Organizational development in the third world: values,closeness of fit and culture-boundedness(1)

This paper seeks to counterbalance some common arguments about the role of organization development (OD) in Third World settings. OD is a value-laden technology and this raises the issues of the closeness of fit of specific OD approaches or designs to different cultures, histories and settings. Most organizational theorists recommend a close fit, based upon an overall characterization of OD and estimates of the features of macro-cultures such as nations or regions. This paper urges a more differentiated perspective, based on evidence that OD works, on balance, in a broad range of contexts. Specifically, OD designs/approaches are not homogeneous, and neither are the nation-states or organizations in which OD is applied. The paper suggests a number of ways in which OD practitioners might become more sensitive to different contexts and thereby improve their judgments about the advisability of making OD interventions.

Since its earliest days, OD has been concerned with the issue of degree of fit. OD is a normative, re-educative strategy,⁽²⁾ and, for that reason, practitioners agree that “there” will be different from “here” in pervasive ways. Thus many ODers speak of “a new social order at work”⁽³⁾ and envision a new tomorrow, either in progressive steps, or via some frame-breaking effort. The key issue underlying how to get from “here” to “there” involves choices of designs for learning or change which are sensitive to beginning “here” and also capable of inducing systemic movement toward “there.”

Four emphases will carry this paper beyond these generalizations about why and how OD is concerned with the closeness of fit between its values and different sites of application. An initial section briefly describes OD as value laden, and hence as potentially at cross-purposes with other value laden aspects of sites of application -- national or organizational cultures, managerial climates, small work groups and so on. The second section describes three models of the relationship between OD and existing cultures, climates or styles. In addition, extended consideration is given to four generalizations about OD in Third World settings, in which closeness of fit and culture-boundedness are of special significance. The generalizations relate to success rates, the primacy of process and interaction in OD, the significance of a systems perspective, and an emphasis on specific OD sites and OD interventions. The final section presents my personal views as practitioner about closeness of fit and how to minimize cross-cultural blind spots.

Neither OD designs nor cultures are homogeneous; and change objectives can differ radically from case to case in their urgency and acceptable probabilities of success, with each case requiring judgments to be made about closeness of fit. The available literature tends to oversimplify in posing such questions as:

Is OD exclusively culturally appropriate to North America?

Does nation A have a culture that constitutes a close fit to OD values/interventions?

Are close fits preferable to distal-fits?     

THE CHALLENGES TO TEACHERS,TEACHING, AND POST-SECONDARY TEACHING INSTITUTIONS: ASSUMPTIONS,PREDILECTIONS, PROCESSES,AND PROJECTIONS

ABSTRACT

The contemporary forces impacting teachers and teaching are capable of becoming an overwhelming, uncontrollable wave of disaster or an opportunity for proactively redesigning teaching at a higher level of commitment, performance, and relevance to make and shape critically important intellectual and societal contributions for the future. This symposium aims to galvanize the teachers in post-secondary education to reject the deadly viruses of reactive fear, credentialed complacency, and intellectual rigidity in their current stages and replace them with proactive options, alternatives, and designs.

More specifically, this Introduction clarifies why the respective articles were commissioned to appear in this symposium based on the reasons, concerns, and observations that stimulated the Editor to pursue and design a symposium on teaching in the social sciences.

The concluding contention of this Introduction is that all teachers can, and must, influence the events in both their personal and professional lives by actively immersing themselves in the values, visions, and cultural anchors of their profession, discipline, craft, society, and belief systems. There is no doubt in the Editor's mind that the symposium presentations will add much substance that will help make all of us great teachers.

“What in context beguiles, out of context mortifies.”

David Wayne     

Introduction: The Symposium and Its Authors

Abstract

This symposium addresses the question “Has public administration grown up?” as a provocative vehicle for free-ranging inquiry into the state of the field. Its articles originated from a panel of the same name held at the 2003 national conference of the American Society for Public Administration. The authors, each of whom make a quite different response, consist of the panel's original five members plus four participants from the audience who later contributed their ideas in written form.     

Citizen aid: grassroots interventions in development and humanitarianism

Abstract

The introduction to this collection brings together, under the umbrella terms of citizen aid and grassroots humanitarianism, interdisciplinary research on small-scale, privately funded forms of aid and development. It notes the steady rise of these activities, including in the Global South as well as North, such as in the context of the recent European refugee crisis. It considers their position vis-à-vis more institutionalised forms of aid; methodological approaches and their challenges; and asks what political dimensions these initiatives may have. It outlines key themes arising from the contributions to the collection, including historical perspectives on ‘demotic humanitarianism’, questions of legitimacy and their apparent lack of professionalisation, motivations of their founders, the role of personal connections, as well as the importance of digital media for brokerage and fundraising. Being mindful of its critiques and implicit power imbalances, it suggests that citizen aid deserves more systematic academic attention.     

