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There has been a surge of interest in leader character and a push to bring character into mainstream management theory and practice. Research has shown that CEOs and board members have many questions about the construct of leader character. For example, they like to see hard data indicating to what extent character contributes to organizational performance. Human resource management professionals are often confronted with the need to discuss and demonstrate the value of training and development initiatives. The question as to whether such interventions have a dollars-and-cents return on the investment is an important one to consider for any organizational decision-maker, especially given the demand for increased accountability, the push for transparency and tightening budgets in organizations. The authors investigated the potential dollar impact associated with the placement of managers based on the assessment of leader character, and they used utility analysis to estimate the dollar value associated with the use of one instrument – the Leader Character Insight Assessment or LCIA – to measure leader character.

The authors used field data collected for purposes of succession planning in a large Canadian manufacturing organization. The focus was on identifying senior management candidates suitable for placement into the most senior levels of leadership in the organization. Peers completed the LCIA to obtain leader character ratings of the candidates. The LCIA is a behaviorally based and validated instrument to assess leader character. Performance assessments of the candidates were obtained through supervisor ratings.

The correlation between the leader character measure provided by peers and performance assessed by the supervisor was 0.30 (p < 0.01). Using the data required to calculate ΔU from the Brogden-Cronbach-Gleser model leads to an estimate of CAD $564,128 for the use of the LCIA over the expected tenure of 15 years, which is equivalent to CAD $37,609 yearly; and CAD $375,285 over an expected tenure of 10 years, which is equivalent to CAD $37,529 yearly. The results of the study also indicate that there is still a positive and sizeable return on investment or ROI associated with the LCIA in employee placement even with highly conservative adjustments to the basic utility analysis formula.

Utility analysis is a quantitative and robust method of evaluating human resource programs. The authors provide an illustration of the potential utility of the LCIA in a selection process for senior managers. They assert that selecting and promoting managers on leader character and developing their character-based leadership will not only leverage their own contributions to the organization but also contribute to a trickle-down effect on employees below them.

Both Bolivia and Uruguay broke ranks with the global drug prohibition regime by introducing novel drug policies. State control of the production and supply of coca and cannabis represents a clear departure from both the spirit and the letter of the international drug conventions. Although, the rationale, processes and outcomes of policy change were distinctive in many regards, this chapter posits that there are conceptual resemblances. In both countries, the leadership of a charismatic and idiosyncratic president has to be considered. Furthermore, in both countries, mobilisation and activism were also decisive. Lastly, in both countries novel drug policy responded to specific problems that decision-makers faced. Approaching drug policy reforms in Bolivia and Uruguay in terms of personal leadership, mobilisation and policy problems provides a useful analytical first-cut to assess the continuity and change in drug policy observable elsewhere. Additionally, scrutinising the reasons and motivations for undertaking drug policy reform also allows to better understand each country’s behaviour on the international stage.

Reliance on third-party judgments are common in efforts to identify and reduce workplace sexual harassment (SH). The purpose of this paper is to identify whether a workplace emphasis on inclusion as a cultural value is related to third-party labeling of and response to an exchange between a male manager and his female subordinate.

Participants (n=308) in an online survey experiment were randomly assigned to a workplace that emphasized inclusion or one that emphasized individual achievement as a cultural value. They read a vignette describing a workplace interaction between a male manager and his female subordinate and responded to a series of questions.

Organizational emphasis on inclusion is unrelated to third-party labeling of the interaction as SH, but positively associated with labeling the female’s intention to pursue harassment charges as an overreaction, and support for the female subordinate in a claim of SH against her manager. Culture is unassociated with willingness to defend the male manager in a SH claim.

Identifying how workplace culture shapes third-party reaction to harassment can help employers use third-party witnesses and cultural value statements as tools to reduce SH.

A workplace’s cultural emphasis on inclusion is positively related to third-party support for SH victims implying the importance of workplace context in the fight against workplace SH.

The paper presents the first experimental analysis of how a workplace cultural emphasis on inclusion affects the third-party observers’ reactions to SH.

This paper analyzes how quality management in Ecuador’s national parks is explained through the quality practices contained in Deming’s quality principles from the point of view of employees.

Quantitative research was conducted with the participation of 254 employees from all national parks in Ecuador who rated the quality management practices (leadership, talent management, work climate and training) in their respective parks.

The results show that leadership, talent management, work climate and training significantly explain the service quality in the national parks. This study contributes to the adaptation of Deming’s quality principles to national parks via individual and joint analysis of the relationship between leadership, talent management, work climate and training with service quality in order to highlight which practices are the most important to service quality.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the key factors that influence service quality in the National Parks of Ecuador. Its multidisciplinary approach and exhaustive research make this work an invaluable tool for understanding and improving the preservation of natural resources and the tourism experience in these protected areas.

Este trabajo analiza cómo la gestión de la calidad en los parques nacionales del Ecuador se explica a través de las prácticas de calidad recogidas en los principios de la calidad de Deming desde el punto de vista de los empleados.

