MBA International Residency: The Derbi Project - Spain. ACES Working Papers (course development), 2012

The objective of this course is to complement and give closure to the work developed during MBAD204. There are two main components to this course. The first one is to provide the students with a firsthand experience of what doing business in Spain is like. This is accomplished by visiting a number of companies and government institutions in Barcelona and interacting with managers from a variety of industries. The other major component of this trip consists in learning how to present a business proposal or market analysis before a real client

Geographic Scope Under Conditions Of Confined And Connected Change: The Case Of Telefónica (Spain). ACES Working Papers, 2012

Traditional explanations of MNE geographic scope formation fit somewhat uncomfortably with recent empirical and theoretical work in IB that suggests (1) that wholesale (not just gradual) changes in MNE geographic scope may be more frequent than previously thought, and (2) that managers’ responses to a world increasingly characterized by random, unpredictable change are more experimental and less optimizing in nature than assumed in most models of international expansion. In this paper we draw from studies portraying industries as dynamic networks, and from the literature on managerial cognition to provide a complementary explanation of the evolution of MNE geographic scope that reconciles the insights of traditional IB models with the questions raised by more recent studies in this field. We illustrate the proposed model through a detailed account of the internationalization process of Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications company

Repercusión ética del mecanismo de acción de las píldoras del día después y los cinco días después

Un importante problema social son los embarazos de adolescentes, alrededor de 15 millones al año en el mundo. Para tratar de solucionar este problema se han propuesto diversas alternativas, entre ellas, la contracepción de emergencia. Se entiende por tal la utilización de fármacos o mecanismos diversos para evitar un embarazo después de una relación sexual esporádica. Desde un punto ético, los aspectos de mayor interés a valoraren relación con la contracepción de emergencia son: a) su eficacia, b) su mecanismo de acción, c) sus efectos secundarios y d) las consecuencias sociales de su uso. En esta revisión se valoran cada uno de estos aspectos. Su eficacia es de alrededor del 80%. En relación con su mecanismo de acción parece razonable afirmar que en un porcentaje de veces no inferior al 50% actúa por un mecanismo antiimplantatorio y, por tanto, abortivo. Con respecto a sus efectos secundarios un 50% aproximadamente de las usuarias los presentan, aunque en general no son importantes. Finalmente, parece que con la instauración de la contracepción de emergencia no se ha conseguido reducir el número de embarazos de adolescentes y tampoco el de abortos, por lo que no sería una actitud incongruente el revisar los programas desarrollados para solucionar estos problemas. En este sentido, parece que aquellos que introducen en los mismos un apartado de educación de la sexualidad obtienen resultados más positivos.One important social problem is teenage pregnancies, estimated at around 15 million a year worldwide. Various alternatives to solve this problem have been proposed, among the emergency contraception. Emergency contraception is understood as the use of drugs or different mechanisms to avoid pregnancy after a sporadic sexual relationship. From an ethical point of view, the most interesting aspects to assess as far as emergency contraception is concerned are: a) its efficiency, b) its mechanism of action, c) its side effects and d) the social consequences of its use. This article assesses all these aspects. It offers an efficiency of around 80%. As regards its mechanism of action, it is reasonable to affirm that it acts through an anti-implantation mechanism in a percentage no lower than 50%, and is therefore abortive. In relation to its side effects, approximately 50% of users suffer them, although they are not generally significant. Finally, it would appear that the establishment of emergency contraception has neither succeeded in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies nor the number of abortions. Therefore, it would not be incongruous to revise the projects devised to solve such problems. In this sense, those projects which include a section on sexuality education apparently obtain more positive results

Sustaining international competitive advantage through capability renewal: the case of CEMEX. ACES Working Papers, August 2009

In this paper we do not enter in the dispute of whether a new theory is needed to explain the factors that make it possible for EMNEs to give their initial steps beyond their home markets. Rather, we are interested in finding out how some of these firms have been able to sustain their international competitive edge for decades allowing them to become major players in their industry at the global level

Las teorías implícitas de los profesores de Educación Física

Este trabajo forma parte de una investigación mucho más amplia que, tomando la programación de la Educación Física como eje referencial, pretende estudiar el pensamiento del profesor y analizar los factores que inciden en las decisiones que éste toma cuando resuelve ciertos aspectos vinculados con sus tareas docentes. Entre el conjunto de aspectos que condicionan las diferentes decisiones del profesor se encuentran las teorías implícitas que éste posee respecto a la enseñanza. Estas teorías son el conjunto de creencias personales que rigen la manera de comportarse de los docentes delante de situaciones concretas. El presente estudio trata de acercarse al conocimiento de estas teorías y analiza con detalle la presencia y la incidencia de las mismas en el pensamiento de los docentes y sus consecuencias para el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. La investigación sigue un diseño transversal y trata de describir a la vez de interpretar el cúmulo de factores que forman estas teorías en los docentes de las etapas obligatorias de educación

From stem cells to IPS cells. A passionate journey

There is no doubt that this scientific finding could have potential clinical use, and as such it has been met with great hope, not only by medical science but also by the general public. In addition to the unquestionable scientific interest in this finding is the fact that obtaining the aforementioned cells, which are similar to embryonic cells, does not require the destruction of human embryos, thus avoiding the serious ethical difficulty that the use of embryonic stem cells entails; it is well known that the human embryos from which they originate must be created and destroyed to obtain them. This triple aspect – scientific interest, possible clinical usefulness and ethical goodness – has meant that as previously mentioned, the work by the Japanese and American researchers has been deserving of significant media attention. However, the current study, conducted using human skin cells, has had its experimental prologue with animals and even its theoretical formulation stageMedicin

Genotype networks and biological evolution

Darwin proposed that the development and evolution of living beings is governed by natural selection of the fittest, which supposes that the different phenotypes existing in nature are a random product of such natural selection. Although this is a consolidated scientific theory, there are still grey areas in the biological evolutionary process, among them, whether there has been enough time for point genetic mutations and natural selection to have been able to produce organs as complex as those in living beings. This difficulty could be mitigated by the existence of so-called “genotype networks”, and by their role in the production of all phenotypes that currently constitute the incomparable biodiversity of nature. Genotype networks refers to a set of genotypes which, varying very little in their structure, are interconnected, producing the same phenotype.Medicin

Is there a purpose in the biological evolution of living beings?

An unquestionably important biological question is whether human beings are the product of chance or of purpose in the evolutionary process. Charles Darwin did not accept purpose in biological evolution, a view not shared by his colleague Alfred Russel Wallace. The controversy has remained ever since, and while many experts argue against purpose in biological evolution, many others defend it. This paper reflects on this biological and ethical problem, relating it to the possible existence of a plan that governs and shapes the evolution of living beings and that is ultimately responsible for the development of Homo sapiens. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 19.3 (Autumn 2019): 000–000.Medicin