The ‘tenure guidelines’ as a tool for democratising land and resource control in Latin America

Abstract

The current configuration of global land politics – who gets what land, how, how much, why and with what implications in urban and rural spaces in the Global South and North – brings disparate social groups, governments and social movements with different sectoral and class interests into the issue of natural resource politics. Governance instruments must be able to capture the ‘political moment’ marked by the increasing intersection of issues and state and social forces that mobilise around these. This paper looks at whether and how the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (also known as the TGs) passed in 2012 in the United Nations Committee for Food Security (CFS) can contribute to democratising resource politics today. This work puts forward some initial ideas about how systematic research into the TGs can be done more meaningfully.     

“They cut my son’s head,legs and hands before me”: pre- and post-terror experiences among returnee victims of Boko Haram in Orlu,Imo State

ABSTRACT

This research note offers first-hand accounts of the plight of “non-indigenes” who became victims of Boko Haram terrorism in the North, and their resettlement back in their “homeland” in Orlu (Imo State). As “strangers” in various towns of the North, they were victimized by Boko Haram and had to develop various strategies to survive. Many of them, however, returned to their “homeland” only to become victims of new forms of social exclusion, as “strangers in their own land.”     

CACOPHONIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY CHORUS ABOUT CHANGE AT PUBLIC WORKSITES,AS CONTRASTED WITH SOME STRAIGHT-TALK FROM A PLANNED CHANGE PERSPECTIVE

The New Public Management (henceforth NPM) has coalesced into a movement in a short period of time, virtually worldwide. Thus, inter alia, we hear about the allegedly-new focus on the “customers” of public services, which are to be provided by “public intrapreneurs” as well as by cadres of employees at all levels who are “empowered.” And so on and on—through the conventional organizational litany including cross-training, total quality, performance measurement, and eventuating in strategic planning. These emphases make for a pleasing, even convincing, organizational libretto.

If the “chorus” proclaiming the NPM libretto is both ubiquitous as well as insistent, however, the chanting is often loosely-coupled, curiously directed, and at times even contradictory—at times so much so as to alert one's native cunning about what forces are really at work. Hence, the reference here to the “chorus” and also the “cacophonies” this essay detects in NPM's ardent vocalizing. This reflects our judgment that, in equal measure, NPM combines ubiquity, too much of some useful things, unreconciled diversities, and issues at sixes-and-sevens.

But this essay also urges that NPM can “walk its talk.” In effect, several emphases will at once help explain how NPM was all-but-predestined to experience serious shortfalls, as well as prescribe how NPM can rise about these limitations. Particular attention gets directed at appropriate guidelines interaction and structural arrangements.

Four emphases relate to these critical-cum-constructive ambitions. In preview, NPM 1. seldom even attempted detailing a useful approach to applications;

2. typically neglected systemic or millieu characteristics within which applications occurred;

3. usually did not specify a useful front-load in designs: i.e., training in values, attitudes, and interaction skills that would facilitate developing a “cultural preparedness” for appropriate applications; and

4. seldom specified supportive structural/managerial arrangements.

This essay proposes to do better.

This essay takes a direct if dual approach to describing the New Public Management “chorus” and its “cacophonies.” To begin, introductory attention goes to NPM as a “liberation” of theory and practice beyond the classic conservatisms of Public Administration. Then, four limitations of this NPM “chorus” will be detailed, and this quartet of “cacophonies” also implies ways to enhance NPM applications, as well as urges a stark warning against overselling.     

"A Dime Store of Words": Liberty Magazine and the Cultural Logic of the Popular Press

Abstract

The essay posits the question of the end of May Fourth as a properly political sequence. If we consider May Fourth as a political movement, asking how it ends implies asking what kind of political subjects and political organizations were active then and ceased to be active at a certain point in time. Asking when and how the May Fourth movement ended implies, therefore, asking what ended. The essay analyzes a series of statements and actions signaling the “end” or the “defeat” of May Fourth in order to question whether there were collective practices, locations, and categories proper to the May Fourth period and how they got exhausted. Two elements appear to be crucial: the organizational structure of the xuehui and the category of “student.”     

Conclusion: Getting It All Together

Abstract

As the aticles of the symposium present a wide variety of conclusions on whether public administration has “grown up,” this overview article does not attempt a unified synthesis of the authors’ views but rather makes a composite analysis of contrasts and patterns among them. Attention is then shifted to the organizing metaphor itself, that of maturation. Following a review of how each article employs it, some general reflections are offered on its usefulness.     

