Dr. Gallegos-Mardones, Juan

Los informes integrados se han convertido en una fuerte tendencia mundial en el contexto de los informes empresariales, dado que permiten explicar la capacidad de la empresa para crear valor a corto y largo plazo y entregar información muy provechosa a los diferentes grupos de interés, tales como: trabajadores, clientes, proveedores, socios estratégicos, comunidades locales, legisladores y representantes de sector público. Al respecto, esta investigación tiene como objetivo central analizar los cambios internos derivados de la adopción del Reporte Integrado (RI) en un grupo de empresas que cotizan en la bolsa de valores de Chile a través de un análisis de contenido. Para ello, se utiliza como instrumento de recolección de datos entrevistas semiestructuradas, o entrevistas basadas en guion. Si bien no se aprecian cambios formales en la estructura, todas las empresas han realizado cambios internos sustanciales para enfrentar el desafío del RI. Se advierte un compromiso de la alta dirección o del directorio en el proceso de elaboración del RI, mecanismo que se percibe como una herramienta para articular el modelo de negocio, la estrategia, el gobierno corporativo y el desempeño operativo. Por otro lado, la utilización del RI se mostró como una herramienta para articular resultados financieros y no financieros. Una limitación de este trabajo es la incipiente incorporación del RI en las empresas chilenas. Se espera continuar con esta investigación y estudiar los desafíos que enfrentan las empresas latinoamericanas en la implementación del RI.

The purpose of this study is to explain the financial performance of companies in Latin America through the lens of capital structure and ownership structure. We perform a quantitative analysis of companies in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru using a panel data method. To avoid endogeneity problems, instrumental variables, generalised method of moments models, and panels with random effects are employed. The data cover the period 2000 to 2015. We find a positive relationship between financial performance, growth, and size of the company. However, there are mixed results for short- and long-term financial leverage, as well as for company liquidity. With respect to the ownership structure of Chilean companies, a positive effect is observed for the first major shareholder with financial performance. In general, our results are in line with those of previous studies. However, the existence of mixed results between companies and countries makes for an interesting and novel conclusion.

Antecedentes: Los sistemas de vales en educación se basan fundamentalmente en la capacidad de los padres para elegir la escuela de sus hijos. Sin embargo, esta capacidad se reduce cuando enfrentan costos de cambio. Método: Se identificaron los datos de los estudiantes que cursaban cuarto grado en 2000 y octavo grado en 2004, y se verificó si estos, habían cambiado de escuela. Además, comparamos la utilidad que reporta la escuela elegida con respecto a otras, no disponibles en 2000, determinando así la existencia de costos de cambio. Resultados: Encontramos que los costos de cambios son estadísticamente significativos y económicamente relevantes, además, afectan la decisión de cambiar de escuela. También mostramos qué cambios marginales en niveles de utilidad no son suficientemente significativos para cambiar de escuela identificando un eventual umbral. Conclusiones: La preocupación natural de los padres con respecto a la capacidad de reacción está condicionada por la existencia de costos de cambio.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain student loyalty beyond its customary relationship with student satisfaction by including two relational variables, trust and commitment, two cognitive traits (service familiarity and communication) and one affective trait (opportunism) as moderators of the impact of trust and commitment on loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – Two relational constructs (trust and commitment) are employed to improve the loyalty model and key comparisons are performed to know if career, cohort and sourcing school generate differences in the explanation of student loyalty. Findings – Results show that the explanation chain that starts with student satisfaction but continues with the development of student trust and the reaching of student commitment culminates with student loyalty. The moderators (student opportunism, service familiarity, communication, age and available income for education) significantly contribute to the explanatory power of the model. Career is a meaningful differentiator in reaching student loyalty as are student cohort and the type of high school from which the student came. Research limitations/implications – This is one of first empirical studies on university student loyalty. Future research could test the same or new hypotheses using different samples and contexts. Practical implications – University policies may benefit from the inclusion of norms regarding relational processes and outcomes such as the value of trust in the interactions and systematic recognition and awards assigned to student commitment achievements. Originality/value – The explanation chain of customer loyalty was successfully applied to student loyalty, and strengthened with the addition of meaningful moderating variables.

