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

Cooperatives are among the existing forms of social organizations. Such cooperatives also include those that carry out credit operations, called credit unions. The objective of this article was to investigate the characteristics pertinent to the volume of credit operations of credit unions, considering the number of cooperative members and the cooperative system in the period from 2019 to 2020. This is a descriptive research. The non-probability sample covered 847 credit unions available in the Report 'IF: date', issued from the Central Bank of Brazil. The data treatment employed descriptive and inferential statistics, residual analyses and correspondence analysis.The volumes of credit operations of credit unions didn’t show uniform distribution and they weren’t conditioned to the period of operation. However, these volumes were conditioned to the number of members and the cooperative system to which the credit union is linked.The credit unions linked to defined cooperative systems (Sicredi and Sicoob) conditioned higher volumes of credit operations. The study exemplifies the use of correspondence analysis, a multivariate technique used to simplify visualization of associations through perceptual maps. The results also may help to better understand characteristics that can be associated with the volume of credit operations of credit unions in Brazil.

The present work seeks to show how much the Added Value Statement can be used as an evaluation tool, as well as to help in the socioeconomic understanding of companies. This type of demonstration arises, however, as an integral part of new reports, in order to clearly present the wealth produced by the entity and its contribution to society. The general objective of this article is to analyze the quality of the Added Value Statement as an evaluation tool. It uses as reference six companies in the Oil, Gas and Biofuels sector listed on the Stock Exchange Futures Market, in the period 2015 to 2020. It also relies on the application of indicators that will help verify the wealth index over the years and the impact that the crisis that occurred in 2020 may be having on these organizations. A bibliographic and quantitative research was carried out, ascertaining the values of the statements of each company and applying financial indicators. At the end of the analysis, it was evident that the organization Enauta Participações S.A. was the one that presented the best performance during the crisis. The ones that suffered the greatest impact on the results, however, were the companies Dommo Energia S.A. and Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. Petrobras, because of problems in previous years. The general analysis of indicators showed that the most favored users in the distribution of these riches were the government and third parties. However, it was found that, in a general context, these companies have a great importance for the country's economy. Therefore, users will be able to contribute more effectively, with the certainty that they are positively adding value to the community in which they are inserted.

The study aimed to understand how the stages of construction, implementation and improvement of the management tools guide occurred, by an interdisciplinary (accounting, supply chain and human resources practices) and international research group. The tool guide studied in this research is called SCA Diagnostic Toolkit – EMP (Supply Chain Accounting and Employment Practices) and was developed by a research group at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, involving the participation of three universities in different countries (England, Brazil and South Africa) and with seven researchers involved in three research areas. As for the methodology, it is a qualitative research and data collection took place through a semi-structured interview with the use of episodic narrative, with one of the researchers involved in the project. The main results show that the group in the construction phase used a similar tool as a starting point in another project on reverse logistics. In the implementation phase, the companies that participated in the consultation regarding the improvements that should be made during the construction of the tool were the first to use the Toolkit. As for the improvement of the tool, there are plans to adapt the tool to Spanish in order to expand it to other countries. The research is justified by the scarcity of studies that evidence the historical process of a tool built in an interdisciplinary way and with international researchers, with the purpose of leading companies to identify improvements in their management.

This article aims to analyze the social responsibility practices implemented by higher education institutions (IES) in the city of Ibagué, Colombia, as well as the impact they generate on society. In the same way, it examines how they use marketing to promote their services, keeping in mind the fulfillment of their business and social goals. The information is obtained through interviews with the coordinators of social projection of the Antonio Nariño universities, the University of Tolima, the University of Ibagué and the Minute of God University Corporation. As a significant finding, the importance of the implementation of marketing for the development of social responsibility can be evidenced, considering that marketing is an essential tool to improve this competition in the market. In conclusion, for most universities the concept of social responsibility is essential to create a commitment to society, where institutions are voluntarily linked responsibly in different contexts (environmental, social and economic), to achieve benefits and recognition of the same company.