Development's Denial of Social Justice

Abstract

American public administration as a field is “mature” in terms of its identity, roles, knowledge, and open-system nature. Yet it lacks maturity in the sense of an adequate sense of self-worth. This “inferiority complex” is revealed by the field's obsession with two intertwining, persistent themes: a perceived state of societal illegitimacy and of permanent need for reform.     

Introduction: Benefit of U.S. Educational Assistance in the Eastern European Transformation

Abstract

Following the demise of communism, numerous programs were begun to improve the educational systems of Eastern European nations. It was evident that the newly independent states had little knowledge of democracy and free market practices and western nations looked for ways to improve the former communist citizens’ knowledge of these concepts. American governmental agencies and private foundations rushed into redress these problems in Eastern European educational systems to preclude the return of communism or other dictatorial regimes and to help the nations find a position among the democracies of the world. A sample of the programs and their outcomes are presented in this symposium.     

SEEKING TALENT AT THE VOTING BOOTH: ELECTIONS AND THE PROBLEM OF CAMPAIGNING IN THE LATE QING AND EARLY REPUBLIC

Abstract

Early twentieth-century Chinese governments experimented with competitive elections for legislative office. In the hundred years since these elections, historians and others have argued over whether they are best understood as “failures” for producing weak, easily manipulated government or as “successes” that heralded the potential for Chinese democracy. An examination of print media discourse from the time of these elections, however, reveals a profound discomfort with voting that was independent of, and prior to, the seating of any elected government. In particular, the repeated condemnation of election “campaigning” pointed to a series of philosophical and intellectual problems presented by elections as a form of selection. By analyzing complaints about “campaigning” as a discourse with a particular resonance within the political culture of the late Qing and early Republic, I push beyond considerations of “success” or “failure” to analyze the tensions between expectations for, and the actuality of, early twentieth-century elections.     

O.D. at the U.N.: facilitating global change

Expanding our OD horizons to the global level means not only carrying abroad what we know, but also being sensitive to diverse clients who may operate from cultural assumptions very different from our own. Both formal and informal change is possible at international gatherings if practitioners follow a few key guidelines. Seven such observations are discussed by the author, who includes a discussion of “expert” and “process” consultation methods. The article concludes that OD skills are needed in the international arena, but are often unappreciated or unknown. Hence, OD professionals must be educators in addition to their interpersonal practice of superior communication skills.

OD is only beginning to stretch its full imaginative power and practice to the international arena, as is reflected in my experiences at a conference of 122 countries held at the United Nations in Vienna, Austria. The conference was the first convening of nations to discuss the topic of old age in light of the policy and organizational implications of global demographic change.     

The IMF,austerity and the state in Latin America

The Brazilian Economic Crisis

No to Recession and Unemployment: An Examination of the Brazilian Economic Crisis. Celso Furtado, London: Third World Foundation. 1984. 77pp. £2.95pb

Impact of Islam: domestic and foreign policies of Muslim states

Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam. Edward Mortimer, London: Faber and Faber. 1982. 432pp. £10.50pb

Islam in Foreign Policy. Edited by Adeed Dawisha, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983. 191pp. £17.50

Central American Directions

Rift and Revolution: The Central American Imbroglio. Edited by Howard J Wiarda, Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute. 1984. 392pp. $10.95

Central America: Anatomy of Conflict. Edited by Robert S Leiken, Oxford: Pergamon. 1984. 351pp. £13.95.

Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. Walter LaFeber, London: W W Norton. 1983. 357pp. £14.95.

The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador. James Dunkerley, London: Junction Books. 1982. 264pp. £12.50. £5.95pb.

International Organisations: Principles and Issues. A LeRoy Bennett, Hemel Hempstead, England: Prentice‐Hall International. 1984. 498pp. £26.75

Peacekeeping in Vietnam: Canada, India, Poland and the International Commission. Ramesh Thakur, Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta Press. 1984. 375pp. $30.00

The World's Money: International Banking from Bretton Woods to the Brink of Insolvency. Michael Moffitt, London: Michael Joseph. 1984. 284pp. £9.95

Banking on Poverty: The Global Impact of the IMF and World Bank. Edited by Jill Torrie, Toronto, Canada: Between the Lines. 1983. 336pp. $22.95. $12.95pb

The Management of the World Economy. Evan Luard, London: Macmillan. 1983. 270pp. £25.00. £7.95pb

International Money and Capitalist Crisis: The Anatomy of Global Disintegration E A Brett London: Heinemann. 1983. 271pp. £13.50

Escape from Empire: The Attlee Government and the Indian Problem. R J Moore, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1983. 376pp. £19.50

The Multinational Corporation. Sanjaya Lall, London: Macmillan Press. 1983. 264pp. £6.95pb

The New Multinationals: The Spread of Third World Enterprises. Sanjaya Lall, Chichester, England: John Wiley. 1983. 268pp. £13.50

