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The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of attitudes towards functional foods (AFF) on university students’ satisfaction with food-related life (SWFL) and to distinguish student typologies, considering that the AFF are not homogeneous among consumers.

A survey was applied to 372 university students (mean age=20.4 years, SD=2.4) in Southern Chile. The questionnaire included the AFF questionnaire and the SWFL scale, questions about consumption and knowledge about functional food (FF) and socio-demographic characteristics.

Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling, it was found that AFF directly and significantly influence students’ SWFL. A cluster analysis applied to the Z-scores from the factors obtained by the CFA classified three typologies: positive towards FF (36.3 per cent), moderately positive towards FF (43.0 per cent) and negative towards FF (20.7 per cent). The positive towards FF type had a significantly greater SWFL score than the negative towards FF type. The types differ according to consumption and knowledge about FF.

This study was conducted in the context of only one country in South America.

This study is the first that assesses the effect of AFF on SWFL in a sample of university students. Fostering positive attitudes towards FF will allow for a growth in the degree of SWFL of university students with features similar to those of the study sample.

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the development of a decision‐support environment for space range safety. Simulation modeling can provide a good environment to support disaster and prevention management.

The paper describes the different models and the processes to find the different knowledge sources. This will help determine emergency management procedures.

This case study provides guidance and an example to follow for other problems in aerospace. There are important factors to consider in order to implement risk management in NASA.

There are several limitations; first debris effects need to be added.

First, the paper provides a guide in order to persuade managers of the utilization of decision support systems based on geographical information systems. Second, it shows that there is open source software which can be used and integrated to make a more comprehensive environment. Validation is a big issue.

This is the first implementation of a virtual range. This will be valuable to other safety managers not only aerospace but also environmentalists and homeland security managers.

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the development of a decision‐support environment for a complex problem: space range safety. Simulation modeling can provide a good environment to support range safety managers.

The paper describes the different models and the processes to find the different knowledge sources. In addition, it investigates statistically the most important factors. This will help determine emergency management procedures and sources of variability.

This case study provides guidance and an example to follow for other problems in aerospace (in particular new the analysis of new vehicles). There are important factors to consider in order to implement risk management in National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

There are several limitations; blast and debris effects need to be added.

First, it provides a guide in order to persuade managers of the utilization of decision‐support systems based on geographical information systems. Second, it shows that there is open source software (Calpuff in our environment) which can be used and integrated to make a more comprehensive environment. Validation is a big issue. In addition, simulation can help make decisions about future vehicles or events.

This is the first implementation of a virtual range (there is not an integrated system similar to this one available). This will be valuable to other safety managers not only for space exploration but also environmentalists and homeland security managers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in consumers’ willingness to purchase functional foods (FFs) in southern Chile in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, consumer knowledge, and subjective well-being.

A survey was carried out among 400 people in southern Chile. The questionnaire measured willingness to buy FFs with 18 different benefits, knowledge about FFs, socio-demographic characteristics and satisfaction with life and with food-related life.

Two dimensions were found for benefits sought in FFs: disease prevention and improvement of bodily functions. Cluster analysis was used to distinguish three types of consumers. The majority (59.8 per cent) showed a significant disposition to buy FFs that prevent diseases or improve bodily functions. Others (25.8 per cent) were less inclined to buy either type of FF. A minority (14.5 per cent) showed greater disposition to buy FFs which improve bodily functions. The types differ according to the size of family, presence and age of children at home, ethnic origin, education, socio-economic status, knowledge about FFs and satisfaction with life and food-related life.

This study was conducted in the context of only one country in South America. The results reveal a high interest to buy FFs in order to improve bodily functions, and this preference may be associated to lifestyle changes in the population in Latin American countries.

This study provides information on the willingness to buy FFs and relates it to ethnic origin and satisfaction with food-related life. People from ethnic minorities are less inclined to buy FFs. People who are more inclined to buy FFs are more satisfied with their life and their food-related life.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a measure of competitiveness of the Spanish autonomous communities from a multidimensional and dynamic perspective for the period 2008-2016.

This paper adopts a broad definition of competitiveness based on five key environments (productive capital, human capital, social and institutional capital, infrastructure and knowledge) and comprising 53 indicators. The method used to construct the competitiveness index is based on the P-distance proposed by Pena Trapero (1979), which objectively assigns weights to the indicators. There is an important advantage in the methodological proposal of this study, as it allows analyzing the behavior of partial and aggregated indicators from a dynamic perspective, taking the same value as a reference for the entire period. Therefore, not only a classification obtained for each year but also the variation that occurs in terms of the reference period can be analyzed.

The classification of the autonomous communities is established using common intervals based on the results obtained for the whole period, i.e. 2008-2016. The data point to the unequal situations of the autonomous communities. The results also reveal that the evolution of the regional competitiveness synthetic index is clearly cyclical and the drop recorded in the recessive period is less pronounced than the increase recorded in the growth phase.

