Nancy Cartwright combines elements from Aristotle, with others of Mill, and modern thinkers, as Elizabeth Anscombe and Ian Hacking, among others. This paper will address some tensions present in Cartwright’s thinking. It will propose that those problems might be overcome by a greater reliance on Aristotle and Anscombe’s thought. These tensions, the paper will argue, obey in part to her reliance on Mill. Cartwright understands scientific explanation in terms of stable causes, which she calls “capacities” or “natures”. Cartwright’s program aims at defining what capacities are (ontology), how they are known (epistemology), and how we use them. Cartwright opposes Hume’s reduction of causality to regularity of mere associations. Cartwright also opposes covering-law supporters because they do not consider causes; they merely include the so-“probed” singular case within a general covering law. Otherwise, Cartwright agrees with Mill’s proposal of “tendencies” which she identifies with her “capacities”. According to Cartwright, Mill’s tendencies are not tendencies of events but tendency factors or stable real causes. These tendencies or capacities may give rise to Cartwright’s so called “nomological machines”, stable configurations of components with determinate capacities properly shielded and repeatedly running. Cartwright’s proposal has been criticized in different ways. Margaret Morrison highlights first, a tension between the singular and universal aspects of capacities. Cartwright looks for a concept stronger and more general than Humean laws but she puts singular causes first. Second, Morrison also sees in Cartwright a conflict between her empiricism and capacities. For singular capacities to be stronger than Humean general laws supposes a metaphysical commitment that makes verification unnecessary. How could a person be empiricist and metaphysic at the same time? Finally, Morrison considers that Mill’s tendencies differ in important way from Cartwright’s capacities. Another point of criticism is her “local realism”, a disunified view of sciences. A final criticism is her skepticism about the possibility of explanation in social sciences. The paper will first analyze the Cartwright – Mill connection, then the Cartwright – Anscombe and finally the Cartwright – Aristotle connection. The tensions mentioned above will be solved by Cartwright’s arguments, based in Anscombe and Aristotle, and by complementary Aristotelian elements. The paper will also argue for the skepticism of Cartwright concerning a successful explanation in natural and (mostly) in social sciences. The problem of her interpretation of Mill will be tackled in the first section about the Cartwright – Mill connection. The problem of the tension singularism-universalism, will appear in the section about the Cartwright – Anscombe connection. The tension empiricism-metaphysics, and the problem of her disunified view of science, in the section about the Cartwright – Aristotle connection. This last section will also include an Aristotelian account and development of the statements of Cartwright concerning social sciences. Thus, the conclusion will be that there is still much we can learn from Aristotle with respect to economics and social theory.

Upon becoming general manager of Artesanías de Colombia (AC), Paola Andrea Muñoz Jurado faced the challenge of redefining the company strategy. AC was a mixed ownership company aimed at fostering, promoting and marketing Colombian handicraft, thus creating attractive job and economic development opportunities for artisans, a low-income sector mostly of indigenous origin. Soon after assuming as general manager, Paola engaged herself in reviewing the company´s previous management in order to plan her next steps. In doing this, it was key to assess the true impact on society of the activities carried out during the previous 16 years under her predecessor, Cecilia Duque’s leadership. The present case allows students to work on a no-for-profit organization strategy, with a strong social orientation, and evaluate value creation within a complex network of relationships with a strong economic, social and cultural impact.

In June 2001, Empresa Editora El Comercio (EEEC) had launched a new popular newspaper, Trome, for low-income families. Although several studies had preceded this launch, sales in following months failed to reach expected levels and actually displayed a decreasing trend. Trome embodied the company’s effort to expand its news coverage to new population segments that were not served by its other newspaper, El Comercio –a traditional daily leading unaided recall and frequent readership rankings among high-income sectors. Six months after Trome’s launch and faced with dropping sales, company managers had met to discuss their options. This case describes management team members’ dilemmas at that meeting: “Should the new paper’s style and contents be changed? Should Trome focus more on sex and violence-related issues, as its competitors did? Would it be convenient to replace the silverware promotion chosen to support launching? Was the conflict with newspaper salesmen’s union adequately managed? Were intended readers’ needs truly and fully understood? Should the company re-launch Trome or would it be wiser to just give up on this project?

