Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Hiring a service is a moment of great importance once it builds the perception of the service value and quality. Some companies may deal with that, assuming a greater importance when elaborating their service contracts. Usually law professional people elaborate these documents, but this may include legal attributes, not considering the service to the customers, as well as the customers’ point of view. In times of increasing on customer focus, market and service orientation, a question can be posted: to what extent company contracts show service or customer orientation? This paper compares the service orientation degree for Cable TV contracts from five companies, based on a theoretical model developed to this purpose. From a conceptual model for servant contract, four dimensions were assessed: physical aspects, reasonableness, intelligibility and customer focus. After subject evaluation by eight judges, analyzing the validation index (CVI), it was found that the contracts show moderate orientation to serve. Furthermore, results show that the five surveyed company’s contracts showed a similar overall performance, i.e., none stood out over the other. The study presents important practical efficacy, because it can guide the Cable TV companies to adopt improvement strategies in elaboration of contracts, so that the contractual instruments be would reviewed of clauses that promote the sensation of better service to their customer. Thus, this article directs the manager to the aspect that deserves more attention, i.e, which dimensions require further refinement and direction to serve

This article aims to look at how organizations seek to improve their competitiveness through the development of a model that integrates the management and systemic practice form with which relate the economic, social and environmental areas, processes and engagement of stakeholders or interested parties, in the context of sustainability and value of innovation. Methodologically, the study may be considered exploratory and descriptive in relation to the purposes and regards the bibliographic resources. Further, organizations seek to interact in a competitive environment, and through the model of Sustainable value of Hart and Milstein, the innovation and the parties concerned, respectively, with the central point generating sustainable values. Finally. the engagement of stakeholders become increasingly important strategic for enterprises and show how the global challenges associated with sustainable development, working collaboratively, as well as can help to identify strategies through sustainable practices. The article concludes that several successful models of the sustainable generation of value, are possible because of the economic, environmental and social dimensions.

The present article has the objective of diagnosing the Burnout Syndrome in university teachers, by means of latent class models. Specifically, using Parametric Bootstrap for their application, given the nature of the data: manifest binary variables and scarce data. The simple random sample consisted of 251 teachers, to whom the Burnout Inventory was applied, containing 22 binary variables. Thus, the possible number of response patterns was 4194304, but only 0.000041 (0.004%) of them were found in the sample data. Given this low incidence, for the evaluation of the late class models, the Parametric Bootstrap method was used through the BLC program (BootLatentClass). It was found that the appropriate model to explain the dimensionality of the data is formed by three latent classes. The first class can be interpreted as "normal" teachers; they do not present any symptoms of being "burned" because all the conditional probabilities are very low. The second class is composed of "unhappy" university teachers. The third class is the "optimistic" university teachers. There are significant mean differences between the three latent classes, at a level of confidence of 99%, in the arithmetic averages of the dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal fulfillment.

The present article gathers the partial results obtained through the actions executed in the project "ED-1518 Program Interrelation with the Elderly Person”, registered in the Vice-rectory of Social Action of the University of Costa Rica (UCR). The objective of this research was to identify the perception and degree of satisfaction of the target audience concerning the activities carried out in the ED-1518 project. The geographic location of the objective population corresponds to the area of influence of the Sede del Caribe and Recinto de Siquirres of the UCR, in the central canton and Siquirres of the province of Limón, Costa Rica. The methodology used was qualitative, the information was to compile from a bibliographic review, and the primary data were collected through observation and roundtable discussions. Secondary data was obtained through literature review existing both nationally and internationally. In conclusion, through the project ED-1518, an increase in motivation, management of individual and group emotions, increased self-esteem, and self-sufficiency has been achieved in the participating population. Likewise, it is possible to train the population in various topics such as English, crafts, finance management, swimming, leisure activities and the acceptance and use of different technological resources by the objective population. Finally, it is evident that the accompaniment and the permanent formation have promoted a better quality of life of the older adults of the Costa Rican Caribbean.

This article analyzes the role of the language laboratory for computer-assisted learning as a technological tool in the English teaching, in order to improve the attention and oral communication skills in the Bachillerato in English Teaching at the Pacific Campus from the University of Costa Rica. This article responds to the need to identify teaching tools that contribute effectively to the process of teaching a foreign language in a creative and modern way, that adapts to the generations of students immersed in technological media. In this mixed type research, the results were analyzed in the qualitative and quantitative method obtained through a survey applied to 60 students enrolled in the career. Among the main results is the need to provide training in the area of ​​teaching strategies of the different linguistic skills with modern technological tools, to English teachers in public universities, with the purpose of strengthening the development of skills and communicative competences of students favoring their learning process. In addition, one of the most relevant conclusions is the fact that several attempts have been made to migrate from the language laboratory to an updated multimedia class, the technology is not appropriately and with any success to promote language learning in a modern context, so the professional preparation of the teacher in the technological area favors not only the application of authentic pedagogical mediation materials, but also the academic performance of their students.  

The present investigation was developed in the community of Rincón de Mora, San Ramón, Alajuela, Costa Rica. The study site was eight coffee plantations of 0-5 ha that are located between 1100-1500 m.a.s.l, have a temperature of 21°C and a rainfall of 2.250 mm per year on average. The objective of this study was to assess the environmental dimension from the biodiversity issue. It was evaluated in coffee farms through five sustainability indicators, taken from the FAO SAFA tool. It is important that all the plantations obtained 100% in the indicators called change in land cover and structural diversity of ecosystems, while the other indicators had diverse results

The present article is an analysis of the Costa Rican narrative  of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century through the text Los Dorados (1999) written by Sergio Muñoz Chacón. At first, the discursive construction of literary postmodernity is studied, starting from the process of "carnivalization", according to the theoretical proposal of Mikhail Bakhtin. Second, the marginality is examined as a discourse that allows the symbolic construction of the text, based on the notions of investment and crisis. Finally, the critical questioning of the discourse on Costa Rican national identity is observed in this this finisecular narrative text.

The following article presents a model that shows the interaction between strategic planning and flexible education. The objective of this research is to highlight the link between the educational change that is witnessed, and its success linked to proper planning from within the universities. This project is carried out through a qualitative methodology, specifically, the documented research tool is used, in which an approach is made to the topics related to educational innovation, competence-based education, planning and strategic processes, among other topics. related to the proposed graph. In addition, it is conceived as a cross-sectional study in which the variables are not manipulated. As a result, we have a multidirectional model based on a central idea: strategic planning and the curricular flexibility that should prevail in higher education institutions.

El objetivo de la Revista Pensamiento Actual de la Universidad de Costa Rica es difundir la investigación científica y promover la reflexión académica en diversoscampos del quehacer universitario.

La Coordinación de Investigación le presenta la más reciente publicación de la Revista Pensamiento Actual, volumen 18 número 31, con un total de trece artículosde diferentes disciplinas. Todos ellos constituyen aportessignificativos a la comunidad académica.