The main innovation of the competitiveness index presented here lies in its allowing comparisons over time.

The purpose of this article is to summarize the basic literature and concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the relevant studies for Latin America. The authors aim to assess the role of Latin America in the world innovative activity utilizing the production of USPTO patents.

To achieve the first objective, the authors review and summarize the relevant literature for innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America. They also introduce each of the papers included in the current special issue of Academia. To achieve the second objective, the authors use the production of USPTO patents by Latin American residents, and examine those levels to the rest of the world.

The authors find Latin America to be a marginal contributor to the world innovative activity. Although the region represented 8.7 per cent of world GDP in 2011, it only generated 0.19 per cent of the world patents registered at the USPTO between 2008 and 2012, and only 0.17 per cent of all patents registered since 1976. However, countries such as Costa Rica and Uruguay have larger levels of patent production by 100,000 inhabitants with 7.05 and 4.72 for 1976-2012.

This introduction introduces work that continues the intense discussion on innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America. It is to the extent of the authors' knowledge, one of the first attempts to measure the level of innovation at the regional level, and compare the performance of different countries. This special edition has implications for individuals, firms and governments striving to introduce new products, services and processes in a region that has historically confronted important barriers to innovation.

En esta introducción presentamos algunos conceptos básicos sobre innovación y empresariado, y hacemos énfasis en la literatura que ha estudiado estos fenómenos en América Latina. Evaluamos, además, el papel de América Latina en la actividad innovadora mundial, utilizando la producción de patentes registradas en la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de Estados Unidos (USPTO), y encontramos que América Latina desempeña un papel marginal con relación a otros centros mundiales de innovación. Finalmente, se presentan los artículos de este número de la revista Academia. Esta edición especial tiene implicaciones prácticas para individuos, empresas y gobiernos, que quieran introducir nuevos productos, servicios, y procesos desde una región que históricamente ha tenido que enfrentar barreras a la innovación.

The purpose of this paper is to present a collaborative (auto)ethnography that has emerged from the meeting of four academic researchers working with and from the heart in various Latin American contexts.

Our “I’s” have mingled with our very varied participations in different themes, latitudes, and disciplines – health, education and psychosocial approaches. We have worked, variously, in both English and Spanish. At the core of this piece are our own biographies, motivations, senses, academic dreams, international contexts, and the injustices and suffering felt in our bodies.

We seek to reflect from our experience of traveling as young researchers and as women with Latin souls. Through our stories, we show how crossing cultures as part of our research and work gives us both a privileged position but also the constant stress and questioning that goes beyond the intellectual and appears in our embodied experiences of interculturality.

The limitation of this piece of research is that it is based on personal experiences, that although there may be people who feel identified with these experiences, these are not generalizable or transferable.

Performative autoethnography is an instance to understand the world like a crisol with different faces; self, social, cultural and methodology, which allows us to understand the world from a holistic perspective.

With this paper, we hope to contribute for other women in academia to see themselves reflected in the experience of moving through a globalized world.

Through both living in and reflecting on this process, we show how our experiences provide us with new, intercultural “worlds under construction.”

The purpose of this paper is to assess the country-level drivers of managers' and executives' mobility. Both sub-groups play a fundamental role in entrepreneurship, innovation and ultimately on wealth creation in destination countries. The objective is to capture how the impact of economic, cultural and institutional factors differ for these sub-groups’ vis-a-vis the broad highly skilled group's mobility.

The paper investigates the country-level drivers of managers' and executives' bilateral migration from 190 countries to 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. It builds a model on four macro-contextual attractiveness factors of destination countries: economic conditions, cultural affinity, institutions and quality of life. The authors use fixed-effects regressions and carry several model specifications comparing the impact of different attractiveness factors on the migration of lower skilled, highly skilled, managers and executives.

The authors find that economic incentives do not motivate managers' or executives' mobility. The quality of life is more significant in driving executives' mobility than economic measures are. Cultural affinity, institutions and quality of life are more important for managers. Ethnic relations are significant for the overall highly skilled sample.

These results have implications for global companies interested in recruiting managers and executives and their recruitment strategies. International businesses attempting to maximize their access to international managers, for instance, can develop recruitment packages that capitalize on the particularities of the quality of life of the potential destination country. Such packages can contribute to streamlining the process and focusing on candidates' needs to increase the likelihood of relocation. The study’s results, in addition, have policy implications in terms of the “branding” of countries whose aim is to attract managers and other highly skilled talent. Officials can build an effective country-branding strategy on the existence of ethnic networks, effective institutions and quality of life to attract a particular segment of the talent pool. For instance, they can develop a strategy to attract executives by focusing on a specific cultural characteristic and elements of the quality of life such as the effectiveness of their country's healthcare and education systems.

