Vol. 17 No. 3 (2023)

Nicolás Albertoni and Roberto Horta (Universidad Católica del Uruguay) set out to analyze factors that explain or are primarily related to the type of internationalization followed by exporting firms. The most consistent results show a positive relationship between a firm’s competitive capacity and its early internationalization model, although there is also evidence that the existence of a specialized foreign trade department and export experience are two aspects that influence the type of early internationalization of the firms. The results contribute to a better understanding of Uruguay’s export dynamics.

In the following article, Leonardo da Silva Araújo and Andréa Justino Ribeiro Mello (CEFET-RJ, Brazil) investigate the perceived performance of professionals and trainees in relation to soft skills during the pandemic period. This study proposes a model using ordinal logistic regression to test the relationship between professional performance and performance in certain soft skills, and the influence of the pandemic on this issue. For the authors, the elements of the pandemic most evident in explaining perceived professional performance were the speed of its spread and the disruption of routine. The most significant soft skills were oral communication, self-management, and technical/digital skills.

Small businesses play a significant role in the economy and their management is influenced by different factors, such as having adequate financial literacy. Using data from the Survey of Financial Skills in Small Businesses, this article analyzes whether the size, sector, and exporting nature of businesses are related to the level of financial literacy of their owners/managers. For Sara Fernández-López, Marcos Álvarez-Espiño and Lucia Rey-Ares (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) the estimates show a positive relationship between the size of firms and the financial literacy of their owners.

Juan Carlos Baker, Felipe De Anda and Edgar Demetrio Tovar-García (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico) present six case studies, based on unstructured in-depth interviews with CEOs of small and medium-sized Mexican firms, to explain why and how trust is relevant for internationalization. These firms suffer from negative stereotypes about their culture and the country’s legal system, which creates a lack of individual and institutional trust. Therefore, the authors argue that distrust is an additional barrier to business internationalization in the case of Mexico, and probably in the case of other developing countries.

Eduardo Sandoval-Álamos (Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, Chile) investigates the effect of the announcement of military intervention in Ukraine on the performance of 23 countries with developed stock markets and its respective relationship with the economic growth of the year 2022. The author contrasts four models, with the Fama & French five-factor time-varying model with hetero-elastic residuals being the best one. The results indicate that those global investors who opportunistically sheltered in the Norwegian and US stock markets and liquidated positions in the Hong Kong stock market achieved superior stock market performance in economies with positive and negative economic growth respectively.

In the last paper, Arthur Tavares de Sena, Aline Moura Costa da Silva, Cintia de Melo de Albuquerque Ribeiro (Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF, Brazil), and Anna Paola Fernandes Freire (Universidade Federal da Paraíba - UFPB, Brazil) analyze the contribution of Russian stock market risk to Brazilian stock market risk and Brazilian agribusiness sector risk, considering the Russia-Ukraine war. The main results indicate that there was a decrease in the risk contribution of the Russian stock market to the Brazilian stock market, and an increase in the risk contribution of the Russian market to the risk of the Brazilian agribusiness sector, but not to a statistically significant degree. Although Brazil depends on some inputs (agro) from the Russian market, it is a global exporter of agricultural products. Given this and the results found, it is suggested that even with the high production costs, Brazil managed to supply the demand suppressed by the war, stabilizing the negative impacts on its economy.

I would once again like to thank all those who have made this journal possible: members of the Advisory Board, the Editorial Board, Editors and Associate Editors, assessors, authors, and last but not least, the readers.

Editor-in-Chief