Innovation- New Product Development (NPD) and the best practices (BP) (Kahn, 2006), are considered to be core sources of sustained competitive advantage and growth (Barney, 1991). Our research is an empirical cross-case study, which aims to study BP in firms operating in economies in Stage 2 and Transition from Stage 2 to Stage 3 of development (e.g. Hungry, Poland, Argentina) according to the WEF’s competitiveness classification (López-Claros, 2006). A frame work to array best NPD practices and effective implementation had been developed based on more than twenty-five Chilean and Argentinean companies. The objective is to clarify the contribution of best NPD practices to firms’ innovation performance (IP). The best NPD practices were selected after a careful study of literature (Dooley 2002; Cooper 2004) and have been distributed in three dimensions: internal networking, development of innovation strategy and external networking. Innovation performance has been measured in terms of a) frequency of firm’s new product launch; b) innovativeness of new products. Although BP have demonstrated to be associated with performance improvement through broad real-life implementation, no single practice can guarantee success. The effectiveness of BP strongly depends on implementation context and its strategic impact (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000). CEOs of the case-studies firms were asked to characterize the implementation (Szulanski, 1996) of the best NPD practices on the basis of 5-point Likert-scale. Some of the dimensions used are: a) perceived contribution of each practice to the IP; b) mechanisms used to incorporate each practice; c) degree of involvement of the organization, resources assigned and the hierarchy of the implementation leader. Our main theoretical and managerial contribution highlights that the impact of the best NPD practices on the IP depends on a balance between strategically selected practices and implementation pattern of the practices. To our knowledge, little research has been done on the contribution of best NPD practices to the firms’ IP in efficiency-driven economies. Thus, we expect this paper will encourage scholars and practitioners to further explore this field.

The paper discusses the problem of valuation in emerging markets. After briefly explaining difficulties faced by investors trying to apply standard valuation techniques in emerging economies, we propose a novel approach that allows for a deeper examination of the so called country risk. The suggested approach is based on the intuition that one can do better by including country risk in the expected cash flows rather than by embedding it into the discount rate. We propose to do so by using simulation models to estimate truly expected cash flows, which can then be discounted using the standard CAPM.

There is little doubt that organizational identity – that which is central, distinctive, and enduring about an organization – mediates in adaptive processes. Exactly how this mediation takes place, and whether it is favorable or unfavorable to adaptation, must still be fully established. We add to the literature on identity and adaptation by exploring the relationship between these two constructs in family firms operating in an emerging economy. Based on measures of strength of identity, we examine how identity affects the adaptive processes of issue identification, strategic impulse definition, and implementation, where we look at pace of adjustment. We find that strong-identity organizations are able to foresee relevant changes in their industries, define adequate strategic responses, and implement them in an evolutionary (i.e., smooth) manner. Conversely, loose-identity organizations misread industry trends, incur in strategic paralysis, and must eventually enforce revolutionary (i.e., violent) changes in order to ensure survival.

This case study examines the ongoing international dispute involving two Latin American countries, Argentina and Uruguay, initiated by the latter’s approval of two Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) pulp mill projects on the River Uruguay’s –their natural boundary– eastern coast. On October 2003 the Uruguayan government approved the FDI venture proposed by the Spanish firm ENCE (Empresa Nacional de Celulosa de España S. A.); on February 2005 President Batlle’s administration –two weeks prior to President elected Tabaré Vázquez’s inauguration- announced the approval of Finnish Botnia’s (Oy Metsä-Botnia Ab) Orion pulp mill project in a location only a few miles away from ENCE’s site. The Argentinean government protested claiming that the permits granted, without due prior consultations, breached the provisions of the River Uruguay’s Treaty (1961) and Statute (1975), which both countries signed. Strong social opposition to the projects arose in Gualeguaychú, the closest Argentinean city on the western coast of the river, claiming that impending environmental and socioeconomic damages suffice to prevent the operation of pulp mills in the area.

This empirical single case study studies the role played by successive New Product Developments (NPDs), conducted within transnational Technological Alliances (TAs), on an Argentinean Small to Medium size Enterprise (SME) active in its home country agricultural seed breeding sector along the last twenty five years. This explanatory case exposes how the firm´s management faced the challenges posed by different NPDs based on transnational TAs. A within-case analysis of two collaborations, with polar outcomes, between the Argentinean SME and, in both instances, an American counterpart was conducted with the purpose of identifying the relevant factors which intervened in these particular inter organizational collaborations´ outcomes. This article is grounded on existing bodies of literature on NPDs and on TAs. Although this study focuses on only one Argentinean SME our approach can’t support decision makers in private and public organizations with a focus on biotechnological SMEs.