Poverty and Aid. Edited by J R Parkinson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1983. 264pp. £19.50

State of the World 1984. Lester R Brown et al, London: W W Norton. 1984. 252pp. $15.95

Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives? Michael Redclift, London: Methuen. 1984. 149pp. £9.50. £ 4.25pb

Deepsea Mining and the Law of the Sea. A M Post, The Hague, Boston and Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff. 1983. 358pp. np

Climate and Development. Edited by Asit K Biswas, Dublin: Tycooly International. 1984. 146pp. £16.50. £5.95pb

The Political Economy of West African Agriculture. Keith Hart, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1982. 226pp. £19.00. £7.50pb

The Trouble with Nigeria. Chinua Achebe, London: Heinemann. 1984. 68pp. £1.95

The Struggle for Africa. Mai Palmberg, London: Zed Press. 1983. 286pp. £17.95. £5.95pb

State and Class in Africa. Edited by Nelson Kasfir, London: Frank Cass. 1984. 125pp. £18.50

Underdevelopment and Agrarian Structure in Pakistan. Mahmood Hasan Khan, Lahore, Pakistan: Vanguard. 1981. 335pp. Rs150.00

Pakistan: The Political Economy of Development. Karamat Ali, Lahore, Pakistan: Vanguard. nd. 381pp. Rs175.00

Rank and Rivalry: The Politics of Inequality in Rural West Bengal. Marvin Davis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983. 237pp. £20.00. £7.95pb

Rural Development and the State: Contradictions and Dilemmas in Developing Countries. Edited by David M Lea and D P Chaudhri, London: Methuen. 1983. 351pp. £9.95pb

The Hong Kong Crisis. Gregor Benton, London: Pluto Press. 1983. 114pp. £3.5pb

Revolutionary Islam in Iran: Popular Liberation or Religious Dictatorship? Surdosh Irfani, London: Zed Press. 1983. 267pp. £18.95. £6.95pb

The Foreign Policy Systems of North and South Korea. Byung Chul Koh, London: University of California Press. 1984. 274pp. £22.80

The Developing Economies and Japan: Lessons in Growth. Saburo Okita, London: University of Tokyo Press. 1983. 283pp. £14.00

Arab Oil Policies in the 1970s: Opportunity and Responsibility. Yusif A Sayigh, London: Croom Helm. 1983. 271pp. £11.95

Guyana: Fraudulent Revolution. Latin America Bureau, London: Latin American Bureau. 1984. 105pp. £2.95pb

Problems of Development in Beautiful Countries: Perspectives on the Caribbean. Ransford W Palmer, Lanham, Maryland: North South Publishing Co. 1984. 91pp. $12.50

The Grenada Intervention: Analysis and Documentation. William G Gilmore, London: Mansell. 1984. 116pp. £5.95pb

O Mercado da Segurança: Ensaios sobre economia politica da defesa. Clóvis Brigagão, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira. 1984. 183pp. np

Argentina: The Malvinas and the End of Military Rule. Alejandro Dabat and Luis Lorenzano, London: Verso. 1984. 206pp. £20.00. £5.95pb

A Vision of Hope: The Churches and Change in Latin America. Trevor Beeson and Jenny Pearce, London: Fount. 1984. 290pp. £2.95pb

Oil and Politics in Latin America: Nationalist Movements and State Companies. George Philip, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1982. 577pp. £37.50     

Global international relations and the Arab Spring: the Maghreb’s challenge to the EU

Abstract

This article contributes to the Global International Relations project by critically evaluating the roles ascribed to Europe and the EU by Levitsky and Way in their model for explaining regime transitions. Focusing primarily on their international dimensions of linkage and leverage, it assesses both the normative geopolitical underpinnings and explanatory power of their thesis, drawing on the North African cases of Tunisia and Mauritania at the start of the Arab Spring to illustrate and substantiate its observations and arguments. It concludes that the EU’s failure to discipline either country’s competitive authoritarian regime raises important questions about the validity of the privileged role in which they cast Europe.     

A Progressive Authoritarianism? The case of post-2006 Fiji

Abstract

Post-development has matured well beyond the romanticism and celebration of the local of its early proponents. The new ‘conditions of possibility’ that embody the latest contributions to the field are studies in governmentality. This paper explores the heterogeneous postcolonial spaces of post-2006 Fiji by deploying a Foucauldian analysis of Bainimarama's government, particularly focusing on the formation of identities and the attributes of a ‘normalised citizenry’. The analysis aims to help explain why the implementation of a liberal rationality, in the form of racial equality for socio-political change in the country, calls for citizens to be subjected to various arts of government—surveillance, physical and psychological violence and, in some cases, incarceration and torture. An understanding of this brutal and puzzling irony is found in Fiji's colonial legacies and the ongoing contestation over what constitutes a ‘normalised citizenry’ in the country. I propose that Fiji's present contestations and anomalous coalescence of liberal rationalities and non-liberal means are best explained with reference to the paradoxical notion of progressive authoritarian governmentality.     

