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This paper aims to explore the creation of shared value (Porter and Kramer, 2011) through technical education by analyzing key events and factors associated with the midsize firm IMCA and the Business Initiative for Technical Education (BITE), a private-public alliance in the Dominican Republic.

The paper results from a five-year longitudinal case study that included an embedded participant (the third author of the paper) and was based on structured and unstructured interviews, observations and multiple archival records. Thematic and content analyses were applied to most of these sources.

IMCA’s staffing needs and search for a solid competitive strategy (one dependent on qualified technicians able to provide multiple services) was the original driver of BITE. The Initiative managed to enlist a formidable alliance of stakeholders, engaged in systemic, bottom-up, “small wins” approaches that targeted not only contents but also pedagogies that transformed multiple polytechnic schools. The initiative has resulted in significant corporate economic benefits and is currently altering fundamental aspects of the technical education of an entire nation.

The research upon which the paper is based consists of a longitudinal case study comprising the years 2011-2015. BITE is a long-term project of which only the first stages have taken place.

The paper focuses specifically on two modalities of shared value creation: productivity in the value chain and local cluster development. It expands the understanding of important issues around shared value creation through private investment in (technical) education, particularly around the following dimensions: curricular and pedagogical transformation, stakeholder engagement and place/time scale. Insights may be of particular relevance for developing regions with significant educational needs.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the debate on “cosmopolitanism or globalization” by approaching this rich literature from cultural, ethical and governance angles, and by introducing key notions from the work that has taken place in the natural sciences, around the Anthropocene.

This paper is based on analytical tactics that draw on a literature review and thematic analysis.

The composite analytical “lens” is introduced here (crafted around cultural, ethical and governance angles) to approach the debate on “cosmopolitanism or globalization” plus the engagement with the literature on the Anthropocene, allow us to engage with current understandings of the global and the “planetary” that are at the heart of cosmopolitanism.

The paper deals with and merges two complex streams of literature (“cosmopolitanism or globalization” and the Anthropocene), and as such, needs to be seen as part of an initial, exploratory scholarly effort.

The analytical “lens” described here shall be of further use to develop current trends re-claiming cosmopolitanism for the study of organizations.

This work can help nurture a cosmopolitan sensitivity which celebrates difference, highlights expanded concerns for the “distant other” and fosters involvement in new forms of governance.

The approaches introduced here bring new angles to continue thinking about the planet as the “cosmos” of cosmopolitanism, and to explore new understandings around organizations and (global) responsibility.

The paper aims to focus on the role that cosmopolitanism and, in particular, “the cosmopolitan disposition” (Woodward et al., 2008) plays in the process of entrepreneurial business by transnational business elites in Dubai.

Adopting a relational perspective based on Bourdieu and Wacquant’s (1992) Reflexive Sociology, as well as an inductive design, the authors conducted 30 semi-structured interviews focusing on both expatriates and Emiratis (locals/nationals) who displayed key features of a transnational business elite.

The findings indicate that the cosmopolitan disposition is an asset for transnational business elites when they venture in the context of Dubai.

The findings would have to be further replicated in similar contexts, i.e. other major cities displaying similar cosmopolitan features with Dubai. A theoretical framework that calls for further study of transnational entrepreneurship via the lens of cosmopolitan disposition and Bourdieuan “habitus” is proposed.

The research outlines cosmopolitan skills for a transnational business elite which are required when entrepreneurial ventures are developed in the context of a city like Dubai.

Cosmopolitanism and transnational entrepreneurship change cities like Dubai around the world constantly. Therefore, this study aims at achieving a better understanding of these changes and the ways in which they occur.

Studies on transnational entrepreneurship have already adopted Bourdieu’s theory (1977/1986), but this is the first time the cosmopolitan perspective and disposition is researched using this approach.

With more than 332 signatories, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) is probably the most solid initiative to inspire and champion responsible business education globally. The purpose of this paper is to examine the activities undertaken by the first intake of signatories – universities and business schools – with regard to each of the six principles (offering a systematic analysis and “distilled” categorization of those initiatives). It also aims to evaluate the difficulties and tensions that may be entailed in integrating PRME in both the strategic intent and daily operations of educational institutions, and how to overcome some of these. Finally, it aims to offer a critical reflection on the “non‐compliance and non regulatory/measurement” nature of PRME (the initiative assumes that signatories act on the basis of principled pragmatism), offering suggestions for improving the reporting mechanism on which the whole initiative is based.

The authors analyze the first 100 “Sharing Information on Progress” (SIP) reports uploaded to the PRME web site. These reports are the main mechanism established by the PRME Secretariat to build learning and accountability and allow signatories to communicate their progress. Elements from grounded theory and other qualitative analytical approaches were used to allow themes to emerge from within the (often messy and irregular) data from the reports. Graphical representations are also used.

Activities undertaken by PRME signatories are portrayed for each of the six principles: principle 1 on purpose (capabilities of students); principle 2 on values (incorporated in curriculum and academic activities); principle 3 on learning approaches; principle 4 on research (with sustainable, social, environmental and economic value); principle 5 on partnership (interaction with business managers); and principle 6 on dialogue (among key stakeholders). Tensions regarding ideology, integration and implementation are also identified, as well as possible weaknesses, e.g. on integrity, quality and reporting policies, in the current “SIP” framework.

This paper is the first scholarly work depicting comprehensively the activities of PRME signatories worldwide.

