Beyond Grey Pinstripes

     

Universidad de los Andes

All Participating Schools

     
Universidad de los Andes Calle 21 # 1-20,
Ninth Floor
Bogota, CAM,
Colombia
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

46

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

120

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

15 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

103

Females as percent of student body: 

41%


Description of MBA Program: 

Universidad de los Andes School of Management (UASM) prepares students to integrate social and environmental issues in management, as evidenced by its mission to “educate socially responsible individuals that embrace an international perspective, capable of creating, understanding and furthering the advancement of organizations.” This mission reflects in the learning objectives of its full-time MBA program and its study program. In a tangential manner, special emphasis is given to comprehension of the social responsibility and the ethical implications of decision making. Additionally, this learning objective gets special emphasis in mandatory courses such as “Leadership, ethics and responsibility” course, “Business game” course and a course about “sustainable development”.


Ten years ago, UASM made its first steps in integrating social and environmental issues at different levels of the MBA programs. A specific mandatory course on Public Responsibilities of Management was designed. In 2008, UASM extended its commitment towards integrating sustainability issues in its full time MBA program by introducing a mandatory core course on Sustainable Development for all students. This course has the objective of helping students understand general concepts related to sustainable development as well as the role of the manager and leader in generating changes which contribute to environmental change.


To integrate social and environmental issues throughout our MBA curriculum UASM has two academic and research groups: -the Program on Social Initiatives (IESO)- and - the Environmental Management group. Both groups work on integrating social, environmental and economic issues in management.  The Environmental Management group works with other Faculty at Los Andes’ Management School in integrating environmental and social issues in the curriculum and academic programs offered at the School. To date it has worked with 25 professors, and is currently participating in the development of a recently created MBA program centered on environmental management.


The design of this program, partly funded by the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation, started in September 2006.  Since October 2008 three cohorts of 35 students are enrolled.  The new Master's in Environmental Management is essentially a dual degree program (Management and Environmental Sciences), offered in two years.  The target of the program is first and second level managers of Environmental NGOs, environmental departments in companies and public institutions. The courses of this specialized MBA program are also open to the students from all the UASM the MBA programs (full time MBA, part time MBA and Executive MBA).  


As the integration of social and environmental issues deepens, students in UASM approach will develop their capacities to incorporate social and environmental considerations in mainstream business and will have a greater awareness of the challenges and opportunities for business stemming from the environment.  We are sure that this approach is powerful and will give our students an edge in the competitive environments they will choose for their professional activities and will convert our School of Management as a reference institution within the Andean-Amazon region.
 



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

  • Through research and student projects the Los Andes University leads a several programs which support public policy and transparency. Examples show in an independent program for transparency in the national congress ("Congreso visible"), free legal counseling to social vulnerable population.
  • The School of management runs a research centre focused on the support of local NGOs. Also trough students projects, every semester around 5 NGOs receive student support in the development of their activities.


Greening the campus:

  • Recycling of paper and cartridge are a common practice at all the departments and schools of the university. The recycling activities of the School of Management are coordinated by the secretariats.
  • Most of the buildings at the Los Andes University have been renewed in the last 5 years. Most of them count with modern sensor systems for energy saving in the rooms and water saving in the toilets. Also modern architecture makes use of day light in most of the buildings. The new building of the School of Management was inaugurated in October 2008 containing al modern energy and water saving systems as well its design maximizes the use of daylight.
  • Use of ceramic cups for coffee. As part of a University wide program, the school of management provides all staff with a personal ceramic cup to be used for daily coffee needs, preventing this way the use of disposable cups.  


Even when the university of Los Andes counts with a broad range of programs and projects related to the social and environmental responsibility of it operation, these are not integrated in a system yet. This integration is one of the challenges for the coming years as well as the publication of an annual sustainability report.   
 