The purpose of this research is to contribute new and relevant information about the early adoption of integrated reporting in an emerging economy, in this case the Chilean economy, with emphasis on the reasons for its use, the perceived benefits, and the difficulties experienced during the process of adoption. Methodologically, this work uses a qualitative approach, utilising semi-structured interviews as a data collection instrument that are applied to the managers in charge of preparing this reporting for a sample of companies that trade on the Chilean stock exchange. These interviews were interpreted using an analysis of their content. The results obtained are in accordance with the literature and the empirical evidence, with the characteristics belonging to an emerging economy and highlighting the importance of communicating with the stakeholders. The relationship with the stakeholders and the inclusion in international contexts were the most valued. It is also highlighted that all of the companies analysed declare sustainability as a strategic focus, which is an infrequent situation in developing economies. One limitation of this work is the low valuation and use that market agents still assign to integrated reporting in Chile, which affects the degree of preparation and utilisation, and could be explained by other types of incentives and motivations.

Many higher education systems require students to take admission exams, which are considered good predictors of academic performance. However, in Latin America, their use has been criticised for promoting socioeconomic segregation and favouring students of higher socioeconomic levels. This research complements the higher education admission process by using alternative measures of relative performance that promote greater equity in the system and allow access to higher education for more vulnerable sectors. A longitudinal study of students in Chile taking the University Selection Test (P.S.U.) and estimations of ordinary least squares (O.L.S.) in two stages were conducted. We found that the use of new measures of performance allows those more vulnerable students from public schools to reach equal and/or superior levels of relative performance than their peers from private schools. The practical implications of this research relate to recognising that good students can also attend public schools and that those students who have the capability can enter higher education, independent of their economic situations.

Financial vulnerability can be understood as the risk of an organisation being unable to carry out routine its normal operations due to financial restrictions. Models to estimate financial vulnerability have mainly been developed for profit-making organisations, while few exist for non- profit organisations (NPOs). One example is higher education institutions, which have experienced important changes in Latin America through gratuity policies for student tuition. This study proposes a model to estimate the effects of gratuity on financial vulnerability, as previous studies have focused on the effects of enrolment. A binary logistic regression model is proposed, considering the following variables: debt, income concentration, operating margin, administration costs, and square metres of rooms per student. We applied this model to 54 universities between 2013 and 2019. The results showed that the model is relevant for the debt, size, and operating margin variables. Additionally, we observed that on average, all universities were negatively affected. This result is particularly true for state-owned universities because of certain management restrictions. A limitation of this study is the unavailability of other sources of non-financial information, such as each university’s business model and stock of strategic resources, which could improve our model, as this information is more related to control than to management.

El presente trabajo aplica en una empresa dedicada a la producción, comercialización y distribución de productos derivados del asfalto en la zona sur Chile. La empresa referida, ha preferido no revelar su razón social, para tal efecto hemos denominado a esta, Fantasía S.A. Durante los últimos años Fantasía ha experimentado un crecimiento significativo en sus ventas y con ello, una disminución de su nivel de liquidez y calidad de sus cuentas por cobrar. Sin embargo, este incremento en cuentas por cobrar está asociado a un mayor riesgo asumido de cobro, dada su política liberalizadora de cuentas por cobrar. Más aún, Fantasía S.A., no dispone de un sistema de gestión de crédito objetivo que permita una evaluación adecuada de la calidad y capacidad crediticia de sus clientes actuales y potenciales. Por tanto, en este artículo se propone a Fantasía un modelo de evaluación crediticia a sus clientes actuales y potenciales ajustado y ponderado a su realidad, que permite disminuir el riesgo de crédito o incobrables. El presente trabajo considera, una descripción de los modelos de evaluación de créditos y en específico de los modelos de credit scoring. A través de entrevistas a expertos, se definieron variables cuantitativas y cualitativas críticas a considerar en un proceso de gestión de créditos. Respecto de la calidad del modelo de evaluación crediticia propuesto, este muestra que un 81,82% de los créditos otorgados a sus clientes han superado el nivel mínino de evaluación o límite de aprobación por la empresa.

El estudio que se presenta tiene como objetivo central evaluar aquellos factores que llevan a un estudiante universitario a desertar no sólo al primer año sino también en los subsiguientes. A través de estimaciones de modelos de probabilidad logit, se encontró que los motivos que llevan a la deserción van cambiando a medida que se avanza en la carrera. Si bien existe un factor transversal, que corresponde al rendimiento académico universitario, en el primer año de carrera destacan otros factores, tales como, la región de procedencia, edad, y año de ingreso, mientras que al tercer año de carrera destacan el rendimiento académico y el financiamiento. A partir de estos resultados se pueden diseñar mejores políticas de retención estudiantil.