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Costa Rica is recognized as one of the two countries with the longest continuous democracy in Latin America. After a short civil war, the country dissolved its armed forces and adopted a new constitution that established the basis of a Welfare State and a meritocratic public administration. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the characteristics of the Costa Rican public administration since the end of the 1990s. We discuss the dilemmas presented by its high level of fragmentation and the actions that have been taken—based mainly on the neo-Weberian paradigm—to modernize the traditional public apparatus so that it becomes more efficient, transparent, and responsive to citizens.

Departing from a so-called “modern civil service” as an ideal type, this chapter evaluates the status of public personnel management in Latin America. Such an ideal model is considered a mix between the organizational principles of the traditional civil service and those of the new public management perspective. First, the chapter presents the different phases that public management practices have undergone in some developed countries. Secondly, following several studies and data provided by the IADB, the level of development of several civil service systems in Latin America is analyzed and several of their construction–destruction–reconstruction patterns are presented. Lastly, the cases that most approach a modern civil service are discussed and some recommendations offered to reformers in this region.

This article analyzes the economic policy reform experience of three less developed countries (LDCs) during the 1980s -- Costa Rica, Ghana and Jamaica -- in three policy areas, exchange rate, trade, and agriculture. A political management model that shows how strong but skillful political leadership is as critical to policy reform success as is economic content is used for the analysis. The model proposes that government officials have to make policy reforms politically feasible if the reforms are to succeed. The assumption is that successful decision makers will take three kinds of political initiatives: (1) appeal to national sentiments, (2) seek the collaboration of affected interest groups, and (3) manage external actors. The article provides evidence that the economic perfomance of three countries correlated with the degree of political initiative taken. Costa Rican policy elites demonstrated the highest level of 1initiative. Ghana ranked second in political management, and Jamaica ranked third. The success of some LDCs also provides instructive experience for the Clinton Administration as it moves forward with a variety of policy reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a unique opportunity to analyze the implications of two different approaches to develop and deploy a national public electronic procurement system.

The authors used multiple data collection methods. The data were collected from 2009 to 2013 from primary sources, studies, consulting work, seminars, official documents and the written press. The structure includes a teaching case, a teaching note and a discussion on the potential of case research as a powerful method to elicit valuable insights and knowledge creation.

The research shows that literature on E-Procurement and E-Government is oblivious to the disruptive character of this technology in public administration. This case allows the discussion on the consequences of this omission for the success of E-Procurement implementations. Lessons drawn are extendable to other E-Government ventures.

Despite multiple stakeholder views and a long and difficult debate among different technical platforms, the underlying problem remains unnoticed. The authors show that decisions on E-Procurement implementations should also consider organizational design and adoption of innovation strategies. By re-framing the problem, much of the complexity of the decision disappears.

Many nations around the world are developing or revamping their National Public E-Procurement Systems, this parsimonious account of a complex decision allows for the exploration and discussion of the various complexities surrounding technological innovations in public management and brings light to a critical and mostly ignore success factor associated with the choice on the implementation and operational model.

“When James Boswell returned from a tour of Corsica in 1765 he wrote: ‘It is indeed amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known.’ The same might be said today of Puerto Rico.” Thus began Millard Hansen and Henry Wells in the foreword to their 1953 look at Puerto Rico's democratic development. Four decades later, the same could again be said about the island.

Despite the restricted interpretation of the principle of equality and non-discrimination made by some members of the prison staff in Costa Rica, most of the authorities and policymakers are committed to the express prohibition of unjust treatments on grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation. Notwithstanding, there is a gap between the normative framework and the reality of the detention facilities in the country. This paper aims to present the progress and challenges in the Costa Rican penitentiary system on the specific needs of LGBTI persons deprived of liberty, from a human rights perspective.

This paper is the result of the analysis conducted by United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD) from the data collected and systemized during a qualitative study, led by the same institution in 2016, regarding the situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Persons (LGBTI) persons deprived of liberty. These findings and a review of the actions implemented recently by the competent authorities to protect the rights of these population groups allowed to present an approach of the current situation of the Costa Rican penitentiary system.

While acknowledging the gravity of the violations of fundamental rights of LGBTI people in prison, they are far from showing a systematic pattern of aggression or discrimination against those people. What they do indicate is a penitentiary system that reproduces and exacerbates the marginalization and discrimination experienced by these populations in society. Despite the implementation of some measures to meet the particular needs of these groups, there is also evidence of an institutional culture that tolerates and normalizes certain levels of verbal violence and non-lethal aggression perpetrated by some system staff and by other individuals deprived of liberty.

Visualize the discrimination faced by some of the most invisible prisoners in the penitentiary system. Highlight some of the challenges that might be addressed to protect the rights of certain groups of prisoners affected by structural discrimination provide key data to identify the task list that should be guiding the actions to strengthen human rights guarantees for LGBTI people in prison. Present some good practices implemented by the Costa Rican penitentiary system, which might be useful for some other countries of the region.

There is a lack of information in Latin America about the rights situation of people that, besides the imprisonment, faced some other conditions of vulnerability, such as gender identity or sexual orientation. In a region where overpopulation, precarious living conditions and the critical situation of the prisons are no longer news, this paper pretends to draw attention to the progress and challenges of the penitentiary system concerning some of the most marginalized people in prison. In that regard, this document constitutes also a way of vindication of their rights.

This paper aims to analyse innovation models and interdisciplinarity in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Costa Rica between 2015 and 2021. The core focus is to evaluate the public policy in light of the groundwork that sustains the designed and proposed actions.

The authors applied a qualitative approach to build a set of dimensions and conducted content-analysis of selected documents. The analysis encompasses all current STI public policy documents in Costa Rica, including the planning instruments of the Central Government and the National Policy on STI.

The main findings show that STI policy in Costa Rica is based on different innovation models, but the projects and instruments themselves show the predominance of the reductionist model. Innovation receives a residual role. In turn, interdisciplinarity is based on the concept of convergence, which limits disciplinary collaboration to the natural, physical and engineering sciences, minimising contributions from other fields of knowledge to an instrumental role in innovation processes.

The authors conclude that the interlinkage between open innovation models, the participation of diverse societal actors and the inclusion of an interdisciplinary perspective leads to inclusive and more democratic public policy, allowing more sectors and organisations to benefit from innovation processes. This would imply a greater reach and impact of the policy, conditions that translate into innovation achievements and a better return on public investment.

This paper contributes to current discussions on STI policy by studying the implications of the link among policies, innovation models and interdisciplinarity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyzes how board’s gender diversity, and more specifically a gender-balanced configuration – i.e. a proportion of women in the boardroom ranging between 40 and 60 percent – affects economic and risk-oriented performance in financial firms.

The empirical application uses a rich data set that includes detailed accounting and organizational information for all financial firms in the Costa Rican industry during the period 2000–2012. The proposed hypotheses are tested using panel data (fixed-effects) regression models that emphasize that bank performance is affected by various dimensions of the banks’ gender diversity.

The longitudinal analysis of the Costa Rican banking industry reveals that, unlike a proportion indicating a particular critical mass of women on the board, a balanced gender configuration yields superior economic performance (ROA and net intermediation margin). Additionally, the findings show that the performance benefits of gender diversity only exists in the presence of a gender-balanced board configuration, and that this positive effect is not conditioned by the presence of women leadership in the corporate hierarchy (Chair or CEO).

The paper further explores the influence of board gender diversity on organizational performance by adopting an approach to the gender diversity–performance relationship that goes beyond the mere representation of women within the corporate hierarchy.