Se realizó una investigación cuantitativa en la que participaron 254 empleados de todos los parques nacionales del Ecuador quienes valoraron las prácticas de gestión de la calidad (liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación) en sus respectivos parques.

Los resultados muestran que el liderazgo, la gestión del talento, el clima laboral y la formación explican significativamente la calidad de servicio en los parques nacionales. Este estudio contribuye en la adaptación de los principios de calidad de Deming a parques nacionales a través del análisis individual y conjunto de la relación entre liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación con la calidad del servicio para destacar qué prácticas son las más importantes para la calidad del servicio ofrecido.

This chapter examines the patterns of immigrants’ integration in a state of the Midwest of the United States, Indiana, which has experienced a growth of more than 250% of the foreign-born population in the last 20 years. The study, based on in-depth interviews and document analysis, examines the ways that immigrants blend into mainstream society in everyday life and in social interactions, as well as the obstacles they encounter in this process. The study reveals the cultural changes in the host culture as a result of the large number of immigrants who have established their residence in this state, the dichotomies that emerge between “natives” and “newcomers.” It also shows that immigrants stay connected to their country of origin through electronic media (in particular television and computers) and how this technology affects the process of integration. Finally, the study demonstrates that there is a process of segmented assimilation and variations in the immigrants’ sense of identity according to their socioeconomic status and ethnic background.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue “The Entrepreneurship Challenges in Latin America”.

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region with many potentialities. Like one of the largest markets in the world, entrepreneurship activities can constitute a key element to enhance regional competitiveness.

This study makes a general overview of entrepreneurship dynamics in Latin America and its contexts. This study presents the eight manuscripts that constitute the special issue.

This study contributes to current academic conversations and highlights the relevance of continuing inquiring about the entrepreneurship phenomena at the regional level.

This study expects that this special issue will help the region’s scholarly entrepreneurship community and others interested in Latin America. This study also believes that this special issue manuscript makes a relevant contribution to policy and practice.

The authors use media research and crowdsourced mapping to document how the first wave of the pandemic (April–August 2020) affected the Mapuche, focussing on seven categories of events: territorial control, spiritual defence, food sovereignty, traditional health practices, political violence, territorial needs and solidarity, and extractivist expansion.

Research on the effects of the pandemic on the Mapuche and their territories is lacking; the few existing studies focus on death and infection rates but overlook how the pandemic interacts with ongoing processes of extractivism, state violence and community resistance. The authors’ pilot study addresses this gap through a map developed collaboratively by disaster scholars and Mapuche journalists.

The map provides a spatial and chronological overview of this period, highlighting the interconnections between the pandemic and neocolonialism. As examples, the authors focus on two phenomena: the creation of “health barriers” to ensure local territorial control and the state-supported expansion of extractive industries during the first months of the lockdown.

The authors intersperse our account of the project with reflections on its limitations and, specifically, on how colonial formations shape the research. Decolonising disaster studies and disaster risk reduction practice, the authors argue, is an ongoing process, bound to be flawed and incomplete but nevertheless an urgent pursuit.

In making this argument, the paper responds to the Disaster Studies Manifesto that inspires this special issue, taking up its invitation to scholars to be more reflexive about their research practice and to frame their investigations through grounded perspectives.

In this chapter, the authors analyze the academic field of comparative education in Spanish speaking Latin America as a contested construction both in epistemological and political dimensions. First, the authors provide a brief historical account of the origin and development of comparative education in the region since the nineteenth century. Next, they focus on the current state of the field by addressing three aspects: (1) the institutional basis, specially the development of comparative education societies; (2) an account of the contributions of international organizations, both in terms of studies that have been recently conducted and of the development of data bases; and (3) an analysis of prevailing topics as well as theoretical and methodological approaches in a sample of articles published during the 2010-2017 period. The authors conclude by summarizing the main aspects of the current situation, and pointing to future epistemological and political challenges for the field in the region.

This study aims to analyze whether family ownership and working capital management (WCM) affect firm profitability and liquidity. Further, we also investigate the moderating effect of family ownership on the association between WCM, firm profitability and liquidity.

This study uses a sample of 150 nonfinancial companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for the period 2014–2019. For empirical analysis, this study used multiple proxies of family ownership and applied robust and bootstrapped quantile regression models.

The results suggest that family ownership has a negative association with firm profitability and liquidity. Moreover, this study finds a positive association between WCM and firm profitability and liquidity. Furthermore, the results indicate that family ownership negatively moderates the association between WCM and firm profitability. In addition, we argue that family ownership rescinds the impact of WCM as excess liquidity may be used for extracting private benefits and related party transactions.

First, this study has examined the nexus between family ownership, WCM, firm profitability and liquidity in the context of a developing country, i.e. Pakistan. Second, previous studies have not analyzed the moderating role of family ownership in the association between working capital management, firm profitability and liquidity. Third, this study provides unique evidence that family-owned firms have an adverse liquidity position as compared with other firms.