Strategic management in Latin America

This paper presents conclusions about the kind of strategic management research being done in and about Latin America. The conclusions are based on a selection of papers presented during the conference. The fifteen works that this volume includes were selected from 63 conference presentations through a rigorous double blind review process. The 63 conference presentations were selected from among more that 100 initial proposals.     

Uncertainty reduction mechanisms in cross-sector alliances in Latin America

The present study explores three uncertainty reduction mechanisms that arise in the context of business alliance formation to assess whether these same mechanisms also operate in the development of alliances between non-profits and businesses. Secondary data from field-based case studies of Latin American cross-sector alliances are the focus of this analysis. The findings show that the same mechanisms operate to reduce uncertainty in cross-sector alliance formation and that alliance experience appears to determine the presence of some mechanisms.     

Strategic management in Latin America: Issues and assessment

This paper summarizes the best papers of the Strategic Management in Latin America (SMLA) conference which took place in January 2009 in Sao Paulo. Within a context of economic crisis that started in 2008 the authors find that the matters of business strategy within Latin America, addressed in the paper of this special issue, are relevant today just as when the authors submitted their papers. The strategic choices made by individual firms independent of the ever changing economic climate in which they find themselves is the key to the firm. The papers in this special issue cover a variety of topics encompassed within the area of strategic management: competitiveness, strategy formulation and execution, functional business disciplines and institutional strength in Latin America.     

The valuation of closely-held companies in Latin America

M&A activity has greatly increased in Latin America in the recent past. As a result, the improvement of valuation techniques has gained a prominent place in the agenda of investors and financial analysts dealing with the region. The task entails two substantial challenges, however. First, fundamental valuation requires the determination of an appropriate cost of capital, and the traditional CAPM-based models which are normally used to compute it are difficult to apply in such transitional, less efficient markets. Second, most companies and transactions in Latin America are closely-held operations, and hence bear components of unsystematic risk which classical appraisal techniques do not easily capture. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive fundamentals-based valuation model and provide supporting empirical data for valuing privately-held companies in Latin American emerging markets.     

Strategic alignment and performance: Brazilian companies in the medical diagnostics sector

A gap has been identified in the literature on the diagnosis and monitoring of the degree of strategic alignment. The main objective of this article is to diagnose and analyze the strategic alignment profile using the alignment diagnostic profile (ADP) tool, which enables organizations to show visually their degree of strategic alignment. The methodological approach adopted is multiple-case studies, which were conducted at five organizations in the medical diagnostics sector. The results indicate that the ADP enables organizations to understand the steps required to improve their level of alignment and to identify and locate gaps and conflicts.     

Tail systemic risk and contagion: Evidence from the Brazilian and Latin America banking network

In this study the tail systemic risk of the Brazilian banking system is examined, using the conditional quantile as the risk measure. Multivariate conditional dependence between Brazilian banks is modelled with a vine copula hierarchical structure. The results demonstrate that Brazilian financial systemic risk increased drastically during the global financial crisis period. Our empirical findings show that Bradesco and Itaú are the origin of the larger systemic shocks from the banking system to the financial system network, the real economy, and the region. The results have implications for the capital regulation of financial institutions and for risk managers' decisions.     

Needed B2B marketing capabilities: Insights from the USA and emerging Latin America

Firms from all parts of the world are expanding operations globally in a turbulent economic context, requiring the understanding of nontraditional markets. Much attention has been focused on China and India, but researchers have neglected Latin America, a region economically as important as Germany, India, Japan, and South Korea. Latin America, as is true of many developed and emerging markets, has a strong presence of industrial ? or business to business (B2B) ? transactions. The configuration and convergence-divergence of marketing capabilities are relevant for the understanding of the globalization phenomenon. This study aims to examine B2B marketing capabilities of firms in Chile, Mexico and Peru (as Latin American countries), seeking conceptual issues in order to comprehend their business perspectives and contribute to the almost nonexistent body of research in this region. How do the results from Latin America compare with the USA? While the study shows directional convergence between Chile and Peru, there also is interesting divergence between all Latin American countries and the USA. The findings offer a portfolio of marketing topics that we believe are worthy of practitioner and academic consideration. We propose a model of convergence-divergence of B2B marketing capabilities across nations and state propositions for hypothesis testing.     