Terrorist Sanctuaries and Bosnia-Herzegovina: Challenging Conventional Assumptions

This article argues that a model of terrorism and terrorist sanctuaries rooted in post-9/11 strategic thought and the Global War on Terror is inadequate to the study of terrorism in Bosnia and the Balkans. It addresses a series of conventional assumptions regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina's status as a putative terrorist sanctuary, based on a reading of post-war ethnic politics and political architecture. This assessment turns on the basic notion that terrorism in Bosnia is a complex phenomenon linked to multiple domestic and foreign communities, defined along competing national trajectories and intersecting foreign interests, and subject to evolving political circumstances and priorities.     

The economics of dispossession: The Palestinians

Reviewing the study of US policy towards Africa: from intellectual ‘backwater’ to theory construction

White Men Don't Have Juju: An American Couple's Adventure Through Africa. Pam Ascanio, Chicago, IL: The Noble Press, 1992. 345 pp.

Beyond Safaris: A Guide to Building People‐to‐People Ties With Africa. Kevin Danaher, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1991. 193 pp.

Free at Last? US Policy Toward Africa and the End of the Cold War. Michael Clough, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992. 145 pp.

US Economic Policy Toward Africa. Jeffrey Herbst, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992. 82 pp.

High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood. Chester A Crocker, New York: W W Norton, 1992. 533p

African Americans and US Policy Toward Africa 1850–1925: In Defense of Black Nationality. Elliott P Skinner, Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1992. 555 pp.

An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J Bunche. 28 September 1937–1 January 1938. Robert R Edgar, (ed), Athens, OH: Ohio University Press; Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1992. 398 pp.

Mobutu or Chaos? The United States and Zaire, 1960–1990. Michael G Schatzberg, Lanham, MD: University Press of America; Philadelphia, PA: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1991. 115 pp.

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War. Peter L Hahn, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992. 359 pp.

Nigeria, Africa, and the United States From Kennedy to Reagan. Robert B Shepard, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991. 193 pp.

American Intellectuals and African Nationalists, 1955–1970. Martin Staniland, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. 310 pp.

The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and US Policy in the Congo Crisis. David N Gibbs, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 322 pp.

Arms for the Horn: US Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia 1953–1991. Jeffrey A Lefebvre, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. 351 pp.

Latin American church and politics

Politics and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. John M Kirk, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992. 246 pp.

Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism. Daniel H Levine, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. 403 pp.

Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil. Rowan Ireland, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. 262 pp.

Commentaries on Muslim Women

Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting boundaries in sex and gender. Nikki R Keddie and Beth Baron (eds), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. 333 pp. £19.95 hb

Women and Gender in Islam. Leila Ahmed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. 248 pp.

Women, Islam and the State,. Deniz Kadiyoti (ed), London: Macmillan Press, 1991. 271 pp.

Negritude and Africa: Armah's account     

The new business environment of latin america and the caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean Region experienced dramatic changes in the 1990s. Politically, all but one country, are governed by a democratically elected government. Economically, import substitution industrialization policies (ISI) followed in the past, were replaced by liberalization programs aimed at reducing inflationary pressures and creating a competitive environment.

The significant increase in capital flows to Latin America in one single year, 1990, buried the 1980s as the “lost decade,” and the successful implementation of privatization programs region-wide prompted to affirm that the 1990s might constitute the “Latin America's decade.” Where does the euphoria come from? Is there any implicit promise to be derived from such international capital flows? Will the pattern be sustained? Has Latin America begun a new era? Are unfolding events on defiance of fundamentals?

These and many other questions can be raised regarding the spectacular transformation of Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly when analysts still debate about the Mexican crisis of 1994, investors eagerly pursue the agenda of a second privatization wave, experts around the world get fascinated with the high-tech push found in Latin America, bankers apply Latin American lessons to deal with the currency crisis in Asia, and casual observers recognize the value-creation process added by Latin American entrepreneurs who challenge the most adverse circumstances. Indeed, Latin America and the Caribbean is a land full of promises and contrasts, where there exists a head to head competition between globalization and nationalism, the haves and the have-nots, capitalism and communism, literature and high-technology, markets and governments, East and West, North and South, myth and reality, and … “despair and hope.”

There is no question, however, that Latin America and the Caribbean, being she a detached wide-land, is a region of great opportunity. Since the external debt crisis of 1982 and its aftermath, democracy, open markets, economic reform and privatization have blended to offer great expectations and opportunities for business and investment in the region. The new vision strongly questioned the status quo to render a new business environment to open the doors and light up the roads of the upcoming millennium.