In this paper we introduce the sociological concept of mediation. We intend to answer the question of purpose: the undergoing reason why a person acts. That is, how people working in enterprises find a reason to act disruptively, giving up expected (and assumed) normal management parameters. The outline of this paper follows the concept of mediation. In Section I, we will analyze the Mediating Institutions (MI) approach first suggested as mediating structures by Ber-ger and Neuhaus, and developed by Madden and then by Fort. Why would a probably marginal theory be interesting? We think that it is suggestive in many ways. First of all, because it deals with a key concept for the social sciences as it is the concept of institu-tion. Following Malinowski, institutions are “definite groups of men united by a charter, following rules of conduct, operating together a shaped portion of the environment, and working for the satisfaction of definite needs." (1973: 291). Defined like this, institu-tions focus on the common action, thus, it gives us the opportunity to search for the meaning and purpose of the action. Secondly, we find this proposition free from the assumptions and limitations of the classical (and neoclassical) economic paradigm (Ferraro, Pfeffer and Sutton, 2005) We consider the MI approach as an opportunity to enhance the human action. In section II, we will discuss the mediation process as it is suggested by Margaret S. Archer introducing it to the peculiarities of the business life. We consider that the proc-ess of mediation is powerful to explain the way that managers go through day to day dilemmas in their work. We state that the search for personal purpose and meaning, in some way, is intimate and deeply related to the purpose of the firm, and to the purpose a person may give to his or her business. We will try to look for the relationships between the business end (expressed in its culture, incentives, processes, etc.), and the end a per-son can adopt in his action.

The present study tests the theoretical framework on how CEOs add value proposed by Carrera et al (2006). According to this model, CEOs must manage three main processes for accomplishing their mission of providing continuity to their organizations: Business, Management, and Institutional Configuration Processes. This study tests the model through a survey with 89 CEOs, from medium to large Argentine firms and multinational companies within Argentina. Research results backed up the theoretical framework. To a further extent the study evidences inconsistencies between CEOs perception of their main concerns and the actual allocation of time they do daily to their tasks. In addition, by sample segmentation (concerning age, experience, capital origin and type of organization analysed), some broad differences among CEOs arose.

This paper presents three proposals for aligning personal motives, firm’s goals and societal needs. A growing number of scholars are turning their attention to the impact of assumptions on management theory and practice. The search for sustainable ways for aligning economic and social goals at different levels of analysis has been and it continues to be a key task of scholars from different disciplines and, therefore, management studies. This paper aims at contributing to the effort of these scholars by revisiting the dominant assumption underlying the relationship between economic and social goals and proposing alternative models for a sustainable alignment between people, firms and society in management studies and practices. In order to achieve this aim, this paper first revisits the assumptions and impact on practice of the dominant paradigm explaining the relationship between firm performance and societal needs. This paradigm, coined “the great trade-off illusion” –that is, the belief that firms must sacrifice financial performance to meet societal obligations-, assumes a permanent trade-off between economic and social performance and, therefore, is unable to explain and prescribe sustainable ways for aligning personal motives, firm’s goals and societal needs. After making explicit the assumptions and impact of the trade-off illusion dichotomy, this paper analyzes and build an alternative paradigm called “instrumental-alignment”. As in the case of the trade-off dichotomy, the instrumental alignment proposal does not allow for a sustainable alignment given its restrictive assumptions. In particular, this latter proposal is based on the assumptions of enlightened self-interest, profit maximization, societal material well-being, and a conflict between individual and collective rationalities, which create inherent trade-offs that create unsustainable alignments. In order to overcome the limitations of the trade-off and instrumental-alignment models, this paper proposes a third model, named “intrinsic alignment”. This model is based on the assumptions of excellence and practical or part-whole rationality, in which both self-interest and others´ interests are taken into account as ends and therefore are not assumed to be object of trade-offs. Therefore, this model allows a sustainable alignment between personal motives, firm goals, and societal needs because that alignment has value in itself. This paper ends with implications for academics, managers, and policy makers at the level of assumptions, practices, and outcomes.

