Fabrizio Noboa

Despite growing interest in digital transformation among small and medium-sized enterprises, understanding how they use digital technologies to enhance competitiveness, partic-ularly in emerging markets, is still limited. Grounded in the resource-based view, resource orchestration theory, and digital transformation literature, this study explores how environ-mental dynamism influences firm performance,focusing on the mediating role of digitaliza-tion and digital capability in Ecuadorian companies. To test our hypotheses, we used structural equation modeling with survey data from 109 managers. Our findings indicate that digitalization and digital capability mediate the relationship between environmental dyna-mism and performance, emphasizing the need to integrate technological and managerial dimensions to facedigital transformation. This topic is relevant because small firms face greater challenges for technological adoption.

Latin America and the Caribbean are often placed in the same geographical and economic grouping. However, too little is known in either region about the other’s business cultures and marketplaces. Marketing in Latin America and the Caribbean is a casebook that analyses the marketing histories, challenges, strategies and vision of small, medium and large indigenous businesses from South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The book is divided into three core sections: Marketing Tactics, including product development, pricing and digital marketing; Marketing Strategy, which considers brand development, targeting and positioning, and competitive advantage; and, Global and Regional Marketing, considering strategic alliances, global expansion and supply chain management. The work also captures the competitive strategies used by indigenous firms to drive regional and global expansion in the face of sometimes turbulent marketing environments: several of the cases in the book encourage student readers to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the strategies and futures of Latin American and Caribbean firms. Filling a gap in the literature by focusing on this understudied region and its indigenous firms, this text is essential and recommended reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying International Marketing, Marketing Management and Strategy. It will also be of use to academic faculty seeking classroom material that captures authentic Latin American and Caribbean marketing realities. The work is supplemented by detailed Teaching Notes for each chapter, available online for instructors.

El objetivo del presente estudio es analizar si la fuerza de carácter, la tendencia de una persona a mostrar perseverancia en el esfuerzo, constancia en el interés y pasión en objetivos de largo plazo, influye en la continuidad emprendedora en Ecuador. Empleando una prueba chi-cuadrado, compara el nivel de fuerza de carácter de dos grupos de emprendedores, uno con iniciativas empresariales avanzadas y otro con iniciativas menos maduras, y demuestra que los emprendedores que tienen mayor fuerza de carácter, según evaluación de terceros, construyen empresas con mayor capacidad de seguir operando. Este hallazgo sugiere que, pese a competir en ecosistemas con limitaciones, personas con fuerza de carácter son capaces de superar obstáculos externos y consiguen que su iniciativa empresarial avance.

This research integrates transaction cost and relational exchange theories to depict a more nuanced explanation of exporter-importer exchange relationships when exporters operate from a developing country. Our study examines whether exporters’ investments in specific assets directly influence perceived importer opportunism, or whether these perceptions are driven by the mediating effects of interpersonal and inter-organizational trust and power. Contrary to the general transaction cost argument, we did not find any direct effect of exporter specific assets on perceived importer opportunism. Instead, we found that perceived importer power and exporter inter-organizational trust jointly mediate the exporter specific assets – perceived importer opportunism relationship. By incorporating a dimensional view of trust, we help to resolve conflicting theoretical specifications and empirical results found in the extant literature.