It is the purpose of the International Journal of Public Administration to offer to its readers, for the very first time, a special issue devoted entirely to the discussion of the new business environment of Latin America and the Caribbean. We are, therefore, grateful to all the authors who generously are sharing with us the findings from their scholarly research. Given the far reaching consequences of their contributions, we, as guest editors of this special issue, had no other choice but to incorporate the fruits yielded by this symposium of thirty-seven papers in four issues in one single volume. The papers have been sorted according to the following four focal points: Privatization of State Owned Enterprises; Mexico; Economic, Financial and Foreign Investment Issues; and Economic Integration, Trade and Cultural Issues.

Part I of this special issue on “The New Latin American Business Environment” looks at one element of the broad economic strategy followed by most Latin American countries: Privatization of State Owned Enterprises. The role of governments is to provide the framework that will allow the private sector to create wealth. Notwithstanding, this partnership between the public and private sectors must ensure the inclusion of the poorer sections of the population. In many ways, the long-term sustainability of these economic programs will largely depend on this. The ten papers selected for this part, provide insight on how this phenomenon is affecting different Latin American countries.

The first paper by Shamsul Haque argues that there is a need to analyze the social consequences of privatization programs. Further research is needed to identify the main advocates and beneficiaries of privatization programs. According to the author, “critical economic conditions have not improved significantly after privatization, and in many instances, the conditions have deteriorated.” About fifty percent of Latin America's population of 470 million people live under poverty.

The late Sister Martin Byrne (1) documents in her paper, “Cananea Consolidated Copper Company from Nationalization to Privatization: 1972-1991 ,” the problems of ownership and management faced by La Cananea, a Mexican copper mine. Sister Byrne argues that “The Cananea mines were profitable under entrepreneurial and MNC ownership, but proved to be a financial drain on the government during the paraestatal period.”

The third paper by Garcia and Dyner, examined the reform and regulation of electricity in Columbia. According to the authors, the regulatory framework adopted by the government is going to determine the success of these programs. Furthermore, “the challenge is the change of public intervention in the sector, so that it regulates, supports, and supervises the decentralized activities of the firms, and liberates resources to be invested in other areas.”

Walter and Gonzalez provide interesting philosophical arguments on technology and human resources management derived from the cases of privatized companies in Argentina. The authors consider two variants, “systemic modernization and revamping of existing teams” to invite a reopening of the old debate on technological blending. They argue, however, that “to compete you do not necessarily need to ‘ be on the frontier.’”

Joan B. Anderson examines, the “Privatization, Efficiency and Market Failure: Transforming Ecuador's Public Sector,” privatization in Ecuador through the shift experienced by development theory with respect to the role of the public sector. In this paper the author points out that “while careful privatization can be positive, privatizing monopolies like the electric utility and/or quasi-public goods like highways are likely to be detrimental to long run economic development.”

Doshi identifies the successes and failures of the privatization program in Mexico by analyzing the cases of Mexicana Airlines, Aeromexico and Telmex. The author argues that even though the government was able to sell a number of state owned enterprises, a “successful” privatization program required appropriate macroeconomic policies and defining the role of foreign investment in economic development. One can argue then, that even though the size of the state is shrinking, its role is becoming more important.

The article by Vetter and Zanetta analyze also the case of Argentina. The authors argue that in order to consolidate the economic reforms implemented by the national government, provincial reform has to take place. A number of important lessons were identified.

John M. Kirk and Julia Sagebien present, in “Cuba's Market Rapprochement: Private Sector Reform - Public Sector Style,” the highlights of Cuba's process of transition towards a market economy by analyzing the conditions that lead to a market opening as well as the ends, the means and the actors of the ensuing process of economic reform.

Walter T. Molano contributes a paper, “The Lessons of Privatization,” based on his book The Logic of Privatization: The Case of Telecommunications in the Southern Cone of Latin America by looking at privatization as a process that may end up in varied outcomes as seen from microeconomic-, macroeconomic-, and political perspectives of analysis.

The focal point of Part II is Mexico. It is very clear that since the beginning of the decade, Mexico has made major efforts to transform its economy in order to play a more significant role in the global economy. Different attempts have been undertaken leading to: first, address the aftermath of the debt crisis of 1982; second, modernize and open the economy through a structural change that have included, among other programs, privatization, deregulation, fiscal deficit reduction, and trade liberalization: and third, change the political landscape.

Ephraim Clark models, in his “Agency Conflict and the Signaling Snafu in the Mexican Peso Crisis of 1994,” the conflict as a government held option to default and introduce signaling by assuming that the Mexican government had monopolistic information on the economy's true situation. The author argues that “if steps had been taken in late 1993 and early 1994, the crisis element of the adjustment could probably have been avoided.”

