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Departing from a so-called “modern civil service” as an ideal type, this chapter evaluates the status of public personnel management in Latin America. Such an ideal model is considered a mix between the organizational principles of the traditional civil service and those of the new public management perspective. First, the chapter presents the different phases that public management practices have undergone in some developed countries. Secondly, following several studies and data provided by the IADB, the level of development of several civil service systems in Latin America is analyzed and several of their construction–destruction–reconstruction patterns are presented. Lastly, the cases that most approach a modern civil service are discussed and some recommendations offered to reformers in this region.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of unit price information in the formation of the consumer reference prices.

The methodology consisted of two stages. At first stage a survey with a sample of 700 Spanish consumers was carried out. In the second stage, a 200-consumer panel was used. The sampling method was not random for both stages. In the second stage The authors use virtual shelves of three categories, in which, in addition to the brand, the consumer faces various package sizes.

Results show that the unit price information significantly influences the consumers' choice and that such influence can be moderated by the loyalty that the consumer presents. Furthermore, it is noted that the influence of the unit price on price recall is better if the category has many brands and not common size. In these cases the proportion of the use of the unit price is greater. The effect of frequency of purchase on the accuracy of the price recall is less in this type of categories, and more in categories of easy comparison.

This study proposes that the unit price information influences the internal reference price of consumers.

This paper aims to analyze the relative importance of brand‐packaging, price and taste in the formation of brand preference for manufacturer and store brands in food product categories.

The authors first perform a blind taste test of the product using three brands (two manufacturer brands and one store brand) in two categories with differentiated characteristics (cola drinks and olives stuffed with anchovies). They then use conjoint analysis to analyze the influence of the intrinsic cue (taste) and the extrinsic cues (price and brand‐packaging) on consumers' preference for manufacturer and store brands. Finally, after telling the consumers which taste belongs to each brand, the authors study the influence of the extrinsic cues on the consumers' quality evaluations of the real stimuli.

The results show that not knowing the brand to which the taste tested belongs, leads consumers in general to order their preferences fundamentally by taste. However, the results differ by product category and consumer segment analyzed. Consumers who evaluate the taste of store brands as better change their preferences more when they know which brand belongs to which taste. Further, the change in preference when consumers know the brand‐taste correspondence is clearly greater in the most differentiated category.

The main limitations of this research derive from the factors conditioning the information. A greater number of categories and attributes would enrich the information. In addition, it would be useful to analyze more than one store brand.

The results obtained have interesting implications for manufacturers and retailers concerning management of the brands in their product portfolio and management of their relationships in the distribution channel.

The main contribution of this paper lies in the work methodology used. The paper offers a comprehensive analysis of how the relative importance of brand‐packaging, price and taste affect brand preference for manufacturer and store brands. The study also contributes evidence on how the consumer's knowledge of the correspondence between brand and taste can change his or her brand preferences, an issue of great interest for manufacturers and distributors in managing their product portfolios.

In the marketing process, the positioning effort exerted by manufacturers for their brands is slowed by the commercial objectives of intermediary firms. In addition, to act as buyers, retailers act as suppliers of demand segments. When they receive privileged conditions in their product purchasing contracts, they do not always transfer them, totally or partially, to the final consumers through prices. The purpose of this paper is to analyse price dispersion tools available to consumer goods manufacturers to obtain price consistency.

An empirical study was conducted that analysed the retail price dispersion of 66 manufacturer brands in the categories of packaged foods, drugstore products, personal care products, and cellulose derivatives marketed in 574 Spanish retail outlets in different cities.

In general, manufacturer brands achieve greater price‐consistency, and therefore less price dispersion, when the consumer's knowledge of the product category is greater and when there are considerable levels of differentiation.

One important limitation must be recognised. Manufacturers' prices offered to retailers were not controlled. Such data would have allowed one to check whether some price dispersion was caused by the discount strategy of the manufacturers themselves.

In this research the effect of retail competitive structure in Porter's model is incorporated. In addition, it is demonstrated that price consistency is more likely to occur for manufacturer brands, and that price dispersion is likely to be lower for such brands.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of information technology competency (ITC) on internal and external learning competency and the relations among ITC, internal and external learning competency and the commercial success of innovation (CSI)

The paper uses survey data from 186 companies. Through structural equation modeling the paper assesses the links between ITC, internal and external learning competency and the CSI.

First, this study finds that ITC plays a critical role in internal and external learning competencies. Second, internal and external learning competencies are directly related to the CSI. Third, internal and external learning competencies mediate the relation between ITC and the CSI.

The research is cross-sectional, so cause-effect relation cannot be definitively inferred from the results.

This study contributes to organizational learning research, identifying a key antecedent of internal and external learning competencies – ITC – and analyzing the link between internal and external learning competencies and the CSI. Moreover, this study is relevant to IT literature because it shows that ITC, on its own, is insufficient to generate and maintain a competitive advantage. Firms need complementary strategic capabilities such as learning competencies to strengthen the effect of ITC on firm performance.

Civil society has emerged as a contested concept in development. Some observers claim that economic restructuring has eroded the political hegemony of authoritarian regimes and created a new space for autonomous associations. In Mexico, chronic economic crisis and economic adjustment policies generated widespread popular discontent in the 1980s. The authoritarian regime tried to channel popular dissatisfaction into the institutionalized political arena through a series of electoral reforms. Thus, economic liberalization in Mexico was paralleled by a slow and gradual process of liberalization of the Mexican political system. In the context of these economic and political changes, scholars have observed an awakened civil society in Mexico. They have chronicled the emergence of independent organizations of workers, peasants, and the urban poor. They have also documented new types of civic associations such as environmental groups, election‐watch groups, human rights organizations, debtors’ groups, and women’s movements. Numerous studies of social movements beginning in the 1980s appear to suggest the rise of civil society in the era of economic and political liberalization.

The “change of sovereignty,” the transfer of Puerto Rico to U.S. rule after Spain’s loss in the Spanish-American War of 1898, could not easily erase centuries of Spanish misrule of its island colony. Nor could it reconstruct an economy based on monocultural agricultural crops. For centuries, ranching and subsistence farming had lured settlers from the coast. Highland towns, founded in the eighteenth century under royal auspices but increasingly isolated and removed from imperial control came to define the peasant, the jı́baro, who though generally slight in stature came to loom large as the cultural backbone of Puerto Rico. Run by ministers of the Spanish monarchy and corrupt and sometimes tyrannical military governors, the island during the 1800s ineptly staggered through sequential agricultural monocultures. Sugar crops tended by coastal workers of mixed African and European backgrounds (with slavery and peonage existing side by side) yielded prominence in mid-century to large-scale coffee plantations in the mountainous interior, attracting capital and labor from the coast as well as from the Spanish homeland. By the mid-1800s U.S. interests had begun to pull on this strategically located military outpost – first through trade and then by conquest and new guardianship.