The paper also points out to the issues that policymakers must resolve in the absence of an education system that guarantees the talent pool that the economy needs. For those countries that rely on foreign talent (such as Switzerland, Singapore and the USA), it is paramount to promote safety, quality of life and institutional development, in order to guarantee a sufficient inflow of talent.

Most global studies focus on the complete migrant stock or on highly skilled workers in particular. The authors disaggregate the sample further to capture the drivers of managers' and executives' migration. The authors find that latter sub-groups respond to different country-level attractiveness factors compared to the broader highly skilled sample. In doing so, the authors contextualize the study of mobility through a positively global lens and incorporate the impact of some of the factors generally overlooked.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the personal characteristics and individual values of Venezuelan low-income entrepreneurs, according to the theoretical framework of the Schwartz model.

A stratified probabilistic sample of 416 individuals was selected from a database of Bangente’s clients, who received microcredits between 1999 and 2016, in the Capital District of Venezuela. The Portrait Value Questionnaire (Schwartz, 2003; Peiró and Palencia, 2009) was applied to measure the values of power, self-direction, stimulation and achievement. The locus of control was measured (Schjoedt and Shaver, 2012) and information was collected on some personal variables. An analysis of hierarchical clusters was conducted to group clients with similar characteristics, as well as a discriminant analysis, to characterize the groups obtained.

The selected Schwartz values, the locus of control and personal characteristics (such as educational level, age and gender) proved to be efficient in discriminating between four groups or profiles of low-income entrepreneurs: those “Focused on progress through effort,” “Independent and ambitious young people,” those “Focused on power and achievement” and those who were “Indifferent.” The results of the cluster analysis were validated using discriminant analysis, which identified the variables with the greatest impact for the characterization of each group. The coefficients of the discriminant functions would allow the classification of a new individual requesting a microcredit into one of the groups obtained. This is a proposal to complement the selection process mechanisms currently used to decide whether or not to grant loans, which must be validated in conclusive studies.

The results cannot be generalized until the study is replicated in representative samples in other entities of the microfinance sector.

The main contribution of this work is the integration of individual values in the profile description of low-income entrepreneurs and in the use of statistical strategies such as cluster analysis and discriminant function. The nature of the study is exploratory: the development of this line of research can guide future decisions about which clients (according to their values, personal characteristics and locus of control) could receive their financial support. When considering these non-traditional variables in the banking context, the aim is to enrich our knowledge about low-income entrepreneurs.

El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar cuáles son las características personales y los valores individuales de los emprendedores populares venezolanos, según el marco teórico del modelo de Schwartz.

Se seleccionó una muestra probabilística estratificada de 416 individuos, de una base de datos de clientes de Bangente beneficiarios de microcréditos entre 1999 y 2016, del Distrito Capital de Venezuela. Se aplicó el Portrait Value Questionnarie (PVQ) (Schwartz, 2003; Peiró y Palencia, 2009) para medir los valores poder, autodirección, estimulación y logro. Se midió el locus de control (Schjoedt y Shaver, 2012) y se recopiló información sobre algunas variables personales. Se llevó a cabo un análisis de conglomerados jerárquicos para agrupar clientes con características similares y un análisis discriminante para caracterizar los grupos obtenidos.

Los valores de Schwartz seleccionados, el locus de control y las características personales (como nivel educativo, edad y género) mostraron ser eficientes para discriminar de forma significativa entre cuatro grupos o perfiles de emprendedores populares: “orientados al progreso por esfuerzo,” “jóvenes independientes y ambiciosos,” “focalizados en el poder y logro” e “indiferentes.” Los resultados del análisis de conglomerados fueron validados por análisis discriminante, que permitió identificar las variables de mayor impacto para la caracterización de cada grupo. Los coeficientes de las funciones discriminantes permitirían clasificar a un nuevo individuo solicitante de microcréditos en alguno de los grupos obtenidos; esta es una propuesta complementaria a los mecanismos de selección actualmente utilizados para decidir la concesión de los créditos, que deberá ser validada en estudios concluyentes.

No se pueden generalizar los resultados hasta que el estudio se replique en muestras representativas en otras entidades del sector microfinanciero.

La mayor contribución de este trabajo está en la integración de los valores individuales en la descripción del perfil de los emprendedores populares y en el uso de estrategias estadísticas como el análisis de conglomerados y la función discriminante. La naturaleza del estudio es exploratoria: el desarrollo de esta línea de investigación puede orientar en el futuro las decisiones acerca de a cuáles clientes (de acuerdo con sus valores, características personales y locus de control) podrían dirigir su apoyo financiero. Al considerar estas variables no tradicionales en el contexto de la banca, se pretende enriquecer el conocimiento sobre los emprendedores populares.