This paper examines a new inter-organizational form which is emerging from collaborative innovation processes within and across communities of firms operating in complementary markets. Idea sharing think tanks around high tech centers at leading universities and, more generally, around clusters, are well-documented phenomena. These inter-organizational processes and forms rest on collaborative capabilities. However, mainstream theories and even policies aimed at developing these capabilities are based on an incomplete set of assumptions about human nature, which constrain the very development of capabilities sought by them. The argument of this paper is that the sustainability of the processes and results of the emergent inter-organizational communities depends on a richer set of assumptions about human nature than that provided by mainstream management theories. The risks and demands involved in the design and operation of cross-organization collaborative communities require a challenging set of assumptions about human nature, which go far beyond the notion of enlightened self-interest embedded in neo-classical economics and even beyond the more complex models of human needs and motivation currently employed. Building on this argument and the evaluation of actual communities of firms, this paper contributes an inter-organizational network model based on the assumptions about human motives and choice offered by Aristotle. The conclusions of this paper are twofold. First, it argues that enlightened self-interest hinders rather than fosters the process of developing collaborative capabilities, given that this process will stop when difficulties affecting the pay-offs of the relationship arise in the short run. Second, it explains that a set of assumptions that takes both self-regarding and other’ regarding preferences as ends is required in order to develop and sustain collaborative capabilities in the analyzed inter-organizational communities. Members of such communities have to understand and share these assumptions on a continuing basis in order to sustain their collaborative efforts and outcomes.

Over the past few decades, strong competition and globalisation featured by world markets have led companies to pursue internationalisation strategies for their supply management in order to effectively support their globalisation process. Current literature shows how significant global sourcing and purchasing strategies are for global supply strategy (GSS) development –specifically when related to supply globalisation purchasing decision centralisation. Nevertheless, other dimensions are discussed as relevant for supporting GSS deployment, such as Buyer-Supplier Relationships and Headquarters – Subsidiaries Relationships. These are regarded by many authors as key issues to support global supply development and to guarantee adequate performance. This research, a sample of seven Italian MNCs operating in Latin America’s MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market) region, aims to explore the process of GSS definition and development, by focusing on the key dimensions and by identifying the driver criteria used in each case, as well as their impact on decision-making processes.

This study explores the firm-specific, industry and country effects for firms competing in an emerging market context. For the whole sample, we find that the firm-specific effect is the most important and relatively the same in magnitude than that of developed countries. However, when analyzing the sub-sample of abnormal performers, we found that the firm-specific effect decreases and context-specific effects (i.e., industry and country effects) significantly increase. In addition, permanent effects are greater in high performers than in average performers. We understand these results as evidence of the importance of selecting the adequate strategic group in the industry and of establishing the correct fit between capabilities and positioning.

In August 2002, Aguas Danone de Argentina (ADA) faced an adverse scenario. Argentina was undergoing its worst economic crisis in history, and bottled water sales were dwindling (replaced by utility network running water). The company needed to boost its revenues through new, innovating, more value-added product development. Argentina displayed a significant interest in fitness. By means of several market research studies, ADA managed to identify a segment whose needs were unmet by existing products and brands. New product launches were planned to target that segment. This case describes the dilemmas faced by ADA and the decisions required to formulate and pursue a strategy for new product launching and brand expansion in adverse scenarios. More specifically, this case provides an opportunity to discuss how a new product category can be created to address market downturns.