Blaine's article examines the role of foreign capital in economic development. By studying the Mexican case, the author answers a number ofvery important questions: How are once protected markets going to react to a large inflow of foreign capital? How did Mexican authorities deal with these inflows? What are some of the lessons that could be derived from the Mexican experience?

Hazera's paper discusses the history and legal basis of Mexican financial groups. On the basis of various stock market and financial statement data, an examination is also made of the groups’ evolution from 1991 to 1994.

Eugene M. Salorio and Thomas L. Brewer consider, in “Expanding the Levels of Analysis of FDI for Improved Understanding of Policy issues: The Case of Mexico,” both macro-, and micro-level shifts of analysis which mutually complement one another, and yield, for example, a “components profile” of disaggregated national level FDI flows which depends on the type of the project. The authors identify far reaching implications for public policy that may be extrapolated from the case of Mexico to the new business environment faced by the Latin American countries.

Francis A. Lees suggests also, from another angle, that the crisis of December 1994 could have been avoided because the financial disequilibrium was clearly evident by mid-1994 just be looking at Mexico's GDP and balance of payments.

C. Bulent Aybar, Riad A. Ajami, and Marca M. Bear provide a comparative study of the recent experiences of Mexico and Turkey. The authors identify common elements in the development and eruption of the crises to conclude that “under capital mobility strong internal and external shocks may lead to explosive crises … even though overall macroeconomic balances are sound.”

James P. D’Mello shows in “An Analysis of Mergers and Acquisitions in Mexico: 1985-1996,” that the Mexican crisis has led to an escalation of corporate restructuring such as mergers, acquisitions and joint-ventures.

Jiawen Yang joins the current debate on the causes of the recent Mexican financial crisis by arguing that “capital inflows that are not well absorbed by the private sector will cause financial instability under a fixed exchange rate regime.”

Part III of the new business environment of Latin America and the Caribbean includes ten papers on Foreign Investment, Economic and Financial issues which add significantly to the understanding of the overall transformation carried out in recent years by this region of the world.

Christopher Korth and Ajay Samant, and Craig A. Peterson andK. C. O’Shaughnessy recognize, respectively in the following two papers, “American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) from Latin America: An Opportunity for American Investors.” and “Financial Investment Via ADRs in Mexico and South America,” the usefulness of ADRs for operationalizing international diversification.

Juan Espana surveys the literature on models and tools currently used to predict exchange rate movements, and aims to suggest market solutions, economic policy measures and institutional arrangements to currency crises. The author analyzes the origin and evolution of the 1994 Mexican Peso crisis, its contagion effects on other Latin American economies, and the measures taken by the affected countries to manage the crisis.

Prakash L. Dheeriya and Mahendra Raj provide, in “An Investigation in Exchange Rate Behavior of Emerging Countries,” insights on the role that exchange rate risk plays by identifying similarities and differences through international comparisons.

Kumar's paper examines the important role of foreign direct investment in promoting economic development. The emphasis here is on the transfer of technology through foreign direct investment.

Neupert and Montoya study the characteristics of’ Japanese foreign investment in Latin America, with a focus on Brazil and Mexico. The authors looked at the preferred modes of entry and the post-entry performance of these subsidiaries.

Thomas M. Fullerton, Jr. shows, in “Currency Movements and International Border Crossings,” through two ARIMAmodels that “northbound bridge traffic to El Paso is nonrandom and follows fairly well defined patterns each year.”

Trevor Campbell makes, in “A Note on the Current and Capital Accounts Compilation of Barbados under the Fourth and Fifth IMFEditions,” a comparison with respect to the composition and structure of the current and capital accounts of Barbados.

Janet Kelly and Alexeis Perera argue, in “Antitrust Policy in a Hostile Environment: Institutional Building in Venezuela's Procompetencia,” that the theories of bureaucracy in Latin America generally stress institutional weakness, political volatility and the politicized nature of government agencies which motivated, in Venezuela, the creation of the anti-monopoly agency called “Procompetencia.”

G. Scott Erickson and Andrea Nhuch recommend in ‘The Latin American Business Environment: Patent Protection Issues” a general hybrid system to deal with patent rights issues.

Finally, Part IV deals with a blend of Trade, Economic Integration and Cultural issues. Since much of the world still tends to view Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of stereotypes, it seems appropriate to end this special issue on the new business environment of the region with a group of papers that revisits the rich mosaic of Latin America, and permits appreciate her new reality.

Isaac Cohen argues, in “Hispanics and Foreign Policy.” that though the primacy of economics in Hemispheric relations provides an opportunity for Hispanic businesses, yet this community will have to act deliberately to benefit from the opportunities that are emerging.

