countries. Child labor began during the eighteenth century in Great Britain and it continues in the twenty-first century in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras. This paper offers an explanation for the persistence of child labor through history. The increase in the employment of children during industrialization is caused by an increase in the supply of children from poor and working-class families and an increase in the demand for child labor by the factory owners. Parents trapped in poverty have no other choice but to send their children off to work to contribute to the family income. Children’s wages, moreover, often make the difference between starvation and survival. Employers are happy to oblige the parents because children are more productive than adults in the new industrial regimen. As the principle of the division of labor has been applied to the production process, unskilled children replace skilled adults in factories, mills, and mines. Children are preferred to adults because they are cheap, submissive, uneducated and nimble. These economic forces are so strong that neither child labor laws nor mandatory schooling legislation are an effective deterrent against employers or families. Since history is repeating itself in the developing world by industrializing on the backs of children, alternative policies are recommend to cut this stage short so that the future generations of Latin America will become educated instead of exploited.

Spaces of Extraction,Metropolitan Explosions: Planetary Urbanization and the Commodity Boom in Latin America

Through an exploration of the political economy of the current commodity boom in Latin America, and on the basis of recent appropriations of Henri Lefebvre's notion of planetary urbanization, this article proposes viewing spaces of resource extraction resulting from an escalating international demand for raw materials as particular morphological expressions of market‐driven processes of urbanization. Furthermore, the article draws on Lefebvre to argue that such burgeoning spaces of urbanization are the result of a contradictory tension between spatial homogenization—in the form of multiscalar governance frameworks and infrastructural programs—and territorial fragmentation—in the form of fixed capital allocations and state‐led spatial segregation. When considered jointly, these contradictory movements allow us to grasp fully the extent of the problematic explosion of spaces that, according to Lefebvre, characterizes capitalist urbanization. The article concludes by reflecting on the emancipatory promise that underlies the planetary extension of the urban form because, with the projection of material infrastructures required for resource extraction—especially information technologies—across the rural realm, local communities have been able to shed their isolated state and emerge as fully fledged political actors.     

Declining suburbs in Europe and Latin America

Suburban shrinkage, understood as a degenerative urban process stemming from the demise of the Fordist mode of urbanism, is generally manifested in a decline in population, industry and employment. It is also intimately linked to the global restructuring of industrial organization associated with the rise of the post-Fordist mode of urbanism and, more recently, the thrust of Asian industrialization. Framed in the discourse of industrial urbanism, this article examines the first ring of industrial suburbs that developed around large cities in their most rapid Fordist urbanization phase. These industrial suburbs, although they were formed at different times, are today experiencing specific mutations and undergoing profound restructuring on account of their particular spatial position between the central area and the expanding peripheries of the post-Fordist metropolis. This article describes and compares suburban decline in two European cities (Glasgow and Paris) and two Latin American Cities (S?o Paulo, Brazil and Guadalajara, Mexico), as different instances of places asymmetrically and fragmentarily integrated into the geography of globalization.     

Governance, Democracy and Poverty Reduction: Lessons Drawn from Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

Public statistics face quite a challenge when it comes to measuring new dimensions of development (institutions, governance, and social and political participation). To take up this challenge, modules on Governance, Democracy and Multiple Dimensions of Poverty have been appended to household surveys by National Statistics Institutes in twelve African and Latin American developing countries. This paper presents the issues addressed and the methodological lessons learnt along with a selection of findings to illustrate this innovative approach and demonstrate its analytic potential. We investigate, for instance, the population's support for democratic principles, the respect for civil and political rights and the trust in the political class; the ‘need for the State’, particularly of the poorest; the extent of petty corruption; the reliability of expert surveys on governance; the perception of decentralization policies at local level; the level and vitality of social and political participation, etc. The conclusive appraisal made opens up prospects for the national statistical information systems in the developing countries. The measurement and tracking of this new set of objective and subjective public policy monitoring indicators would benefit from being made systematic.     

‘It is the People that Have Made Glen Innes’: State‐led Gentrification and the Reconfiguration of Urban Life in Auckland

Public or state housing has ordinarily been viewed as an impediment to the forces of gentrification, as private property owners or developers are limited in their ability to purchase, renovate or redevelop houses in otherwise desirable areas. As a result, neighbourhoods with significant proportions of state‐housing and low‐income residents have often been able to establish unique identity and character, sense of place and belonging and strong social support networks. This article examines changes underway in Glen Innes, a central suburb of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. Here, established norms around community and urban life are being rapidly and radically reworked through a wave of state‐led gentrification. We focus on experiences of displacement, the disruption of long‐established community forms, and the reconfiguration of urban life. Our particular contribution is to consider the speed and trauma of gentrification when the state is involved, the slippage between rhetoric and reality on the ground, and the challenges of researchers seeking to trace the impacts of gentrification in the lives of those who have been displaced.     

Neoliberalization,Housing Institutions and Variegated Gentrification: How the ‘Third Wave’ Broke in Amsterdam

Neil Smith argues that in the last two decades gentrification has become a generalized global urban phenomenon. His theory is at a high level of abstraction, as it links urban gentrification to globalization, financial capitalism and neoliberalization. With these global processes, all cities have experienced ‘third wave’ gentrification. The theory, however, leaves little room for variegations of gentrification, apart from characterizing geographical differences as idiosyncrasies or as minor variations. This downplays the role of intervening mechanisms that impinge upon the pursuit and social outcomes of gentrification. This article aims to amend abstract theory by looking at Amsterdam from a historical institutional perspective. In Amsterdam, gentrification was particularly made possible by a process of neoliberalization within the housing system. However, as institutional change is incremental and based on layering and conversion, many older institutional arrangements remain in place. These arrangements tend to slow gentrification and assuage social consequences. Nevertheless, neoliberal modifications to the housing system have been accelerating the pursuit of gentrification. Current policies will very likely lead to exclusionary displacement.     

‘Gentrification Without Displacement' and the Consequent Loss of Place: The Effects of Class Transition on Low‐income Residents of Secure Housing in Gentrifying Areas

The increasingly disputed concept of gentrification‐induced displacement is combining with the argument that the poor benefit from social mix to produce a theoretical case for ‘positive gentrification'. The notion that new middle‐class residents not only attract more investment but bring opportunities for ‘upward social mobility' to low‐income people who manage to stay in gentrifying areas has become policy orthodoxy. While there are scholarly challenges to the extent of these benefits, the disadvantages of imposed social mix on low‐income communities even where they are not physically displaced remain under‐researched. This article helps to fill this gap by reporting on research into the experience of long‐term low‐income residents of gentrifying neighbourhoods who managed to stay put. The research explores notions of social mix, place and displacement among residents of secure community housing in Melbourne, Australia (the equivalent of small‐scale social housing in Europe and North America) with the object of establishing whether the absence of physical displacement is sufficient to ameliorate gentrification's negative impacts. The findings demonstrate that transformations in shops and meeting places, and in the nature of local social structure and government interventions, cause a sense of loss of place even without physical displacement.