As characterized by Fehr and Gachter (2000), “reciprocity means that in response to friendly actions, people are frequently much nicer and much more cooperative than predicted by the self interest model.” According to S. Zamagni, reciprocity entails deep relational aspects. A may reciprocate B in a way that is not comparable to economic exchange. A would keep certain equilibrium in reciprocating. However, reciprocity does not require this equilibrium to be necessarily exact; it is often overabundant. In addition, reciprocity may be fulfilled by returning something of a different kind that may be heterogeneous and incommensurable with the thing received. Sometimes it means that A gives to B with the expectation that B will give something to C, and that the chain will go on, and in some way finally return to A. This does not occur always or necessarily. The reason of this uneven response of reciprocity is that in these situations an exchange of means is not only in play, but also the ends of the persons are. Hence, the consideration of reciprocity in economics is in line with the considerations of ends in economics, recently rehabilitated by the capabilities approaches and the theories of happiness. This paper firstly endeavours to summarise a variety of arguments for a reconsideration of ends in economics. This line of enquiry hints at a considerable challenge to economic science. The logical structure of the rationality of ends (practical rationality) differs from the one of means (instrumental rationality). The paper intends secondly to explain the differences between both rationalities and some of the consequences of incorporating this new emphasis on ends. Practical rationality harmonizes the complex set of constitutive ends in order to achieve a plan. This plan, however, is not perfectly designed: people must deal with the future, the complexity and the singularity of situations. All these conditions turn plans incomplete, uncertain, and underspecified. Human time, rationality and freedom open the practical realm. Consequently, the relation among these elements (different levels of ends and means) is dynamic involving shifting elements. Notwithstanding, there is a general unspecified final end and a preliminary plan or draught of components of the yearned happy life: material conditions, family-life, friendship, social-life, professional development, culture, art, religion, political and economic freedom, among others. These ends are simultaneously sought in themselves and as means to reach a final end. The instrumental character of these ends and of means should not be confused. Ends are not interchangeable conditions but constitutive parts that are also valuable in themselves. A key resulting difference between both logics and rationalities – i.e. instrumental and practical rationalities – lies in the problem of incommensurability of ends which emerges in the second kind of rationality. This problem that will thirdly be tackled in the paper turns illegitimate the use of maximization in the realm of ends. I hence propose that there is a possible way to overcome this problem, different from the one that an economist might have instinctively adopted. In such cases, making a decision should depend on practical comparability, not on the commensuration of ends: the result is not exact but it is the only feasible and sensible one sometimes. In addition, this procedure is not irrational. The paper will finally sustain that practical comparability allows for incommensurable fair reciprocation.    

Innovation (Bates and Flynn, 1995) as well as the so-called best practices (Kahn et al., 2006; Marjorie et al. 2006; Davies and Kochhar, 2002), are considered to be sources of sustained competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). This empirical cross-case study (Yin, 1981; Eisenhardt, 1989) analyses the way an array of best New Product Development (NPD) practices is implemented in nine private manufacturing companies, in order to clarify the contribution of best NPD practices to the firms’ innovation performance in efficiency-driven economies (López-Claros et al., 2006).  

Interlocking directorates is a widely studied, applied measure of governance practice. Most of the research has been limited to data from developed countries and studies interlocking as an independent variable explaining other governance constructs. This work studies interlocking as a rational decision of the owner of a company, as a dependent variable of board's design, and apply the concepts in an emerging market business environment. We found significant associations between interlocking and firm characteristics such as ownership structure, industry and regulation. We finally draw some conclusions on the direct application of corporate governance theories in developing countries.

 Management style is a useful barometer of competitive behavior and, as such, offers an opportunity to measure and evaluate competition, confrontation, control and cooperation in business affairs. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an examination of comparative management styles between U. S. and Argentine managers. Research results indicate that, in reviewing differences in the four measured attributes of managerial decision style, Argentine management style is significantly different in important ways from that of its U. S. counterpart. This is important due to the large and growing number of contacts between managers in an increasingly global environment.

 The acceleration of change in economics, society, technology and politics has triggered environmental challenges affecting businesses worldwide. Hyper-competition has given rise to a new interest in the dynamics of adaptation and in firms’ adaptive capabilities as a means of responding to uncertain market conditions. This paper explores the relationship between organizational identity and adaptive capabilities under the environmental volatility that characterised Argentina in the 1990s. Using coding techniques of discourse analysis, we study the influence of loose versus strong organizational identities over the pace of adjustment and the eventual success of transformational journeys in four family-owned companies in the edible-oil and pharmaceutical industries.

The structure of these closing remarks is as follows. In the first part I present a selection of some of the propositions presented and discussed during the XIII Plenary Session. They can help the reader to perceive the speech universe of this very important session. In the second part I suggest that an integral development agenda is needed to give proper answers to the immense challenges posed by this new phase of globalization, plenty of hopes, but also plenty of threats.