Eva Kras contributes, in “The Viable Future of Mexico and Latin America: A New Business Paradigm,” with a South looking North approach for doing business that challenges the traditional view of business relations.

Guillermo Duenas argues, in “Cultural Aspects in the Integration of the Americas,” that managing cultural integration successfully requires a process of “intercultural learning.”

Andres A. Thompson, Francisco B. Tancredi and Marcos Kisil introduce, in “New Partnerships for Social Development: Business and the Third Sector,” the novel argument that corporate philanthropy can make the difference in social development because grantmaking is still the least frequent used strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Chris Robertson, Pol Herrmann and Kevin Duffy measure, in “Exploring Perceptions of Technology Between the United States and Ecuador,” perceptions of technology on the basis of the typology of motivators and inhibitors of technological growth.

Melissa H. Birch argues, in “Mercosur: The Road to Economic Integration in the Southern Cone,” that Mercosur represents, in contrast to the historical record of economic integration in the region, an adaptation to the contemporary political climate.

Wu and Longley discuss the rationale for extending NAFTA to Chile. Their study examines also how NAFTA negotiators may address issues such as trade and investment rules, intellectual property rights, and labor and environmental standards among other things.

Roger Kashlak and Srinath Beldona identify, in “Partner Reciprocity, Telecommunications Flows and Balance of Trade Patterns Between the United States and Latin America,” partner reciprocity as the issue at the core of the international long-distance industry.

Ines Bustillo extends, in “Overview of Economic-wide NAFTA Models” computable general equilibrium models to the case of NAFTA.

We hope that this special issue is informative and interesting to business-decision makers, regulatory policy makers, and students concerned with gaining an understanding of the ongoing transformation of Latin American and the Caribbean.

Finally, we are again most grateful to the contributors of articles for making this special issue possible. We would also like to thank Jack Rabin, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Public Administration, for trusting us the delicate mission of providing to the readers a fresh view of the new business environment of Latin America and the Caribbean.     

Recent research on women in development

I. Bourguignon, Erika, ed., A World of Women: Anthropological Studies of Women in Societies of the World. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. xv + 342. Index. Hardcover £14.75, paper £6.50.

II. Chipp, Sylvia A. and Green, Justin, J. eds., Asian Women in Transition. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980. Pp. x + 262. Hardcover £9.60, paper £5.40.

III. Etienne, Mona and Leacock, Eleanor, eds., Woman and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. ix + 339. Index. Hardcover £16.00, paper £7.00.

IV. Huston, Perdita, Third World Women Speak Out: Interviews in Six Countries on Change, Development, and Basic Needs. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1979. Pp. xix + 153. Appendices. Hardcover £12.75, paper £3.75.

V. International Labour Office, Women in Rural Development: Critical Issues. Geneva: International Labour Organisation, 1980. Pp. iii + 51. Paper SwFr 12.50.

VI. Latin American and Caribbean Women's Collective, Slave of Slaves: The Challenge of Latin American Women. London: Zed Press, 1980. Pp. 180. Appendices. Hardcover £12.95, paper £4.50.

VII. Leacock, E., E. Burkett, C. Deere, M. Towner, M. Vaughan, M. Apodaca, N. Hollander, M. King, M. Randall, D. Metzger, N. Chinchilla, M.de Riviera and I. de Carpio, Women in Latin America: An Anthology from Latin American Perspectives. Riverside, Cat.: Latin American Perspectives, 1979. Pp. 164. Paper $4.95.

VIII. Lindsay, Beverly, ed., Comparative Perspectives of Third World Women: The Impact of Race, Sex, and Class. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. xi + 319. Index. Hardcover £16.00.

IX. Loutfi, Martha F., Rural Women: Unequal Partners in Development. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1980. Pp. iii + 81. Paper SwFr 12.50.

X. Nelson, Nici, Why Has Development Neglected Rural Women? A Review of the South Asian Literature. Volume One of series ‘Women in Development’. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979. Pp. 108. Bibliography, Appendix. Hardcover $30.00, paper $11.25.

XI. Poewe, Karla O., Matrilineal Ideology: Male‐Female Dynamics in Luapula, Zambia. London: Academic Press for the International African Institute, 1981. Pp. 140. Index. Hardcover £8.00/$19.50.

XII. Rogers, Barbara, The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Developing Societies. London: Tavistock, 1981. Pp. 200. Index. Paper £3.95.

XIII. Sharma, Ursula, Women, Work, and Property in North‐West India. London: Tavistock, 1980. Pp. ix + 228. Indices. Hardcover £10.50.

XIV. Wikan, Unni, Life among the Poor in Cairo. Translated from the Norwegian by Ann Henning. London: Tavistock, 1980. Pp. ix + 173. Index. Hardcover £9.50, paper £4.95.