This case study was intended for MBA/postgraduate level courses, or for high-level executive courses. It provided a complex international business context to analyse the intricacies and dependencies between emerging regions, wherein a company (Grupo M) established an entire manufacturing cluster and invested all its assets in a place that has never hosted any industrial activity – in a country whose culture and traditions differed significantly from those of the neighbouring country that provided the investment. The case included a discussion of the negotiations that a private company undertook with two governments (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) to secure access to the free-zone facilities granted by the importing countries.

The case could be seen as a stimulating international business context to examine central tenets around “shared value creation” (Porter and Kramer, 2011): the practice of creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. As per these authors, there are three ways to create shared value: by reconceiving products and markets, by redefining productivity in the value chain and by enabling local cluster development. The latter is the one best exemplified in this case. Additionally, the case brought intriguing insights on international business that can be related to ethics, corporate social responsibility and its many facets (Banerjee, 2007), as well as concepts around “responsible lobbying” (Anastasiadis et al., 2018).

This case presented the expansion challenges of CODEVI, a Dominican company, which established and operated an industrial (free zone) park in Haiti. Grupo M decided to move its operations when The World Trade Organization eliminated the quota system for apparel imported from the Far East Countries, and its CEO, Fernando Capellán, foresaw that the Dominican Republic would soon become non-competitive. At the time, an agreement between the US and Haiti, which gave preferential access to production from this extremely poor country, was being negotiated. In 2003, there were two sleepy towns at the Haitian-Dominican border: Dajabón, with about 18,000 inhabitants in the Dominican side, and Ounaminthe in Haiti, with about 40,000 inhabitants (with 90 per cent unemployment and over 80 per cent living below the extreme poverty line) on the Haitan side. These two locations were at the heart of a case that narrated how a complex international business operation resulted in an industrial park that has enjoyed considerable economic success, while simultaneously improving dramatically the living conditions of both border towns: Dajabón now has about 35,000 inhabitants and was a booming town, with a prosperous middle class; Ounaminthe now had 170,000 inhabitants (17,000 work directly at CODEVI), and was a city that essentially remained outside the chaos that often plagues the rest of Haiti. Additionally, a major impact of CODEVI was that it stopped the area’s illegal emigration of Haitians to the Dominican Republic, one of the Dominican Republic’s most pressing problems. But as the CODEVI industrial park has no area to expand, a decision must be made to either expand next to the present park, or at one of the three sister towns along the border. Such a park would have to be built from nothing, as was the case for CODEVI almost two decades ago.

MBA, executive and postgraduate.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International Business.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the relationships between advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) categories (stand-alone, intermediated and integrated systems) implementation and design, process and commercial benefits obtained.

A survey is designed with benefits gained from AMT implementation as well as its categories, which is applied to the maquiladora industry. A structural equation model with data from 383 responses is used to measure the relationship between AMT categories and benefits gained using nine hypotheses that are tested statistically significant using partial least squares. Also, using conditional probabilities, a sensitivity analysis reports how low and high levels from AMT implementation influence on the obtained benefits.

Integrated systems are the most important AMT for maquiladoras and have the strongest impact on design, processes and commercial benefits.

Data obtained support the model, but results may be different in another industrial sector and countries with different labor culture and technological level.

Managers in maquiladora industry must focus their attention on integrated manufacturing systems, because high implementation levels guarantee the biggest probability to gain benefits in design, production process and commercial.

The relationship between AMT and their benefits has not been measured in depth, and this paper contributes to understand that problem. In addition, this paper is the first to report a sensitivity analysis that enables managers to acknowledge the probability of obtaining certain benefits.

This paper examines the level of sustainability disclosures provided by Spanish hospitals using exclusively the information revealed in their institutional websites. Based on different levels of disclosure, the authors try to find the possible reasons why some Spanish hospitals reveal more sustainability information than others.

To achieve this goal, the authors conducted a content analysis of the official websites of all Spanish hospitals identified by the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality.

The results reveal that Spanish hospitals seem to use sustainability disclosures for different legitimizing purposes. In general, the results indicate that Spanish hospitals may be driven by symbolic rather than substantive actions to achieve legitimacy from stakeholders.

Due to the lack of empirical research on the hospital sector, more research is required to improve understanding of why hospitals disclose sustainability information or not.

The legitimacy of history: dictated Bloch. Today, in many areas of knowledge, and of course in entrepreneurship (Wadhwani, 2010), it has become superlative. The aim of this chapter is analyzing the literature about entrepreneurship in Mexico mainly from the last 11 years of studies on the subject. Through this review, we want to highlight the progress in the field, as well as deeper opportunities in its research as a result of it, the profound need for incorporating them not only in the national academic debate but also into the entrepreneurship ecosystem and in specific public policies.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

In a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, one of the most time-consuming tasks is to identify and track the visible satellites. The paper aims to propose and examine in detail new and shorter identification patterns or lite pseudo-codes – pseudo-random numbers (PRNs) – that allow GPS receivers to reduce dramatically the computational effort to identify and track GPS satellites. Obtaining lite pseudo-codes is a multi-objective optimization problem that the paper resolves using genetic algorithms (GAs).

The lite PRNs are obtained by using NSGA-II and omni-optimizer multi-objective optimization techniques.

The new PRNs obtained with the proposed single/multi-objective solutions are always better than previously presented when the highest detection peak (DP) is required for the GPS receiver.

Results demonstrate that the problem of “obtaining lite pseudo-codes” is a multi-objective optimization problem. In other words, the solutions obtained with the single-objective approach could belong to a local minimum. The multi-objective approach provides a better solution than the single-objective approach in a 37 percent of the satellites while in other cases the multi-objective approach reaches the same DPs with a similar noise.