 The subject of this XIII plenary session is the relations between different peoples and nations, the developed and the developing, the emerging and the poor, from the point of view of the virtues of charity and justice. We will ask ourselves whether these relations, in the light of the social Magisterium of the Church, can become more just, fairer, and more peaceful, and what the route should be to achieve such ends. In other words, is a partnership for charity and justice possible in the globalized world? In order to help us to fulfill these goals the purpose of this Introduction is twofold. The first part, that is backward looking, presents a very brief synthesis of the previous work of the Academy on globalization. The second part looks, instead, to the present and to the future, as it is focused on the identification of the new signs of the times that we should cautiously read in order to assess if they contribute or impede an improved effectiveness of charity and justice in the relations among peoples and nations at the beginning of this new millennium.

This article uses a unique research design to statistically analyze how a firm‟s “public-private” network can shape its upgrading capabilities. Such a network includes a firm‟s ties to other firms as well as to associations, cooperatives, schools, and publicly supported institutions that aim to help firms innovate. We develop our argument through an examination of the transformation of the Argentine wine industry in two provinces that uses data from a unique field survey we designed and implemented in 2004-05 to statistically analyze the relative impact of firm-level factors, inter-firm networks, and ties to non-firm organizations and institutions. While inter-firm networks are vital to upgrading, institutions bring value to firms in helping reconfigure socio-economic relationships. First, they can help firms improve process and product upgrading capabilities and “graduate” them to more sophisticated inter-firm networks. Second, linkages to institutions appear especially helpful to the extent they help the firm gain access to a variety of knowledge in different communities of producers. Governments can aid upgrading and competitiveness, especially in emerging markets, by building public-private institutions that not only offer supply-side resources to firms but also act as bridges across regions.  

This paper studies the trade receivables policy of distressed firms as the trade off between the firm’s willingness to gain sales and the firm’s need for cash. We find that firms increase trade receivables when they have profitability problems, but reduce trade receivables when they have cash flow problems in financial distress. We also find that a firm that significantly cuts its trade receivables when in financial distress will have an additional 7% drop in sales and stock returns over the previously documented 24% average drop for a firm in financial distress. Moreover, the performance decline of a firm in financial distress is significantly higher if the firm cuts trade receivables than if it does not.

This paper revisits the assumptions of the dominant theory of cooperation –i.e. game theory- in order to build an alternative paradigm of cooperation based on excellence. The relationship between self-interest and others’ interests is at the core of cooperation, broadly defined as working together for a common purpose. This relationship has been mainly approached from a conflicting perspective, which is now commonly known as social dilemma –i.e. a situation in which individual rationality, which is based on self-interest, leads to collective irrationality. This paper argues that assuming self-interest as the only motive for cooperation overlooks the human potential for fostering cooperation based on a more comprehensive view of human motives. Based on the assumption of self-interest, the mainstream approach to cooperation, game theory, has focused on different strategies and structures for fostering cooperation, without paying attention to the motivational side. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes the concept of self-love, or the inclination of human beings to strive for their own good and perfection, as an alternative lens to that of self-interest for uncovering the richness and potential of human motivation and its impact on cooperation. This paper shows that self-interest underlies only three out of eight possible generic motives for cooperation. The main thrust is that cooperation is rooted in human intentionality and conditioned, not determined, by organizational practices and contexts. The self-love view allows considering both excellence and duty as alternative bases for cooperation. These alternative motives consider both self-interest and others´ interests as ends simultaneously, which implies that they are not exchangeable commodities subject to end-means logic but qualitatively different goods subject to part-whole and practical rationality logic. This paper shows the potential richness of this approach comparing a self-interest view with an excellence view of cooperation based on cases from emerging and developed economies at both the intra-organisational and inter-organisational levels. Acknowledging that the way researchers see reality (assumptions) drives what they do (theories) and prescribe (implications for practice), this paper ends with theoretical and practical implications at the business and societal levels.

