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This paper aims to describe the levels and type of contingency faced by school principals in Chile and the way certain aspects of the Chilean school system result in a greater or lesser presence of these contingencies.

The results reported here are based on the application of a structured questionnaire to 381 elementary school principals in Chile. A “Leadership Contingency Index” was created to analyze the extent and characteristics of this phenomenon, which was complemented with a multiple regression analysis to observe the variables that influence the levels of contingency.

This study has shown that the main contingencies faced by school leaders in Chile revolve around the relationship between actors: assist families, relationship with and among students and resolution of school staff problems. Also shows that the level of contingency faced by principals is strongly conditioned by the socio-educational context of the school and is not related to the individual characteristics of the leaders. This level of contingencies is significantly higher in the public system, although the most recurrent contingencies are the same in each type of school administration (public, private subsidized and privately funded schools).

This paper addresses an important but relatively unexplored dimension in specialized research on leadership: variable contingencies under which the leadership role is performed daily, including significant gaps between schools. Understanding and analyzing school leadership from the perspective of the complexity of tasks currently faced by principals, many of them highly unpredictable, ensures a realistic view of the possibilities and limitations of leadership in action and, consequently, provides better tools to strengthen the school leadership role and its contribution to improving student learning.

Trust has been identified as key to students’ academic improvement. The purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions that build trust in teachers, both towards their colleagues and school leaders, and to explore the emotions triggered among these participants. This study uses the critical incident technique to conduct interviews with 34 teachers from the Valparaíso Region (Chile). Results show that incidents are easily remembered when a subordinate relationship is involved. Many critical incidents are related to situations in which teachers are particularly vulnerable. Hence, teachers value the treatment received and support provided. The arrival of new teachers to a school is crucial when building bonds of trust. Benevolence is the facet that stands out the most in incidents reported by teachers and school leaders, while satisfaction is the most recurrent emotion. In the case of school leaders, benevolence is closely followed by competence. In the case of teachers, benevolence is followed by honesty, openness and competence. In this case, the associated emotion is affection.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the new service development (NSD) research field. It addresses its scientific production, social and intellectual structures, and maturity.

This study uses a bibliometric-based literature review. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are performed on a sample of 277 NSD articles (published from 1984 to 2014). These articles are organized into four periods to improve the analyses from an evolutionary perspective: Early Writings (1984-1995), Advancing of Literature (1996-2001), Progressive Literature (2002-2008), and Recent Works (2009-2014).

The scientific production in the NSD field has grown significantly over these four periods, and the entry of new authors has extended the social structure. However, collaboration networks seem disconnected from one another. Nonetheless, the intellectual structure has shown great progress, making NSD an independent area of research and discovery from the new product development domain, with its own foundations and expansions into new topics. Although the NSD research field has not yet reached maturity, it is consistently moving toward it.

This study delivers a multiperspective view of research on NSD using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. It provides new insights into the discussion of the field’s maturity and can be used as a roadmap for academics and practitioners who would like to understand the state of existing knowledge and are looking for research opportunities.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the possible causes of the Peruvian Amazon Company’s death.

This study uses secondary sources to document the trajectory of the Peruvian Amazon Company, the rubber export boom, and the different market forces affecting the wild rubber industry. By examining different sources that document the case of the Peruvian Amazon Company and the wild rubber extraction in the Amazon, this text aims to analyse the possible causes of the Peruvian Amazon Company extinction.

After analysing the existing literature on the Peruvian Amazon Company and the wild rubber industry, it was possible to find evidence about the problems related with land ownership, labour and international prices, along with the internationally known scandals, as the principal causes of the company’s death.

The case of the Peruvian Amazon Company, explores how an unsustainable business model could eventually lead a once successful company to its death. The contribution of the following chapter is based on the description of the causes of the Peruvian Amazon Company’s death. Previous studies had analysed the internationalization strategies implemented by the company. Although, an evaluation of causes of the company’s real extinction had not been presented.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceived value of an action learning experience (i-Week) on the development of important soft employability skills applying expectation confirmation theory (ECT).

A total of 1,295 activities were offered in 36 cities of ten countries. Each activity had a faculty member and multidisciplinary teams to address an authentic situation during one full-time week. The ECT was applied to assess the disparity between what was expected from the students and their actual learning experience. A total of 929 students answered a Perceived Value Questionnaire to measure 14 transversal competences categorized on five employability skills.

Achievements were statistically higher than expectations in 5 out of 14 transversal competences. The perceived value of the i-Week reflects the impact on soft skills: self-skills, personal, learning, social and systemic. The paper proposed an integrated model to learn these competences from action learning experiences.

The questionnaire is a self-assessment and not an actual performance measure. Besides transversal competences, there were more disciplinary competences that are not included in the study.

The perceived value model of the i-Week could be applied for different educational levels and contexts considering a lower scale. A new version of the Perceived Value Questionnaire on Competences is provided for educational research.

The educational experience, instruments and analysis described in the study might be easily transferred to other action activity used to measure perceived learning results on multiple skills.

Directing schools of high complexity in disadvantaged social contexts with high rates of emigration requires skills for emotional leadership. Directors with self-managing capacities are needed to manage their own emotions. They also need to mobilise people (teachers, students and families) by focussing on their feelings of satisfaction, identification with the group, belonging, joy, success, unity and cohesion.

The content of this chapter presents the study of the emotional management of directors who perform their work in two highly complex schools in Catalonia, Spain. The views of these directors as well as teachers and families examine: (1) the construction of their professional identity, (2) their social and ethical commitment to the community, (3) the orientation towards the values of social justice and (4) their emotional leadership practices focussed on personal attention towards all of the actors in the school community.

The chapter concludes with 10 suggestions that can be useful to improve the professional practice of school directors. These should also be taken into account when designing and implementing initial and ongoing training programmes for school leaders and to inspire ideas for future research.