Academic Department

Course Name: Business Game
Instructor: Luz Elena Orozco

This is an integrative course that seeks to expose participants to the exercise of executing a strategy and designing different mechanisms for its implementation and control, as well as understanding and quantifying the risks inherent in this process and the impact derived from corrective measures. Other topics include: structure, management teams, management indicators, scorecards, ethics and strategic assessment. The course is supported by a management simulation package that allows it to integrate effectively most of the areas in an organization, their interrelations and complexities at the time of implementing a strategy.

One important element of the evaluation is ethics.

Course Name: Business Ethics and Principles of Fraud Prevention
Instructor: Rick Warne

The first part of the course will provide students with a greater understanding of sound ethical principles used in the business environment. The second part of the course will describe corporate fraud, the characteristics of fraud, and fraud prevention activities. Course material will be presented via class lectures, course readings, and real-world cases.

Course Name: Colombian Business Law
Instructor: Ignacio Londoño

This course aims to promote the understanding of the judiciary theory of the legal risks that students will run into in the corporate environment in Colombia and particularly the responsibility involved in abiding by the law when making financial decisions.

This course has a section on good corporate governance and discusses the ethical implications related to this matter.

Course Name: Environmental Sciences for Decision Makers
Instructor: Jorge Higinio Maldonado

This course supplies the students with basic knowledge of environmental sciences from a geophysical point of view. The relation between environment and social development is introduced through the ecosystem service approach presented by the Millennium Assessment reports.

Course Name: Graduation Project
Instructor: Martha Cecilia Bernal, Bart Van Hoof, Andres Guerrero

As option for their graduation, UASM offers to its full time MBA students a consultancy practicum focused on the assessment and solution of problems in organizations. In groups of two or three, students work under the supervision of a senior advisor on managerial solutions in organizations. By means of a service learning methodology, this 300 hours project involves on-site work as well as complementary research activities. In this program about 5 of the total 20 yearly projects are related to environmental and social responsibility issues. Students work with environmental or social foundations, green entrepreneurship, and social responsible oriented topics in Colombian enterprises.

Course Name: Inclusive Businesses in Latin America and the World
Instructor: Ezequiel Reficco

This elective course studies the opportunities that socially inclusive strategies represent for companies. It explores the concept of bottom of the pyramid and how low income segments of the population can act as consumers, distributors and producers.

Course Name: Industrial Ecology
Instructor: Bart van Hoof

The objective of this course is to understand how to become a sustainable society by optimizing resources. It analyzes the basic concepts of industrial ecology and how to optimize and reorganize industrial activities in order to minimize their environmental effects. Similarly, it analyzes how industrial ecology can and has been used to develop long-term strategies in the development of the industrial and technological sector. Specifically, it reviews topics applied to real cases, such as: life cycle analysis, reverse logistics, cleaner production, and eco-efficiency, among others.

Course Name: Logistics Management
Instructor: Marcus Thiell, Juan Pablo Soto

Logistics has been traditionally focused on distribution and guaranteeing the availability of goods for clients or consumers. However, it is important to recognize that, in order to do so, it’s ideal to make supply and demand coincide. This course covers particular elements involved in managing the supply chain. It raises awareness of how quantitative and technological tools can effectively support decision making. Among other approaches, it requires the use of information to reduce uncertainty and the need to manage forecasts as well as inventories.

This course has a section on reverse logistics which addresses sustainability issues in the supply chain.

Course Name: Management Fundamentals
Instructor: Bart van Hoof and Henry Gomez

The objective of this course is to allow participants to critically reflect on the nature, origin, historic evolution, current situation and perspectives of management in the west, based on the judicious reading of some classic and contemporaneous authors who have led the way in the theoretical development of management. Similarly, students are expected to develop an informed opinion on the work of a manager, the state of management in Latin America, and about management education and its main challenges, in order to provide them with criteria to understand and play a role in their own educational process in the Master’s program.

Issues of social responsibility are discussed throughout the course. The course also analyses how CSR relates to the different areas of management.