This paper revisits “the great trade-off illusion” –that is, the belief that firms must sacrifice financial performance to meet societal obligations- from the standpoint of its assumptions in order to build alternative paradigms for a sustainable alignment between personal interests, firm goals, and societal needs. The basic argument is that making explicit the assumptions on human nature, human relationships, firm goals and societal needs of the dominant paradigm is the starting point for building models and making prescriptions for a sustainable alignment. After making explicit the assumptions of the dominant trade-off illusion dichotomy and their impact on practices and outcomes, this paper analyzes an alternative paradigm called “instrumental-alignment”. This paper concludes that neither of these paradigms allows a sustainable alignment given their restrictive assumptions. In particular, the latter paradigm is based on the assumptions of enlightened self-interest, profit maximization, societal material well-being, and a conflict between individual and collective rationalities, which create inherent trade-off logic that, make alignments not sustainable: they are just instrumental to personal, firm, or societal ends. In order to overcome the limitations of the instrumental-alignment logic, this paper proposes an “intrinsic alignment” paradigm based on the assumptions of excellence and practical or part-whole rationality. In this paradigm, both self-interest and others´ interests are taken into account as ends and therefore are not assumed to be object of trade-offs. Therefore, this paradigm allows a sustainable alignment between personal interests, firm goals, and societal needs because the alignment of interests has value in itself. This paper ends with implications for academics, managers, and policy makers at the level of assumptions, practices, and outcomes.

In the past few decades, the strong competition and globalisation featured by world markets have led companies to pursue internationalisation strategies for their supply management in order to effectively support their globalisation process. Current literature shows how significant global sourcing and purchasing strategies are for global supply strategy (GSS) development –specifically as related to supply globalisation purchasing decision centralisation. All the same, other dimensions are discussed as relevant for supporting GSS deployment, such as Buyer-Supplier Relationships and Headquarters – Subsidiaries Relationships are regarded by many authors as key issues to support global supply development and to guarantee adequate performance. This research, based on the study of seven Italian Multinational Companies (MNC’s) that have expanded their operations to the MERCOSUR area, intends to explore the process of GSS definition and development, focusing on the key dimensions and identifying the driver criteria used in each of them, as well as their impact on decision-making processes.

As reported extensively in academic literature, companies have been forced by increasing global competition to devise and pursue international purchasing strategies that hinge on reducing prices and optimising quality, fulfilment, production cycle times, responsiveness and financial conditions. As a result, purchase management has turned to increased internationalisation to support companies’ globalisation processes. Specifically, research studies focusing on Multinational Companies’ (MNC) corporate purchasing strategy influence on affiliates’ global supply strategy (GSS) development reveal a strong link between two key dimensions: supply source –i.e., the level of supply globalisation as related to MNC’s worldwide operating needs- and purchase location –i.e., the level of centralisation in relevant purchasing decisions. In this research, a sample of seven Italian MNCs operating in Latin America’s MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market) region have been studied in an attempt to analyse their purchasing strategy definition and development processes. The focus of this study has zeroed in on the interactions between both dimensions and the variables used for definitions in each of them, reviewing also their impact on companies’ decision-making processes.

According to the reviewed literature, in order to build effective and efficient Global Supply Strategies(GSS), multinational companies(MNCs) need to define and implement adequate headquarter’s control and follow-up systems. In turn, the type of control used by MNCs to oversee their subsidiaries is primarily dependent on factors associated with organizational culture, company internationalization level, environmental conditions and local economic stability. In this sense our findings show that, although cultural similarities strongly influence MNC’s global supply headquarters-subsidiary control systems, other factors, such as purchasing and globalization sourcing strategy centralization and globalization evolution, lead companies to implement complementary formal control systems that are consistent with the sharply personalized profile set by cultural proximity. This research, based on the study of a sample of seven Italian MNCs that have expanded their operations to Latin America’s MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market) area, intends to analyze the impact of relevant influential factors on global supply headquarters-subsidiary control systems in cases of cultural similarities across organizations, as well as their complementary interactions.

As creating superior customer value is key to a company’s long-term success (Slater 1997, Woodruff 1997), the notion of value has been emphasized as a critical variable in marketing (Holbrook 1994). Yet, academic literature suggests that the study of customer value is in its infancy (Holbrook 1994, Day and Crask 2000, Flint, Woodruff, and Gardial 2002). Although some progress has been made in the understanding of how consumers perceive value, there is still remarkably little agreement on what constitutes ‘value’, ‘customer value’ and ‘organisational buyer value’ (Tzokas & Saren 1999). In addition, little is known about the dynamic nature of how customers perceive value from suppliers (Flint et al 2002), as most value assessment studies in business marketing typically focus on the value of the physical product, adopt a suppliers’ perspective and neglect the relational dimensions of customer-perceived value (Dwyer and Tanner 1999). This is contrary to the argument underlying the notion of “relationship” and supports the argument for a more complete understanding of the buyers’ perspective.

