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To be actively antiracist requires an internal reckoning, what Chicana activist and scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa referred to as “el arrebato.” Used to describe the first of seven cycles through which conocimiento, or knowledge, is formed, el arrebato presents a shift in the understanding of the world as it has been prescribed by both patriarchy and white supremacy. This paper will use Anzaldúa's Seven Stages of Conocimiento to trace a Latinx librarian's journey in unlearning white supremacy toward a shift to antiracist practices.

This ethnography follows the author from her time as a Diversity Alliance resident librarian in an R1 library to her current position as a tenure-track librarian in a primarily white institution, outlining how the seven stages have led toward active interrogation of not only library structures but with the legacy of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous discourse within her own Latinx identity.

As an ongoing reflective practice, this paper presents a journey of learning and unlearning toward critically deconstructing the culture of “niceness” within librarianship, where the principles of neutrality and vocational awe lend to library structures that place responsibility on the individual for institutional trauma rather than rightly examining and reconstructing the environments and structures themselves.

This autoethnography presents the viewpoint of a first-generation Latinx librarian growing up in a tricultural context in the Midwest.

The success of Europe 1992 has compelled both the Pacific Rim and the Americas into examining economic unions. The United States has entered into a Free Trade Agreement with Canada and has begun serious negotiations with Mexico for a like treaty. What are the possibilities of the formation of a Common Market of North America? What are the necessary prerequisites for this to occur? And what would it look like? What are the business implications of such a Free Trade Area? In this paper we examine these issues.

The maquiladora industry is a manufacturing system that utilizes the Mexican workforce and foreign investment and technology on the border region between the USA and Mexico. This study seeks to explore managerial support and employee involvement as well as quality processes (internal enablers) and supplier selection criteria (external factors) in the maquiladora industry with respect to ISO 9000 certification.

The enablers of ISO certification were studied through a survey instrument and extensive field interviews with experts of maquiladora plants in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Based on a 78 percent response rate (171 usable questionnaires) and 11 in‐depth interviews of quality experts in eight industries, statistical analyses including reliability and validity analyses, factor analyses, tests of hypothesis, and ANOVA were performed.

The four hypotheses developed were verified. Based on the analyses, ISO‐certified companies exemplified better and longer‐term relationships with main/core suppliers, greater top managerial support and employee involvement and communication, and more effective quality processes than those of non ISO‐certified companies.

The results of the study could assist maquiladoras to improve their internal and external enablers in order to have a better chance of achieving ISO certification. Likewise, the headquarters of the maquiladoras could benefit from the identification and recognition of these internal and external enablers.

The quality of products manufactured in maquiladoras should be congruent with the parts and products produced in their headquarters. The paper addresses the role and importance of ISO certification for both maquiladoras and their headquarters. The headquarters could provide the necessary support and resources for achievement or ISO certification in maquiladoras.

These days every important trend in business converges on the decision to relocate.

Presents the results of a study on quality management infrastructure practices and quality performance in manufacturing companies located in the North and Central regions of Mexico and the US Midwest region. Seven quality management infrastructure practices – top management support, strategic quality planning, quality information availability, employee training, supplier quality, customer focus, and quality citizenship – were assessed and compared. The research covered 372 manufacturing companies in both countries. Our findings show significant differences between the three regions. Companies located in the North region of Mexico exhibit significantly better levels of quality management infrastructure practices than companies located in the US Midwest and Central Mexico regions. Implications for decision‐makers for location, outsourcing, and joint ventures are discussed.

The paper aims to test the direct and mediating effects of a set of environmental (family self‐employment background, social networks, legal system support, governmental support, and social norms) and individual (entrepreneurial self‐efficacy and risk propensity) factors on the propensity for self‐employment in the USA and Mexico.

A survey was administrated among students in three universities in the USA and in two universities in Mexico. Factor, reliability, t‐tests, and regression analyses were carried out. Mediation was assessed following Baron and Kenny.

Most direct and mediating effects were higher for the USA than for Mexico. Entrepreneurial self‐efficacy fully mediated several factor relationships in both countries. Results suggest a pattern of a strong formal institutions‐individual nexus in the USA, and a strong informal institutions‐individual nexus as well as a significant impact of the individual in Mexico.

The main weaknesses of this paper are the simple linear relationships used and the student sample. Nonetheless, the efforts carried out to develop this research and the set of factors considered point in the direction of the type of studies needed to further understanding of the phenomenon.

The paper suggests that effectiveness of self‐employment policy may improve by better matching knowledge about mental schemata, perceived resources, and perceived contexts by the target population with the incentive infrastructure supplied.

The value of this paper is that it studies, using an eclectic theoretical framework, a relatively large set of individual and environmental factors impacting the propensity for self‐employment in two different national contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative levels of multiple individual and environmental factors that influence self‐employment motivation in China, Mexico, and the USA and the effect of each factor on motivation for self‐employment in each country.

A survey was administered to 987 students at universities in the USA (n=535), Mexico (n=195), and China (n=257). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to assure measurement model fit. Hypotheses were tested using ANOVA tests and regression analyses.

Results indicate that: the USA has the individual and environmental factors most favorable to self‐employment; Mexico has the highest level of motivation for self‐employment; independence and risk taking are the best predictors of motivation for self‐employment in all three countries; the predictive capability of independence, risk taking, and social networks appears similar for China and the USA; and the predictive capability of informal institutions, government support, and legal support appears similar for China and Mexico.

In spite of abundant research on factors involving motivation for self‐employment, little research has tested relationships among sizable sets of these factors in different countries. This paper examines the effects of multiple individual and environmental factors on self‐employment motivation in China, Mexico, and the USA.

Previous studies have focused on individual preferences regarding trade liberalization without considering an individual’s perceptions of income inequality. This study aims to utilize the 2007 Latinobarametro to test a hypothesis regarding the relationship between an individual’s perceived income inequality and their support for trade liberalization in their country. The authors focus primarily on Latin America, as it is a region that has a long, entrenched tradition of income inequality with far reaching political and economic consequences. It is also a region that is relatively new to trade liberalization, as it only began to open up in the 1980s, after a decade-long commitment to import substitution industrialization.

The authors utilize a logit model to analyze the 2007 Latinobarametro data to test the hypothesis.

The authors find that individuals who perceive income inequality to be fair in their country are more likely to support trade liberalization, whereas those who perceive income inequality to be unfair are less likely to support liberalization.

This study allows for a more complete portrait of what influences individual preferences toward trade policy and advocates for policy elites to be more responsive to their citizens’ concerns about trade liberalization.

Maquiladora plants are foreign‐owned plants operating in Mexico and represent a pre‐North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) mechanism to reduce tariffs on the assembly of component parts and finished products for re‐export. Maquilas first opened along the Mexican‐US border in the mid‐1960s to provide employment for Mexican workers as well as cheap labor for low‐skilled US manufacturers. Beginning in 1999 the industry started experiencing a sharp decline, which cost jobs and closed factories on both sides of the border. This study applies grounded theory to develop an initial understanding of the factors contributing to the success (and failure) of maquiladora realized strategies, that is, performed operating behaviors and the role of culture in the results these operations achieve. Broadly, these factors include internal relationships (with both management and line employees) and external relationships (both organizational and governmental). The study culminates in a series of suggestions for increasing the likelihood of success of maquiladoras and proposes the applicability of these factors in other multinational operations in labor‐intensive industries.