Course Name: Marketing Management
Instructor: Carlos Trujillo

This course aims to present the theoretical and practical concepts of the role played by marketing in organizations and society. Students are expected to acquire a basic understanding of how an organization relates with the market and how it uses marketing instruments to approach the consumer and face the actions of the competition.

Students debate different aspects related to ethics in marketing, green marketing, social marketing. They are expected to analyze corporate social responsibility in relation to marketing. The final marketing plan must contain CSR elements.

Pages

Type of Offering

“Leadership for environmental management and change”
Date: May, 2010

Garry Brewer is Frederick K. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Resource Policy and Management at Yale University. In his conference he emphasized on change management as the essence of the sustainability challenge. He highlighted how business leaders can become change agents towards sustainability of organizations and the society as a whole.

Foro Nacional Ambiental: (The National Environmental Forum, FNA)
Type: Forums, seminars and workshops

Created in 1997, the FNA is an alliance of eight organizations committed to environmental protection and sustainable development. Its main purpose is to promote a systematic dialogue on national and local environmental issues among key stakeholders, in order to help to build Colombian public policy.

It focuses on: a) national environmental public policy (institutional development, forests and water) b) forests, peoples and territory c) Colombian environmental foreign policy d) Latin-American environmental policy.

Corporate Social Responsibility: from charity and assistance towards sustainability
Date: May, 2010

The speaker series is a monthly activity led by UASMs Graduate School and it is directed towards MBA students and alumni.

As part of this series, Leon Teicher, the CEO of Cerrejon , a Colombian carbon company with international investment, delivered a lecture on responsible mining as an example of the direct relation between the responsibility of a private company and society´s well being. He also presented his point of view on how a moral obligation is also a good business practice.

The structure and organizational development of social entrepreneurship: key lessons for the commercial sector
Date: March, 2010

In this conference Professor Hartigan shared several models which herald new organizational systems which will radically change the architecture of the current systems in place. She also explained how this emerging models currently operate and how they demonstrate impressive results in terms of their impact and efficiency. But there is a very particular dynamic which characterizes them, this conference identified the key aspects of their huge success.

Pamela Hartigan is the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Said Business School. She is also a Volans Founding Partner and Non Executive Director. From 2001 to 2008 she was the Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a Swiss-based organization focused on advancing the practice of social entrepreneurship nationally, regionally and globally.Dr. Hartigan is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, holds a Masters degree in International Economics, a Masters in Education and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology.

Climate Change: Where is the global policy related to climate change heading after Copenhagen? What does this mean for Colombia?
Date: March, 2010

This speaker series is a monthly activity led by UASMs Graduate School and it is directed towards MBA students and alumni.

As part of this series, Manuel Rodriguez, Full Professor at UASM delivered a lecture on global climate change policy after Copenhagen.

Climate change policy negotiations: ¿A failure without an end?
Type: Symposium
Date: September, 2010

The National Environmental Forum jointly with UASM and other NGOs organized this symposium with dealt with worldwide climate change policy negotiations and emphasized upon Colombia´s position with respect to climate change policy after Copenhagen. Several panelists were invited from different sectors such as: Colombia´s Ministry of Environment; Ministry of Foreign Relations; and several academics from different international and national Universities.

“Climate change politics post-Copenhagen”
Date: September, 2010

Prof. Dr. Miranda Schreurs is the director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre and Professor of Comparative Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin. She visit the School and taught a conference which related to how climate change negotiations in Copenhagen are widely considered a major disappointment due to the failure of the participating states to reach a binding international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. While the meeting did lead to the conclusion of a Copenhagen Accord in which countries spelled out their voluntary commitments, the agreement lacks teeth. In the meantime, the US Congress has failed to pass climate legislation raising questions about the US commitments made under the accord. What can be expected in the next Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico later this year? Can there nevertheless be progress made? And are their other ways to move forward on greenhouse gas mitigation and climate adaptation?