In 2003, after Carlos Etcheverry joined San Antonio (SA) as Latin American Region Vice President, the company implanted a KAM System. SA’s relationships with its two key clients, Vintage and Chevron, seemed to progress nicely until mid 2004, when Chevron’s newly hired Purchasing Manager decided to change the company’s commercial structure, rendering its purchasing process more bureaucratic and extremely competitive. Most purchasing area employees, all oil business veterans who had worked at the company for many years, were replaced by young professionals, predominantly with engineering or business degrees and more of a financial focus. One of the employees replaced was SA’s key contact at Chevron, with whom its Account Leader was renegotiating contract fees. Additionally, the oil company’s operations area was increasingly losing leverage in decision-making processes, moving towards an advisory-like role in supplier selection. In March 2005, Etcheverry was to meet Chevron´s Procurement Manager, since Chevron had decided to reassign a service contract through a new invitation to bid, leaving San Antonio out, despite the fact that the company had submitted the lowest quotation based on requested specifications. Chevron argued that there had been operating failures, including accidents, and other issues under review by both companies and that SA refuted accordingly. The case poses the questions plaguing Etcheverry at the time of the meeting: was it possible to anticipate this sort of problems? If so, what changes should be recommended? Could those changes enable SA to sustain the steady growth pace it had enjoyed over the past two years? These questions aim at inducing students to contemplate and analyze different decision options regarding a KAM System.

Previous research has often seen alliances as a mechanism used by disadvantaged firms to seek new capabilities during environmental discontinuities. But are alliances an effective dynamic capability? In this paper, we find that less competent firms can use alliances to access new technologies, and show that alliances do indeed reduce the technological gap among competitor firms in terms of searching or accessing new technology. However, advantaged and disadvantaged firms seem to use different search routines in this process, and former are superior in internalizing new capabilities from their alliances. Thus, alliances are only partly effective as a catching-up mechanism. We discuss implications of these results for the literatures on strategic alliances, technological competition and dynamic capabilities.

Previous research has often seen alliances as a mechanism used by disadvantaged firms to seek new capabilities during environmental discontinuities. But are alliances an effective dynamic capability? In this paper, we find that less competent firms can use alliances to access new technologies, and show that alliances do indeed reduce the technological gap among competitor firms in terms of searching or accessing new technology. However, advantaged and disadvantaged firms seem to use different search routines in this process, and former are superior in internalizing new capabilities from their alliances. Thus, alliances are only partly effective as a catching-up mechanism. We discuss implications of these results for the literatures on strategic alliances, technological competition and dynamic capabilities.

Scholars in entrepreneurship education is deviating from the long standing paradigm that entrepreneurs are born and not made. While the strongest debate has centered around what aspects of entrepreneurship can and should be taught, and how, we move away from the classroom and analyze the implications of renewing the mission of entrepreneurship centers within universities. Specifically, we propose that the roles of structural hole, intermediary in trust, and endorser should become central. Entrepreneurship centers that acknowledge these roles would be best positioned to help mitigate the liability of newness of nascent projects within the stringent dimensions of time imposed by the window of opportunity. We contend that entrepreneurship centers that offer such social support to nascent entrepreneurs can exercise remarkable impact, not only on the number of students who choose entrepreneurial careers, but also on the success rate of new ventures.

Scholars in entrepreneurship education are deviating from the long standing belief that entrepreneurs are born and not made. While the strongest debate has centered around what aspects of entrepreneurship can and should be taught in class, and how, we move away from the classroom and analyze the implications of renewing the mission of entrepreneurship centers within universities. Specifically, we propose that the roles of entrepreneurship centers as structural hole, intermediary in trust, and endorser vis-à-vis nascent entrepreneurs and related constituencies should be fostered. Entrepreneurship centers that acknowledge these roles would be best positioned to help mitigate the liability of newness of nascent projects so that entrepreneurs can seize their potential within the limits set by the window of opportunity. We contend that entrepreneurship centers that offer social support to nascent entrepreneurs can exercise remarkable impact, not only on the number of students who choose entrepreneurial careers, but also on the success rate of new ventures.