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The paper aims to examine the expanding broadband “digital divide” as a warning that developing countries are falling behind in the upgrade of their telecommunication networks, specially the access network. It points out the deteriorated financial conditions facing developing countries in the context of the global economic crisis that adversely affects the availability of resources to invest in network infrastructure.

The paper is based on a review and analysis of relevant literature and the outcomes of significant ICT for development events.

The existing economic mechanisms in international communications networks establish the financial flows in favor of the developed countries, thus thwarting any attempt to increase its net external income that could be used in investments in telecommunications infrastructure. On the other hand, convergence and the migration to next generation networks present a new set of opportunities and challenges to establish an international interconnection regime that will allow the developing countries to recover the investment in infrastructure.

The scarcity of publicly available economic data of the current international interconnection agreements suggests the necessity to conduct further research in this area.

The failure to establish a non‐discriminatory international interconnection regime could lead to economic unsustainability of international networks in the long run. The paper presents some recommendations to address this issue.

This paper presents an approximation to an important issue of international telecommunication networks that is usually hidden behind the confidentiality of services contracts.

Taking as reference a sample of around a hundred biographical materials on entrepreneurs in Mexico and Colombia, the purpose of this chapter is dual. Both to show the relevance and varied modalities that the biographical approach has enjoyed in business history research since the 1990s, and to display the intrinsic potential this modality of scholarship entails for entrepreneurship endeavors. In particular, it discusses the prospects to incorporate this body of empirical works into the large Latin American audience attending undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs in business, economic history and related fields. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first two are devoted to illustrate relevant patterns in the entrepreneurial trajectory of individuals and entrepreneurial families studied in each of the two countries under consideration. The last section identifies some conceptual issues that may impact current debates on Latin American business development as exemplified in recent business and economic history journal venues and scholarly conferences.

The purpose of this paper is to present alternative management practice methods for the cultural heritage sector apart from the traditional public support model. These alternatives rely on sponsorship and patronage as well as the newer and more innovative public-private partnership (PPP).

The paper is organized in two conceptual sections based on a literature review. The first section presents and compares two closely associated business strategy forms that are increasingly becoming popular within companies: sponsorship and patronage. These strategies are analyzed to show their advantages and disadvantages and are assessed based on their best uses in terms of the benefits from their implementation to all stakeholders involved (benefactors, recipients and the public) and, more particularly, to the benefactor’s company communication policy. The second section analyzes the PPP as a newer innovative practice in the cultural heritage sector, a recent development that has great potential, especially during an economic crisis where public funds are reduced, which risks the future recovery and proper maintenance of sites.

In the paper, the authors stressed that sponsorship, patronage and PPP are not merely alternative ways of primarily obtaining government funding for the cultural heritage sector but are also new strategic management practices that, when properly performed, will not only preserve and improve the sector but also allow more value to be distributed among all stakeholders.

Although the topic of PPP is treated fairly in the scientific literature, especially with regard to infrastructure, there are few cases of the application of this model to cultural heritage management.

The present paper analyzes the implementation of Open Digital Television (Televisión Digital Abierta or TDA) in Argentina. It takes up a sociotechnical standpoint and considers TDA as a public policy designed to foster social inclusion.

The ideas presented in this paper are derived from a sociotechnical perspective, both at a theoretical and at a methodological level. The main postulates of this perspective are based on constructivist criteria; they explain outcomes as a result of the constant interplay of technical and social realities. Thus, this relation is intrinsic and continuous. We work with the concept of technology in its broadest sense. That is to say, TDA is not seen as just a mass communication infrastructure, but as a technology which involves knowledge, production practices, and content broadcasting, as a result of the interrelation of cultural, political, social, economic, scientific, and technological factors. The study of TDA in Argentina as a public policy for social inclusion shows how the constant sociotechnical interrelations have to be taken into account (technical standard, antenna features, social actors involved, produced content, etc.) throughout the whole process, from the conception and design of public policies to their implementation, but mainly at the stage of results analysis.

We concluded that throughout the implementation of the TDA public policy, a determinist view of technology prevailed. This can be seen in relation to both the role of television as a medium for social inclusion and the actions regarding the role of the user. The idea of viewer in the traditional sense prevailed over the idea of an active user. This stage provides significant data to assess the range and the limitations of the current public policy, and to think of improvements to implement in the future. These observations suggest a new challenge lying on the horizon: to construct a new concept of television; that is, to analyze TV as a social actor that is crucial for social inclusion rather than simply a medium of mass communication.