Entrepreneurship Ecosystems for Impact Investment
Type: Investor Forum
Date: August, 2010

“Impact Investing” describes the use of for profit investments to address social and environmental

challenges. Following the steps of industries like Microfinance and Venture Capital,

Impact Investing is slowly consolidating a marketplace around this idea, and an infrastructure

that allows actors involved in it to act in coordination. Key players are investors, foundations,

technical assistance providers, and other types of institutions that are looking for ways to

achieve financial returns while ensuring sustainable environmental and social impact.

This Conference discusses the challenges and opportunities for impact investment in Colombia and Latin America, the role of incubators/accelerators of impact entrepreneurship and the emergence of innovative financing mechanisms for Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs). It convened the actors that made Colombia a regional leader in impact entrepreneurship and investment, including

enterprises, entrepreneurs, enterprise incubators and accelerators, angel investor groups

and investment funds.

The event was possible with the support of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs

(ANDE) and was co-hosted by New Ventures Colombia and its partner Bavaria Sab-Miller Foundation.

The main objective is the promotion of innovative “green” SGBs and support the growth of an entrepreneurship ecosystem for impact investment by bringing together entrepreneurs, impact investors and institutional actors from the region through dialogues, Investor Forums

and Roundtables.

The power of craziness: connecting markets with human values
Date: March, 2010

This conference, with Pamela Hartigan, was aimed at MBA students who have just started their careers. Through different examples, it aimed at provoking a reflection on how to avoid the existing dichotomy between creating economic value and social value. It is based upon 20 years of work with people who do not accept the world as it is and who persist throughout their lives to create more fair and sustainable models.

Pamela Hartigan is the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Said Business School. From 2001 to 2008 she was the Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, holds a Masters degree in International Economics, a Masters in Education and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology.

Dr. Hartigan is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, holds a Masters degree in International Economics, a Masters in Education and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology.

“Green is no longer an option”
Date: May, 2010

Garry Brewer is Frederick K. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Resource Policy and Management at Yale University. In his conference he referred to how climate change, the scarcity of fossil fuels, severe and repetitive flooding, among other problematic and irreversible realities of the environment, have triggered a sensibility over the environmental variable, among entrepreneurs, investors, consumers, NGOs, and other actors.

This is a global tendency that permanently influences businesses and development projects. Accordingly, the relation between enterprises and the environment is in permanent evolution. It has changed from the adaptation and fulfillment of a certain regulation to a business competitiveness topic.

Entrepreneurial Sustainable Development
Date: February, 2010

This speaker series is a monthly activity led by UASMs Graduate School and it is directed towards MBA students and alumni.

As part of this series, Santiago Madrinan, Executive Director of CECODES (Colombian Entrepreneurial Council for Sustainable Development) delivered a lecture on the possible changes and opportunities for companies that include sustainability within their corporate strategy. This is based on the results of the program “Vision 2050” launched by the WBCSD (World Business Council on Sustainable Development).

Implications of Global Warming for Tradable Property Rights for Fisheries
Date: March, 2010

Sylvia Brandt is professor at the Department of Resource Economics and Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She visited the School as part of the Corona Chair and her seminar related to introducing tradable property rights (individual transfer quotas or ITQs) into a fishery should lead to the outcome where the total allowable harvest is caught at minimum costs, if the assumptions of the theoretical model are valid. In addition, recent research has emphasized that fishermen, in aggregate, may achieve increases in producer surplus as a result of ITQs. However, these potential efficiency and welfare gains depend critically on the assumptions that all sectors of the fishing industry are perfectly competitive and that consumers’ demand is responsive to changes in price.

New Ventures Program - World Resources Institute
Type: Business Plan Competition

It seeks to promote and support the growth of sustainable SMEs in Colombia by accelerating the transfer of capital to outstanding companies that incorporate social and environmental benefits. By providing sound investment opportunities in emerging economies, New Ventures demonstrates that investing in sustainable enterprises makes good business sense. The school acts as the New Venture hub in Colombia. 140 sustainable SMES participated in the New Ventures competition in 2010.

