Dos and don’ts of teaching courses overseas

Most students cannot afford to spend a semester, or a whole academic year, getting study abroad experience. Therefore, faculty and universities are offering short term, faculty led courses in other countries. Many universities around the world are requiring their students to get this international experience but, at the same time, there are many misconceptions about what these short study abroad courses should accomplish from academic, pedagogical and educational perspective. There isn’t a lot of literature on how to structure, organize and conduct these courses at different international locations

Mobile phones as a payment system

The accelerated growth of cell phone market penetration has happened all around the world. NFC and other tech-nologies will allow use the mobile phone as payment system even for non banking population.MOBILE PHONES AS A PAYMENT SYSTEM 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 people) East Asia & Pacific Europe & Central Asia Latin America & Caribbean Middle East & North Africa North America World Sub-Saharan Africa INTRODUCTION The accelerated growth of cell phone market penetration has happened all around the world. NFC and other tech-nologies will allow use the mobile phone as payment system even for non banking population. Paloma Benal Turnes Rey Juan Carlos University Georgetown University [email protected] [email protected] Phone: +1 240 550 9245 Phone: +34 607 42 22 73 Paloma Bernal Turnes Rey Juan Carlos University—Georgetown University EUROPEAN PAYMENTS IN EUROPE IN A GLANCE (2010) Merchants pay about 25.000B$ for card payments transactions in the European Union (UE). 25% of banks revenues in the UE belongs to pay-ments transactions. Transaction fees in card payments is 2% Card fees are 1.5% of EU GDP 75% of transactions in Europe are done in cash THE MAIN ISSUES IDENTIFIED IN MOBILE PAY-MENT SERVICES: • Market fragmentation, access and entry for existing and new service providers: telecommunication provid-ers, banks, card issuers, Internet platforms, mobile phones producers • Lack of transparency and efficient pricing of payment services • Need of standardisation • Low inter-operability between service providers CONCLUSIONS MAIN SUCCESS FACTORS OF MOBILE PAYMENTS 1) Service Knowledge 75% 2) Marketing Knowledge 80% 3) Managerial Knowledge 92% 4) Strategic Pioneering Advantages 95% 5) Marketing Orientation 85% 6) Peformance 88% 7) Security 73% METHODOLOGY Sample: 82 (cooperative and saving banks of UE (74), e-payment service providers (6), card issuers(2) Method of information gathering: phone, e-mail Exploratory Factor Analyis: NFI=0.885 CFI=0.937 RMSEA= 0.04

A FRAMEWORK FOR TRANSPARENCY IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE

The aim of this paper is to cover the gap in literature about transparency in the context of international trade facilitation. It focuses on the importance of transparency in achieving growth in international trade and the differences between non-transparent practices and corruption in global trade. Managing the disclosure of information about rules, regulations and laws is not the only trade policy instrument where transparency becomes important. To build a framework on levels of transparency we developed a matrix classifying the transparency of each country based on ease of doing business and levels of bribery. Four different strategies are explained based on the different scenarios of transparency in international trade. The main conclusions reflect that disclosure of information is not enough to guarantee transparency and monitoring of transparency must be improved

Main features of international viniculture: Spain, France, United States, Argentina, and Chile

This research shows the success factors in the wine market with a subsequent sectorial review of viniculture in Spain, France, the United States, Argentina, and Chile. The results of the analysis of the time series (years from 1985 to 2005) done on exports, imports, per capita consumption, total wine consumption and production help to complete the sectorial analysis and allow us to make reliable predictions until 2009

Gestión estratégica en la empresa: un análisis de la evolución del enfoque del cuadro de mando.

The Balanced Scorecard Approach was developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1993) as an innovative approach to encourage and facilitate the integration of financial and non-financial measures into management in a fast-changing business environment. Their premise was that access to better information would allow managers to improve strategic performance in their organizations. Since then, a flood of interest in finding ways to give business users direct and timely access to relevant information has appeared and this emerging field, called Business Intelligence, is recognized by business leaders as a vital tool for helping organizations to achieve strategic objectives, optimize performance and improve decisions. In that context, Balanced Scorecard Approach has gained wide acceptance in both the academic, and in the business world, having been adopted in a large number of industries and organizations, including the private sector and public the sector, for-profit and non�forprofit enterprises. This paper describes the primary features of the Balanced Scorecard as a strategic management tool, paying atention to its developments, the issues that must be addressed in its implementation, as well, as the potential determinants influencing the successful application of this concept, especially in SMEs.El Cuadro de Mando Integral fue desarrollado por Kaplan y Norton (1992, 1993) como una forma innovadora de facilitar e impulsar la integración de las medidas financieras y no financieras dentro de la gestión empresarial en un entorno empresarial en cambio permanente. Su premisa fundamental era que el acceso a una información mejorada permitiría a los decisores de la empresa mejorar la eficiencia estratégica de sus organizaciones. Desde entonces, ha surgido un enorme interés en este campo emergente, centrado en la búsqueda de maneras de proporcionar a los usuarios de la empresa acceso directo y en el momento adecuado a información relevante. La inteligencia de negocio es reconocida por los líderes empresariales como una herramienta vital para ayudar a las organizaciones a alcanzar objetivos estratégicos, mejorar su rendimiento empresarial y la toma de decisiones. En este contexto, el Cuadro de Mando Integral ha ganado una amplia aceptación en los ámbitos académicos y también en el mundo de los negocios, habiendo sido adoptado por una gran cantidad de empresas y organizaciones, incluyendo el sector público y el privado, tanto para las empresas con o sin ánimo de lucro. Este documento describe las características básicas del Cuadro de Mando Integral como herramienta de gestión estratégica, revisando sus desarrollos alcanzados, las cuestiones a tener en cuenta en su implementación, así como los potenciales determinantes que influyen en el éxito de su aplicación, especialmente en las PyMES