The article addresses the reasons for the sugar industry’s modernization in Guatemala. Fuentes uses a novel framework that shows how worker mobilization, the collapse of the industry’s main markets, and enhanced competition generated an opportunity for business strategy innovation. In that context, a group of Catholic Social Doctrine-inspired managers, the “Apostles of Development,” introduced a wide range of transformative practices in one of the sugar industry’s mills, and then diffused those practices to other mills, triggering a far-reaching transformation. 

Earlier this year, Fuentes’s article, "Spurred to Upgrade: A Review of Triggers and Consequences of Industrial Upgrading in the Global Value Chain Literature” was published in World Development. The article explores the development prospects for firms from the Global South participating in global value chains. 

Alberto Fuentes is co-appointed with the School of City & Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. His research focuses on the political economy of industrial policy and industry-level transformation in Latin America. He has studied industrial change in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and Brazil. Fuentes is also the co-director of the Global Development Minor.