Student Ambassadors
Type: Participation of MBA students in the Global Business School Network
Date: October, 2010

GBSN (Global Business School Network) is a network that has been a leader in promoting management education as a critical component in successful international development strategies. It is fostering a network of emerging business leaders who are committed to using the power of business to create a better world.

In May 2010 UASM was admitted as the first business School in Latin America to become part of GBSN. Currently we have one MBA student who was appointed as "Student Ambassador" and who acts as a a point of contact between GBSN and the MBA student body. The Student Ambassador advocates for GBSN and its mission on campus and advises GBSN on student activities and campus involvement.

Career Development Office

UASM has created a career development office which provides MBA students and alumni with the means to achieve their professional goals through career placement initiatives and counseling. This Office has undergone an important transition in the last years. It started first as a bank of job offers, and has now evolved into a comprehensive service, that offers a wide array of activities to support MBA students and alumni in their professional careers (job fairs, resume and interview workshops, job posting, etc.). Even though there is no systematic effort to ensure that specific placement activities are organized around sustainability, social responsibility or other related areas, the School has close relations with different types of organizations, both private, public and non-governmental, and therefore, UASM always has different types of job postings from a wide variety of sectors.

MBA and Environmental Management
Center for Strategy and Competitiveness - CEC
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 35
Contact Name: Martha Rodriguez
Contact Email: mcr@adm.uniandes.edu.co

This center, affiliated with UASM, is dedicated to applied research, training, consultancy, and opinion generation in the field of strategy and competiveness. In its area of environmental management the following consultancy project were developed during 2007 - 2008:

- Mexican Green Supply Chain Program, Client: Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America (CEC) (August 2007 - Dec. 2008)
- Redesign of a technical assistance program to small Colombian producers of organic products, Client: Dutch Embassy in Bogota (Sep. 2007 - Dec. 2008)
- Formulation of a National Strategic Environmental Plan towards 2019, Client: Colombian Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Housing (Jan. 2008 - Dec. 2008)
- Design of a land trust for private conservation areas in Colombia, Client: The Nature Conservancy Colombia and the Nature Foundation Colombia (Sep. 2008 - Feb 2009)
- Design of a financial strategy of Seaflower Reserve in the Caribbean Sea, Client: Interamerican Development Bank IADB and Coralina (Regional Environmental Authority of the San Andres Island (Dec 2008 - April 2009) Good Governance for the Buenaventura Port Authority
-Formulation of a plan for the commercialization of green products for communities
- Evaljuation of Ethics at Sabmiller 2009
- Strategy for the sustainable development of the Orinoco region 2010
- Plan to generate employment alternatives for displaced populations in City of Bogotá 2009

IESO
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 4
Contact Name: Natalia Franco
Contact Email: nfb@adm.uniandes.edu.co

IESO's purpose is to strengthen the transformation capacity of social initiatives coming from both for-profit and non-profit organizations. To do this, faculty members convened by IESO carry out teaching, research and service activities nationwide. Faculty members who have participated in IESO's research projects have published pedagogical cases, books (both published by Harvard University Press), and chapters. These publications are the result of research projects on

- alliances between businesses and civil society organizations

- social enterprises that generate high economic and social value

- corporate social responsibility

- private sector participation in the design of public policy.

Through courses taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as in Executive Education, IESO has developed some expertise in participant-centered learning. This expertise has been used to develop workshops for faculty from other universities and further their practice with this methodological approach. IESO´s service activities give it an active role, nationwide, in networks and projects spurred by business and social leaders. The projects developed may be grouped in two categories: those whose purpose is to increase the impact of business-led social initiatives, and those whose purpose is to build capacity for individual nonprofits and to strengthen their networks.

