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Garry Bruton at Texas Christian University's Neeley School of Busi- ness in Fort Worth; David Ahlstrom, management profes- sor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Tomas Puky, a commer- cial manager with Andritz Hydro in North Carolina and a TCU graduate. The researchers Tomas Puky interviewed a mem- ber of top manage- ment from 13 ven- ture capital firms in Latin America and 13 in Asia. They also interviewed four venture capi- tal experts from each region. They found that while most Asian coun- tries welcome VCs, those in Latin America often do not. In Latin America, wealth is concentrated among a few large families, who wield great influence with their governments, says Bruton. That situation leaves entrepreneurs and VCs with little regulatory, legal, or cultural support. In fact, if a business becomes too successful for some families' com- fort, governments may even inter- fere with that success. The result is that Latin America is now beginning to abandon market economies for a more socialist economy. Only through entrepreneur- ial activity can Latin American countries create jobs and keep their economies going, say these researchers. VCs willing to venture into Latin America will face more delays and barriers than they face in more developed economies. They also will have to work within the STUDY BRIEFS n How to Stop Foreclosures Three professors at the Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School in New York City have writ- ten a proposal to modify laws to stem the tide of home foreclosures. Christopher Mayer and Tomasz Piskorski of the business school and Edward Morrison of the law school focus on privately securitized mort- gages, which account for 50 percent of foreclosure starts in the U.S. The professors encourage government to increase compensation to loan servicers who avoid foreclosures through mortgage modification and to remove legal constraints that inhibit modification. The authors estimate that such action would pre- vent nearly one million fore- closures over three years. Although the plan could cost up to $10.7 billion, the authors note that it would be less costly than alternatives. n 'No' to More Board Diversity Fifty-five percent of directors at publicly traded companies in the U.S. say they would not like to increase minority representation on their boards, according to a survey from consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles International and the Cen- ter for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles. Of those that would like to increase board diversity, 30 percent are especially seeking out women; 21 percent, African Americans; 17 percent, Hispanics/Latinos; and 9 percent, Asian Americans. In the same survey, 31 percent of respon- dents say they think CEO compen- sation is too high, up from 25 per- cent in 1998. n Collaboration Works Research collaborations that extend beyond a single university make it more likely for that research to have high impact, say Benjamin Jones, management professor, and Brian Uzzi, professor of leadership, both at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois; and Stefan Wuchty, a scien- tist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The researchers define "high impact" in terms of how often papers in scientific fields were cited from 1995 to 2005. Papers in science and engineering created through multi-school collaborations had a 35.6 percent chance of hav- ing high impact—2.9 percent higher than papers created through single- school collaborations. Their paper, "Multi-University Research Teams: Shifting Impact, Geography, and Stratification in Science," was pub- lished in the November 21, 2008, issue of Science. BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2009 53