出口、对外投资与中国国家形象:来自拉丁美洲的证据

改革开放以来,中国对以开放促发展的道路进行了全面的探索,"走出去"战略的提出,加快了中国资本走出国门的步伐。国家形象作为"软实力"建设的重要一环,是否会受到越来越活跃的对外经济活动的影响,如何在不断扩大对外经济活动的同时塑造一个良好的国家形象?本文使用Latinobarómetro所提供的涵盖18个拉美国家的微观调查数据,尝试对这一问题做出回答。通过实证模型的检验,结果发现:中国出口的增加会降低东道国对于中国国家形象的评价,但影响程度较小,而对外投资则对中国国家形象有正向影响。通过加入表征个体特征变量与核心变量的交互项,文章发现受教育水平越高、经济条件越好以及具备学生身份的群体随着中国在东道国经济活动的增强,对于中国国家形象的评价会越高。分行业来看,初级产品部门的出口活动所引致的对于中国国家形象的负面评价最为显著;从具体的职业划分来看,无论是中国的出口总额、出口种类还是对外投资,对东道国个体经营者造成的影响相对于工薪阶层要更加显著。     

Humanistic leadership: Lessons from Latin America

We review the psychological, sociological and historical explanations underlying leadership styles in Latin America. A fundamentally paternalistic style relies on social bonds based on reciprocity and stresses workers’ expectations. Transformations in leadership styles in Latin America require consideration of alternative theoretical approaches such as stakeholder management and cultural hybridism, beyond cross-cultural frameworks. Viewing employees as key stakeholders implies a legitimate concern for workers beyond the employment relationship. From a hybridism perspective, diversity is a critical concept that applies to organizational ownership arrangements, management practices, cultural backgrounds, and socio economic contextual changes surrounding leadership styles.     

Strategic fit, contractual, and procedural governance in alliances

This paper focuses on the simultaneous mediating and moderating effects of different governance mechanisms on the relationship between conditions for alliance formation and outcome. Alliance governance takes two distinct forms: contractual integration and procedural coordination. While contracts may help set the legal parameters of the alliance agreement, it is day-to-day coordination of activities and processes that determine the effectiveness of such contracts. The proposed framework explains how knowledge outcome of collaborative relationships may be determined by the match of partner motives, influenced by the mix of contractual and procedural governance. A series of testable propositions helps answer the following question. Do combinations of contractual and procedural governance mechanisms, given specific strategic fit, explain knowledge performance differentials?     

Strategic hedging: Evidence from Brazilian exporters

How and why do exporters adjust their portfolios of destination countries in response to exchange rate movements? How do such geographic export diversification choices affect firm performance? Drawing on the corporate strategy and international business literature, we argue that firms enjoying low exchange rate competitiveness can increase their performance by expanding their exports to different world regions and vice versa. Studying a panel of Brazilian exporters during the years 2001–2010 and using a system of moderated mediation models with firm, industry and period fixed effects, we find that unrelated geographic diversification of exports is more effective than related diversification in counteracting exchange rate pressures.     

A time diversification approach to the emerging stock markets of Latin America: Argentina,Brazil, Chile,and Mexico

This article provides the analytical basis for the adoption of a longer view to portfolio diversification in Latin America. The benefits to be gained through time diversification are studied in the context of four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. The empirical evidence of actual annualized returns indicates that risk in investment in Latin American equity returns tends to diminish over longer term investment horizons.     

Strategic alliances and competitive edge: insights from Spanish and UK banking histories

This research assesses the success of collaboration agreements through changes in competitive strength rather than the longevity of the transactions or the formality and visible structure of the agreements. To establish competitive strength, as development and renewal of capabilities, the research proceeds through the review of the alliance between the Co-operative Permanent Building Society, the Co-operative Wholesaling Society, Scottish Co-operative Wholesaling Society and Co-operative Insurance Society (1943–65). This cooperative agreement allows insights into the strategy of non-banks and nonfinance participants aiming to enter British bank markets. The research also considers the rather different process at Spanish savings banks, with a particular focus on IT outsourcing (1977–95). Cases in the UK and Spain form an historical argument and are used to demonstrate how the implementation of strategy is as important as strategic visioning to achieve competitive advantage in bank markets.     