Effect of a Cause-Related Marketing Campaign on Printed Media, on Disposition to help and Empathy
Author(s): GABRIEL PEREZ CIFUENTES

Cause-related marketing has been the source of a great number of research. A research line has focused on external factors that influence donors’ behaviors. Notwithstanding, not much is known about the effect of the role played by the type of message and transmission means used on donor’s behavior. This work focuses on the relation existing between the type of message and the printed media vis-a-vis the desire to help and empathy. The results obtained in an experiment show that the rational messages in printed media significantly affect the intention to help and empathy

Journal Title: Advances in consumer research Volume: Edition: 10 Page Numbers:
Empresa y sociedad en América Latina: una introducción
Author(s): Enrique Ogliastri, EZEQUIEL REFICCO

The array of terminology that refers to the link between corporations and society can be very confusing for the non-specialist. Terms such as corporative citizenship, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy and sustainability, among others, refer to research literature and communities of practice that are related, yet different.
Over the past few years, the concept of Business and Society (B&S) has emerged as a broad, encompassing field that includes them all. In this article we identify the frameworks or constructs that constitute this field: corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship (or corporate philanthropy), sustainable development, corporate governance, business ethics, and inclusive business. The article reaches two broad conclusions. The first is the horizontal expansion of the agenda: each one of these literatures and practice communities has seen their theme agenda expand systematically over the past few years. The relationship between the company and its socio-environmental context is increasingly richer and multifaceted, to the point that it would be unthinkable nowadays to ignore (or reverse) this interdependent connection. The second trend is the deepening of the thematic agendas of the B&S family, bringing them closer to the core of public, private and social organizations’ strategies. In all the reviewed fields, the ethical, social, environmental and commercial dimensions appear to become increasingly aligned with each other –even if the road ahead is still long and full of challenges.

Journal Title: ACADEMIA Revista Latinoamericana de Administración Volume: 485 Edition: 0 Page Numbers: 497
Ethical preferences for influencing superiors: A 41-society study
Author(s): JAIME ALBERTO RUIZ GUTIERREZ, DAVID RALSTON, CAROLYN EGRI, MARIA TERESAQ DE LA GARZA, PREM RAMBURUTH, JANE TERPSTRA-TONG, ANDRE A. PEKERTI, ILYA GIRSO, HARALD HERRIG

With a 41-society sample of 9990 managers and professionals, we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro-level and micro-level predictors on subordinate influence ethics. While we found that both macro-level and micro-level predictors contributed to the model definition, we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy. Thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible, and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 1022–1045. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.109

Journal Title: Journal of International Business Studies Volume: 19 Edition: 0 Page Numbers: 43
Inclusive Networks for Building BOP Markets
Author(s): EZEQUIEL REFICCO, PATRICIA MARQUEZ

The idea that business can play a role in alleviating poverty has caught the imagination of academics and practitioners alike. An emerging consensus points to the critical importance of partnerships in market initiatives addressed to the base of the pyramid (BOP). But despite the calls for cross sector partnerships in BOP initiatives, our collective understanding of how these actually work has not advanced proportionally. This study attempts to address this issue by examining the dynamics at play in nine networks that integrated the BOP with mainstream markets in nine developing nations. The paper is structured in three broad issue-areas: alliance formation (drivers that compelled companies to engage in strategic partnerships); alliance implementation (choice of governance mechanisms, resources for enhancing trust and reciprocity between partners, and conflict-resolution mechanisms); and performance outcome (the extent to which an organization's commitment to an alliance impacted its performance and its societal context).

Journal Title: Business & Society Volume: doi:10.1177/0007650309332353  Edition: Page Numbers:
Negocios inclusivos en América Latina
Author(s): EZEQUIEL REFICCO, PATRICIA MARQUEZ, GABRIEL BERGER

Despite progress made in recent years, poverty and inequality continue to burden developing countries. The issue is not only ethical and political, but also economic. Poverty in emerging countries is both a cause and outcome of economic stagnation. The current financial crisis has only made the problem worse. Across Latin America, interest in inclusive businesses has soared, becoming a shared focal point of concern by groups that, up to now, were hardly talking to each other: businesspeople, social entrepreneurs, activists, philanthropists - even political leaders. Widespread enthusiasm over inclusive businesses, however, has not been coupled with an equal measure of clarity on the meaning of the concept. Not surprisingly, skepticism has emerged from both the business community and spokespeople for the social sector, voicing legitimate concerns and doubts. Such concerns put into question what exactly is innovative about current efforts to undertake business ventures with people drawn from the bottom of the economic pyramid. What defines these initiatives? What are key factors for success? Following is an attempt to examine and conceive emerging practices in inclusive businesses by drawing on three years’ of research findings led by the Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge Network (SEKN) in nine countries from Iberoamerica.

