The quality of health care is one of the issues that highlights the great divide between advanced and less developed societies. In this chapter we present a view of the global healthcare industry, describing key indicators and its many different activities. Then, we look at trends and innovative actions that are shaking the industry, along with the drivers of health care shortly. Afterwards, we present a broad panorama of health care in Latin America. Five exemplary cases serve the purpose of illustrating how companies and individuals are bringing new solutions to the market, thus fostering change and improving the quality of life for many people. Those cases refer to dental services, specialized clinics for diabetes, pharmacies, home care services, and hospitals. We look at the founders of the chosen organizations, scanning the steps taken until the complete success of their proposals. Thus, we drive our quest for those elements of their business models that are suitable to reproduce in emerging nations with similar market conditions. In the end, we present some recommendations for companies of any size that are willing to venture into the healthcare industry in Latin America.

This chapter looks at successful knowledge transfer of products or processes from public research organizations to private sector firms for commercialization. Through six national case studies (Germany, the Republic of Korea, and the UK for high-income countries, and Brazil, China, and South Africa for middle-income countries), contextual conditions that influence success are discussed. Over time, the conceptual model behind policies to support knowledge transfer has shifted from a mode 1 linear pipeline model to a mode 3 model. In the linear model, basic research conducted by universities is followed by applied research, either by public research organizations or firms. In a mode 3 model, multiple actors – such as different types of public research organization, knowledge intermediaries such as knowledge transfer offices, and private businesses – are involved in an innovation system; there is a reverse knowledge flow whereby firms provide public research scientists with information on their needs, which influences the research projects of public research scientists. Best practice includes policy support for research and development and other innovation-related activities and incentives for firms to work closely with public sector researchers for problem solving and commercialization.

The chapter put into perspective the implementation of policies to support the transfer of knowledge from public research organizations to industry in high- and middle-income countries, drawing on the experience of six countries (Germany, Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China, and South Africa). Some common traits are identified, although it is made clear that each country requires an individualized analysis of what is needed to build effective knowledge transfer channels between universities and public research institutes and industry.

This chapter makes an important contribution to the literature on knowledge transfer from public research organizations by expanding its scope well beyond the conventional IP-driven channel. After the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the United States, academic and policy attention centered on streamlining the “clumsy” IPR frameworks prevalent in public research organizations across the world. Enthused by the US legislation, many countries, both developed and emerging (France, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, China, and South Africa, among others), started enacting their own Bayh-Dole-type legislations from the late 1990s onward. There prevailed a sense of faith in such legislation as though it would act as a magic formula to energize public-funded research for knowledge transfer in different countries. However, the subsequent academic literature on the US post-Bayh-Dole experience suggests that the evidence in this regard is far from unambiguous (Ray and Saha 2011). This has not only raised questions about the effectiveness of IP as a vehicle of knowledge transfer from public research organizations but also redirected policy focus in many countries toward other (perhaps more) important channels of knowledge transfer, hitherto underemphasized.

The current chapter studies how to successfully transfer knowledge from public research organizations to companies. Clearly, this depends, among other things, on the technological and related capabilities of firms and public research institutes, the gap between these capabilities, and the industrial structure of a country.

This chapter analyzes the structures and processes in place for knowledge transfer from publicly financed research in Germany. The chapter discusses the common channels of knowledge transfer from universities and public research institutes in Germany and the policies implemented to enhance the transfer. The chapter also discusses changes in the German knowledge transfer system and their impact, such as the abolition of professor’s privilege, the introduction of patent valorization agencies, and other major funding schemes. The chapter reviews scholarly literature relating to knowledge transfer in Germany and research findings from interviews with selected university knowledge transfer offices and policymakers. The chapter also presents results from a survey sent to all knowledge transfer offices at German universities. It concludes that while efforts have been made to foster systematic knowledge transfer from science to industry in the past decade in Germany, universities and public research institutes need to deepen the understanding of intellectual property and business-relevant research and applications within their institutes and to further improve knowledge transfer between their researchers and industry.

