MGLO - Programa de intercambios de la Facultad de Administración

Latin America has experienced a dramatic transformation during the last 150 years. The course discusses the Latin American development through the entrepreneurs who shaped it. It offers students an opportunity to explore the historical development of as well as the future of entrepreneurship in Latin America, one of the world’s largest emerging markets. For that, the course looks at the dynamic relationship between states and markets and between the developed and developing areas of the world economy or global economy. Through a wide-ranging framework it offers students an opportunity to understand the changing role of entrepreneurs and how they created business organizations in different contexts and institutional settings. Latin America offers rich, and often traumatic historical conditions, especially concerning the impact of globalization and economic cycles. By placing business in a broad political, economic and cultural context, the course covers the changes in the structure of Latin America businesses over the last 150 years, the winners and losers from capitalist expansion. The course uses a variety of case studies, academic articles and book chapters, as well as newspaper articles, company cases from different countries of Latin America. It is organized in three modules, providing a dynamic framework for exploring the challenging decisions Latin American entrepreneurs and firms have faced in the different eras of the last century and a half in Latin America, until current conditions. By reviewing the historical evidence on Latin American entrepreneurship, the course is relevant to all future leaders operating in today’s global context, since students will learn to understand how the modern business environment came about, and to think about how value can be derived in volatile circumstances with unpredictable political contexts as well as micro and macroeconomic shifts.

"Latin America is an exceptional case to analyse the challenges of sustainable development. On one hand, poverty rates throughout the region have declined steadily during the last decades. Endowed with one of the largest stocks of available land for agricultural expansion, the region is also one of the most urbanised in the developing world. On the other, the region hosts many of the global ‘biodiversity hotspots’ where critical biomes (e.g. tropical rainforest, grass savanna, alpine tundra) are severely threatened by deforestation, habitat loss, and pollution from extractive industries. Moreover, most countries in Latin America still rank high as some of the most unequal in terms of income and land distribution. Understanding these contrasting and often contradictory realities admits no simplistic approaches.

This course introduces some of the main environmental and social justice issues that define naturesociety interactions in the region and invites students to explore some provoking questions: what is distinctive —if anything— about the main issues and challenges of sustainability in Latin America? Is it possible for the region to turn those challenges into a source of widespread prosperity? If so, how? From an initial historical analysis about how space and territory were configured right after Spanish conquest, the course moves on to address the political economy of contemporary sustainability challenges in the region. It concludes with a critical reflection on future possibilities.

Founded on participant-centred methods whereby the pedagogical focus shifts to students as active contributors to knowledge generation, the course expects all participants to engage thoroughly with reading materials, cases and discussions as a necessary condition for individual and collective learning. At the end, participants will develop a deeper and more acute understanding of the nature, complexity and opportunities underlying sustainable development in the region in the hope that this will inspire them to help bring about profound, scalable change."

"Societal changes as part of the pandemic crisis require innovative models for production and consumption that generate employment, spur economic development, attend new societal paradigms, and keep within a safe boundary of ecosystem functions and services. The circular economy proposes such model by redefining growth through decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, designing waste out of the system and motivating the transition to renewable energy sources.

In a circular economy, economic activity builds and rebuilds overall system health. The concept recognizes the importance of the economy needing to work effectively at all scales – for large and small businesses, for organizations and individuals, globally and locally–. Transitioning to a circular economy does not only amount to adjustments aimed at reducing the negative impacts of the linear economy. Rather, it represents a systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits.
The circular economy implies a transformative change in operation, and strategy of organizations and systems in order to consider dynamic interactions between social activities and biophysical environment. Therefore, the scope of circular economy is highly complex decision making, involving many variables and their interactions, and interdisciplinary, drawing knowledge from various disciplines across science, management, and policy.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of social-environment intersections of circular economy and introduce examples of circularity strategies and practices from various scales and perspectives. Through the course, students are expected to enhance their understanding about complexity, cause – effect relationships, and dilemma in circular economy issues, particularly in the context of Colombia, and hone their capacities to develop innovative approaches to address these issues."