Journal Title: Harvard Business Review (ed. América Latina) Volume: 1 Edition: 43 Page Numbers: 25
On the Relationship between Low Socioeconomic Class and Consumer Complexity Expectations from New Product Technology
Author(s): CARLOS ANDRES TRUJILLO VALENCIA, SONIA MARCELA CAMACHO AHUMADA, JOSE ANTONIO ROSA, ANDRES BARRIOS FAJARDO

This research improves the field's understanding of subsistence consumers by investigating how low socioeconomic class relates to expectations of complexity from new products. The study tests a model of the relationship between consumer socioeconomic class, self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and knowledge about product domains, and the influence of self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge on consumer expectations of complexity when facing a new product technology. A sample of 266 Colombian consumers representing different socio-economic classes is used to test the model using structural equation modeling. The results show that self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge are predictive of expectations of complexity, with low self-esteem, low capabilities, and low product knowledge leading to higher complexity expectations. Socioeconomic status relates closely to self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge and can be used as a surrogate for the individual-level constructs.
Keywords: Adoption of new product technology; Complexity expectation; Subsistence markets

Journal Title: Journal of Business Research Volume: 112 Edition: 61 Page Numbers: 139
Servicios básicos para los más pobres: lo que tiene que cambiar
Author(s): ROBERTO GUTIERREZ POVEDA

Providing basic services to low income clients can be a headache for businesses and consumers. A 2004 international report stated that much of the electric power that reaches the poorest neighborhoods in different continents was stolen by intermediaries, thus creating a risky service and of very poor quality. In addition, it has deprived companies of the economic incentives to provide these services in an abundant, secure and accessible way. It is no wonder that this report states that 40% of poor people in cities around the world have no access to modern electricity services.More or less the same occurs with other utilities such as water and gas.
This article lists and explains the necessary transformationsthat companies must make to reach those sectors that were thought as inaccessible, or underserved. Companies must firstly understand that the service to be offered to these areas is mainly to approach them and to get to know on first hand what they need and what they really value. Secondly, they should adjust their offerings to the amounts and costs they are willing to pay. This implies being able to develop innovative and attractive business models for these sectors. Certainly, when companies start trying to make these changes, they should pay attention to three external factors that can facilitate the failure or success of this attempt. These factors are: (i) Companies must also be very familiar with the communities where they want to operate and communicate with them; (ii) they must be aware of how the government acts especially from the point of view of regulation; and (iii) they must be aware of the technological advances that can stimulate innovation in the value proposition.

Journal Title: Harvard Business Review América Latina Volume: 77 Edition: 89 Page Numbers: 83
Values and attitudes towards women in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico
Author(s): JAIME ALBERTO RUIZ GUTIERREZ, MIGUEL OLIVAS, SILVIA MONSERRAT, REGINA GREENWOOD, SERGIO MADERO, EDWARD MURPHY, NEYUSA MARIA BASTOS

The study explored personal values and attitudes towards women in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. An analysis of 2,737 usable survey instruments revealed that females across the countries were more equalitarian in their attitudes towards women in the workforce than were men. Additionally, Colombians had more equalitarian attitudes towards women scores, followed by Brazil and Argentina; Mexico exhibited the least equalitarian attitudes toward women in the workforce. This is contrary to our initial expectations and the existing evidence upon which we based our hypotheses. We offer explanations for the results and discuss the implications of our findings and limitations.

Journal Title: Employee Relations, The international journal Volume: 1 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 1