Using a series of case studies, we analyze innovative business models aiming primarily at financial inclusion of the LAC MOP segment through consumer goods purchases, simultaneously securing scalability and stakeholder´s profitability. These models simultaneously optimize social and financial returns through the interchangeable use of stakeholder’s resources and capabilities and clear alignment of their interests. Financial institutions absorb consumer goods companies into the value chain as distributors of their (financial) products and services to MoP using the company’s existing distribution channels and their established reputation. Consumer goods companies expand their offers with, for them, unorthodox financial tools and services, financially formalizing and including MOP members while increasing their customer-focus flexibility and sales.Finally, we provide lessons on how to develop inclusive businesses achieving direct developmental impacts through the provision of essential goods, services, and jobs, unlocking new forms of innovation and entrepreneurial activity critical to accelerating inclusive growth of emerging markets.

Traditional housing markets have primarily ignored both the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) and the Middle of the Pyramid (MOP), as these groups are expelled out from commercial banking given they have insufficient money to formally build their homes, so they remain as vulnerable people. This housing shortage is of particular importance in developing countries where public intervention is not efficient to solve this social problem. In this chapter, and applied to the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) nations, we show how the public–private initiatives based on innovation can help to solve this shortage of quality housing. We conclude that managers located in LAC countries have an active role in identifying social needs to satisfy them by applying innovative processes focused on reducing poverty gaps in housing from private initiatives. These creative procedures allow social entrepreneurs to adopt flexible and adjustable models to the variety of needs emerged in the different segments of the low-income market, and we show it in various cases for some LAC countries.

This chapter describes five innovative Microinsurance cases in Latin America. The Case of Bradesco Bank in Brazil and Aseguradora Rural in Guatemala solves the distribution channel challenge. The former using pharmacies, bakeries, beauty salons as sales points, and through the use of mobile devices. The latter is a case of reducing premium cost of health insurance by focusing on claims payments, linking insurance policies with prevention treatments. In the case of the Mexican alliance between the biggest chain store in Mexico, OXXO, and the insurance company GNP, they used the 14,000 stores of OXXO to distribute an easy to understand insurance. In el Salvador, the insurance company Seguros Futuro fosters the insurance sales using risk management education. Finally, the case of PROFIN is an example of three kinds of insurance, agriculture, life, and property, in one single and easy to understand policy. Also, in this chapter we describe the low penetration of the microinsurance market in this region, and we explain that there is still room for microinsurance products in Latin America; products that maintain low cost and at the same time allow for profitability.

Universities and public research institutes are encouraged to collaborate with industries and promote knowledge transfer from academia to the private sector in order to promote commercialization of inventions and to foster innovations that would facilitate economic growth. Patenting research outputs is one way of facilitating this knowledge transfer. This chapter focuses on tracking patenting as a way of measuring performance of public research organizations. The chapter proposes how patent filings across different countries using patent data filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty can be captured and compared and how national-level patent data can be compiled using the PATSTAT database. The chapter shows that global patenting by public research institutions and universities has increased in the last thirty-five years, with patenting dominance shifting from Europe and the United States to Asia. It shows that while private sector businesses continue to play a major role in global patenting, public research organizations are emerging as important innovation drivers. The chapter concludes that while there are limitations in using patent data and the extent to which it measures innovativeness, these data are still useful in helping to identify potential weaknesses and highlight strengths of public research organizations.

The world is witnessing unparalleled shifts in income distribution. How people with lower income are benefiting from improvements in their standard of living is a well-debated topic in managerial literature, not so much the changes occurring in the middle of the pyramid (MoP). We analyze the advance of that segment of the population across emerging economies, with a comparison of the performance of selected nations across the world. Additionally, we look at how different groups within those societies are moving from the base of the pyramid upward to reach middle-income status. Then, we focus our research on Latin America, looking for those factors that are revamping the business context in the region. First, we study the local consumer, describing the peculiarities of the leading markets, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Afterwards, we look at the positive impact of innovation in the betterment of middle-classes in Latin America. Finally, we share the conclusions from our study, to demonstrate how innovation is a primary factor for the new prosperity of the middle-classes and how original proposals may fit as well into other emerging economies.