The sociotechnical perspective sheds light on the actors involved in the development, implementation, and production of a public policy designed for social inclusion. It focuses both on the government plan and the usage practices of the users themselves. The approach we propose for the study of the relation between technology and public policy is consistent with the notion of an active government.

The value of this paper lies in its theoretical and methodological approach, since a sociotechnical analysis grounded on relativism is a different view to the one that is dominant in studies in the field of communication and public policies. This view offers innovative insights into the problems regarding TDA by exploring the interrelations between actors and the power relations embedded in the public policy.

Most studies on work–life support at workplaces consider work–life balance to be a women’s issue, either explicitly or implicitly. This chapter analyses how fathers who are involved caregivers are supported or hindered in attaining work–life balance by their workplaces. It explores the following three questions: (1) why fathers value some job adaptations over others compared with mothers; (2) how organizational cultures influence the work–life balance of new fathers and (3) what differences exist across public and private sectors as well as large versus small companies. A qualitative approach with three discussion groups and 22 involved fathers enables us to explore these issues for large companies, public sector workplaces and small businesses. We find that tight time schedules, flextime, telework, schedule control and fully paid nontransferable leaves of absence constitute policies that favor involved fatherhood, while measures without wage replacement generate fear of penalization in the workplace and do not fit the persistent relevance of the provider role. In addition, un-similar supervisors, envy, lack of understanding and gender stereotypes among co-workers and clients constitute cultural barriers at the workplace level. Contrary to our expectations, small businesses may offer a better work–life balance than large companies, while the public sector is not always as family-friendly as assumed.

This paper aims to examine how an innovative concept was introduced to a new market segment through varied marketing techniques.

Newspapers from 1958 were reviewed to assess the impact of a chocolate company advertising campaign targeting children. The paper examines the interpretation of the campaign message and the information contained in an album of collectable cards.

Parents leave the teaching role in the hands of companies when they do not clearly understand new technologies such as nuclear energy. Companies can take advantage of what governments introduce into the market to increase their sales.

The originality of the paper lies in the examination of collectable cards as a means of researching marketing history and contributes to the study of market segmentation, particularly in the case of children, focussing on nuclear energy.

This work presents a review of the state of the art of the present century on academic and scientific production in Latin America related to the concept of Social Innovation. The analysis is based on articles published in indexed journals, which makes it possible to understand the existing asymmetry between the conceptual and theoretical veins, of the case studies, as well as of good social innovation practices that have been published in recent years. These debates have in some cases transcended public policies, as well as business and social realities where social innovation is a mechanism and strategy for personal, social, and territorial development. Finally, a Latin American community of researchers and academics around social innovation must be consolidated, who choose to continue building theoretical-empirical bodies following the Latin American reality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.

Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.

Purpose: This chapter explores the current hybridization between true crime and nonfiction investigative documentaries on Video on Demand (VOD) platforms. It would seem necessary to distinguish true crime productions from long-form journalistic documentaries in order to avoid confusion between different products that do not pursue the same ends, such as audiovisual products with highly emotive and engaging components versus a journalistic approach to the truth about what happened. Methodology/approach: The analysis is based on the specific theory of true crime developed by Punnett, who provides genuine narrative codes (Justice, Subversive, Geographic, Forensic, Vocative, and Folkloric) for true crime to distinguish it from the formal conventions and social objectives of journalistic documentaries. The case study (El crimen de Alcàsser) was selected because of its potential to drive a detailed and in-depth study on one of the most traumatic crimes in the country’s recent history: the kidnapping, rape, torture, and killing of three teenagers in 1992. Findings: Several scholars have identified journalistic elements in true crime productions in the digital context, adopted in an attempt to distance them from the true crime tradition of appealing to primitive instincts. Although it has been perceived also as a renewed formula for journalism to reach a wide audience and mainstream success, it banishes journalism from its origin and goals: to guarantee the citizenship’s right to be truly informed about crime. In this way, journalistic documentaries inspired by real crimes may play a crucial role in a democratic society, while true crime only exploits the empathy of viewers and places them in the active participation of determining the suspect-protagonist’s guilt as a mode of “clickable” entertainment in the digital culture. Research limitations: This is the first in a series of studies within a broader research project on true crime documentaries released on the VOD platforms in Spain. The findings are, in this case, preliminary. The analysis needs additional testing before its utility can be reasonably determined and a theory about true crime made in Spain could be developed. Originality: First, there is no specific research in the field of true crime in Spain, although crime stories already enjoyed a prominent place in Spain’s conventional TV programming. Second, the Punnett analysis model introduces an interesting way to complement existing theoretical references about the connections between true crime and journalism.