Financial institutions move billions every day, investing, offering credit, among many other activities. Brazilian banks have one of the largest spreads in the world, being exposed to greater default risks. Taking into account the importance of commercial banks and the increase in defaults in the economy, the objective of the work was to identify the relationship between leverage and profitability in Brazilian banking institutions. As it is a study with a quantitative approach, the following methodological activities were carried out: i) calculation of leverage and profitability indicators; ii) creation of multiple regression models; iii) analysis with 18 banks and then with the 4 largest in the period from 2008 to 2017. It was concluded that for the 18 banks there is no relationship between leverage and profitability. However, when analyzing the 4 largest banks, it was found that there is a significant relationship between leverage and profitability, especially when ROE is related to GE, having a positive relationship.

The study presented the importance of having a system that optimizes costs in the agricultural activity on small farms. Facing a highly competitive scenario, it is necessary to deepen the knowledge about production costs so that the company has the proper knowledge about the potential of its business for a better vision of future decision-making. In this context, the paper presents a case study of a small family-owned property located in the municipality of Campo Grande/MS. The research aims to portray how the use of the breakeven point can help the management of the rural property. To achieve the project goal, it was necessary to determine the fixed and variable costs, as well as the gross income of the enterprise. About the methodology, a case study was used, as to the form of approach to the problem, qualitative research and the type of research, bibliographical. The results obtained from the study show that the use of control tools to determine costs helps in the management of the property and contributes to the optimization of results.

Intellectual Capital is a topic that has been widely discussed in recent years, and has become a source of relevant competitive advantage for organizations. The purpose of this study is to understand how Trading Companies manage their Intellectual Capital. This research was carried out in companies from Espírito Santo where a survey was carried out with 8 organizations. In addition, in order to go deeper into the topic, interviews were carried out with 2 companies. It is concluded that, in general, companies place greater value on relational capital, and the focus of management is on their customers. Among the aspects related to Structural Capital, the aspects related to the quality of processes and process efficiency stand out. The main contribution of this research is a discussion of the most present indicators, the most used indicators, the most important indicators and the indicators with more availability of information, when we approach intellectual capital management in Trading Companies

The Dominican Republic and Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) signed with the United States of America a Free Trade Agreement, known as DR-CAFTA, that came into effect between 2006 and 2009. The impact of this agreement on the flows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Central American countries and Dominican Republic has not been assessed yet. This research has the purpose to determine whether the DR-CAFTA has had an impact on the FDI flows these countries receive. In order to address this question, the literature was revised and the impact of DR-CAFTA on these flows was estimated with econometrics, using a panel data sample that comprises the six countries of interest for this research (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic), during the 1990-2017 period. No evidence about the impact of DR-CAFTA on FDI flows to the assessed countries was found. The fact that these countries were previously members of the Caribbean Basin Initiative is a possible explanation for these results.

This paper studies the changes caused by digitization for the last decades in the labor structures of countries that have a market economy. In recent years, the generalized access of the population to Information and Communication Technologies and to the web throughout the world has caused great changes in the three productive sectors (primary, secondary and tertiary), the most significant being the automation of the services sector. As a consequence of the changes produced in the tertiary sector, the destruction of millions of jobs appears, which in a short period of time will not be recovered, causing dramatic consequences if profound changes are not made in productive activity.

The purpose of this study is to observe the incidence of tourism activity on inequality through participatory and transparent mechanism that help to distribute tourism rents in society. Ten (10) Latin American countries are taken for the analysis during the period 2002-2019 and dynamic fixed effects regressions that correct for heteroscedasticity and Nickell Bias are used to observe short- and long-term dynamics in the variables of interest. The results show consistency with the literature on the mixed effects of tourism activity and inequality in Latin America and add new evidence on two transmission channels through which tourism activity impacts inequality: 1) participatory institutions that do not involve vulnerable groups into the productive dynamics of the tourism sector, enhancing inequality in the short run. Also, those participatory institutions do not generate a redistributive effect in the long run and 2) through transparency mechanisms that do not allow an adequate control of corruption in the tourism sector, resulting in those institutions not generating a redistributive effect. This poses serious challenges in terms of necessary reforms and structural changes in terms of participation and transparency mechanisms so that public policy decisions, especially in the tourism sector, are more in favour of the medium voter and vulnerable groups.