Small Firm Dynamics: Evidence from Africa and Latin America

This paper investigates the determinants of survival and growth among small and very small enterprises in Africa and Latin America. Location is found to be an important factor. Firms located in urban and commercial areas are more likely to survive during a given year than those located in rural areas or those being operated out of home. Urban and commercial location is also associated with faster growth, as measured by the number of employees hired in a given year. Studies are also cited to show that human capital matters, especially when it is in the form of vocational training or prior business experience.     

The interplay between home and host country institutions in an emerging market context: Private equity in Latin America

This study examines how the interplay between home and host country regulatory institutions affects the investment strategy of private equity (PE) firms in an emerging market context. To answer this question, we consider three different mechanisms: (1) the institutional hazard avoidance effect, (2) the institutional escapism effect, and (3) the dysfunctional institutions effect. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we argue that regulatory institutional differences between home and host countries can sometimes have a positive rather than a negative effect on investment likelihood. Our findings show that when a host emerging market has a strong regulatory institutional system relative to other emerging markets, it is more likely that this country will attract PE investments from firms based in home countries with very strong and very weak institutional systems. The empirical analyses, based on a polynomial specification and a dataset covering more than 300 PE firms that made close to 1500 investment transactions in Latin America during 1996–2011, are consistent with our main theoretical arguments.     

Foreign Exchange Reserves and Import Demand: Evidence from Latin America

This paper investigates the impact of foreign reserves, domestic real income and relative import prices on import demand for seven Latin American countries. We differentiate empirically between the short‐run and long‐run impact of reserves, income and prices on imports. The paper has three main results. First, we show that there exists a unique long‐run relationship among real imports, real income, relative import prices and real foreign exchange reserves for all seven countries. Second, we find that increases in foreign exchange reserves exert a significant positive effect on import demand in both the long run and the short run in all countries. However, the economic impact of foreign exchange reserves is rather small. Finally, we find that the long‐ and short‐run impact of real domestic income on import demand is positive as well, while the effect of relative prices is negative.     

Internet-based corporate disclosure and market value: Evidence from Latin America

We examine the relationship between an Internet-based corporate disclosure index and firm value in the seven largest stock markets of Latin America. We find, after controlling for firms' characteristics, industry and country of origin, that an increase of 1% in the Internet-Based Corporate Disclosure Index causes an increase of 0.1592% in the Tobin's Q and an increase of 0.0119% in the firm's ROA. These findings are robust after considering the potential endogeneity of our regression variables. The evidence contributes to the literature suggesting that firms can differentiate themselves by self-adopting better financial and corporate disclosure measures using the Internet.     

Institutional investor heterogeneity and firm valuation: Evidence from Latin America

This article analyses how the corporate valuation of Latin American firms is affected by the presence of a blockholder institutional investor. The study uses a data set of 562 firms from six Latin American countries for the 1997–2011 period. We found that the presence of an institutional investor has a positive effect of 8% on firm value, which increases to 21% for the cases where there is blockholder coalition with an institutional investor. After dividing the sample by investor type, we found that independent institutional ownership implies a positive premium on firms' Tobin's Q, while the presence of a grey investor has a negative effect on firm valuation.     

Strategy implementation for the 2030 agenda: Insights from Brazilian companies

While firms' engagement with Corporate Social Responsibility has been associated with positive performance impacts, little is known about the incorporation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda into business practices. Precisely, although the literature suggests that firms are pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there are limited insights on their strategy to implement them in the context of developing countries. To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive large-scale investigation of 2030 Agenda adoption by Brazilian companies. Accordingly, the analysis of our multicase study reveals (1) variations on the business opportunities brought by the SDGs depending on the firm position in the value chain, (2) which SDGs and target stakeholders are addressed through corporate policies and practices, (3) the different ways firms embrace the SDGs to pursue ambidexterity. Our findings clarify how firms in the developing countries interpret the institutional pressures and assemble their internal resources to respond to the SDGs challenges. Boundary conditions and policy implications are further discussed.