Cuadernos de Economía y Dirección de la Empresa最新文献

This study provides new evidence about the effects of subsidies for research and development (R&D) on technical efficiency in a sample of Spanish manufacturers during the period 1993-2002. The results suggest two issues to consider. Firstly, the beneficiary firms of subsidies are less efficient; to avoid this effect, this result should serve to as a guide to authorities, with the aim of improving the allocation of these resources. Secondly, less efficient firms are those that are unable to obtain resources to fund R&D or obtain credit and are therefore those that apply for subsidies. In light of these results, the subsidies received by Spanish manufacturing firms may be insufficient or may fail to arrive when required, hampering the fulfilment of their objectives.

Errors may occur even in excellent companies. However, the literature has shown how good management of service recovery processes achieves high levels of customer-perceived satisfaction.

An exhaustive review of the specialist literature reveals that there are still major gaps in knowledge of the following areas: i) the perception of justice and its impact on satisfaction with service recovery and loyalty, ii) individual and group consideration of attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, and iii) the links between satisfaction with service recovery and customer loyalty, which would enrich our understanding of the effectiveness of service recovery actions.

The present study analyzes the mobile phone sector in Spain. The results indicate that recovery processes influence customer-perceived satisfaction and customers’ predisposition toward loyalty. However, we also identify that, in practice, companies seem to pay insufficient attention to this alternative, at least from the customer's point of view, raising the question of why this is so.

Social networking sites have gone from being a specialized online activity to becoming a mass phenomenon. This new interactive tool among people, organizations, communities, etc., has increased exponentially in recent years. Based on the emergence and growth of this interactive technological innovation, the main objective of this paper is to analyze the adoption and use of social networking sites by users, taking account of some personal characteristics (i.e. trust and the perceived risk of these sites). The sample is based on a national online survey focused on a national panel of users which interacts within the social networking sites. The results support the positive relationships and influences among variables, analyzed using an adaptation of the Technology Acceptance Model. The conclusions have marketing implications for companies to improve their managerial decisions and for further investigation by academics specialized in this research field.

The objective of the present study is to analyse the role played by the entrepreneurial culture of the organization and the value and uniqueness of employee knowledge (human capital) in generating innovation. This research has been conducted with a sample of companies in the most innovative sectors of Spanish industry, applying the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique. The results demonstrate significant relationships between the value and uniqueness of the individual employee knowledge and company innovation. An entrepreneurial culture is found to act as a moderating variable, such that the influence on innovation exerted by the value of the knowledge possessed by employees is greater with this type of company culture.

The aim of this study is to analyze the loyalty of airline users, exploring the differences between traditional airlines and low-cost airlines. The bibliographical review has identified three antecedents: satisfaction, trust and perceived value. An empirical study was carried out, consisting of a total of 1141 personal interviews in the airport of El Prat (Barcelona) with users of one traditional airline company, British Airways, and of one low-cost company, easyJet. These two companies operate direct flights Barcelona-London. In the analysis of the data structural equations models were used, by means of a multigroup analysis. The results reveal that satisfaction, trust and perceived value all explain the relationships of loyalty between passengers and the airline companies, and moderating effects occur depending on the business model (traditional or low-cost).

This paper investigates online and offline consumer choice behavior. Empirical research comparing online and offline consumer behavior has traditionally been based on comparisons between different sets of consumers, and therefore has been unable to isolate the effect of the Internet on consumer behavior from consumer-specific effects. Using online and offline grocery shopping data from the same sample of consumers, we show that consumer choice behavior differs across the two channels. When shopping online, consumers are less price-sensitive, while displaying stronger brand and size loyalty. In addition, results show that product category characteristics play a role in these differences. The price effect differences are greater in sensory and food categories, whereas the differences in brand loyalty effects are stronger in sensory and, surprisingly, non-food categories. These results should help firms to design better online business strategies.

This article analyses the relationship between ISO 14001 certification and financial performance through a quantitative empirical study. The main contribution of this paper is based on the application of a longitudinal methodology, examining the performance levels before and after certification; in other words, we analyse the selection effect and the treatment effect of ISO 14001 certification. The results show that performance differences before certification are higher than differences after certification. Then, the better performance of certified firms may be due to a selection effect: firms with better performance have a higher tendency to achieve ISO 14001 certification.

Solvency II will transform the system of determining capital requirements of the insurer. The new regulatory framework proposes a standard model, but at the same time, it encourages the application of internal models of self-assessment and risk management. This paper aims to examine alternative models proposed in the literature for the measurement of insureŕs equity risk exposure. We have used monthly data series on the IBEX-35 in the period between January 1992 and December 2008. The calibrated models have allowed comparing the resulting capital requirements against the proposal of the fourth quantitative impact study (QIS4). The results show that capital requirements obtained by the better fit models are significantly greater than those of the standard model. This means that companies using the standard model or another based on similar assumptions underestimate significantly their exposure to equity risk.

Manager's perception acts as a filter that determines what the stimuli are that shape corporate decisions. The goal of our research is to deep in the study of the factors that influence managers perception, with special emphasis on the manager cognitive profile. In particular, we analyse the phases included in the managers’ perception process (reception and interpretation) and the factors impacting such process. Thus, we consider not only individual factors related with the managers’ cognitive abilities but also contextual factors related with the characteristics of the stimuli and the source of information. An experiment involving university students was conducted for the empirical analysis. Specifically, we explore how subjects perceive the impact of takeover bid announcements on the target firm's stock price. Findings reflect how the perception process evolves along the two expected stages and bear out the importance of individual cognitive style as one of the most influential variables in the various stages. Findings also reveal that it is the more analyst individuals who are capable of distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant stimuli. Besides, the more rational subjects show the most congruent position as regards the influence of the announcement on the target stock price. Finally, the research also evidences the impact of the reliability of the source and the clarity of the stimulus on the two stages involved in the perception process.

Several studies have determined the relative importance of firm, industry, corporate, and strategic groups’ effects in explaining firm profitability. Firm performance also depends on the territory where the company is located. The present paper analyzes the location effect at the regional level within a country, and the relative importance of this region effect is examined together with firm and strategic group effects. This paper offers a multilevel analysis and is applied to the Spanish hotel industry employing a cross-classified hierarchical model, because hotels are cross-classified into strategic groups and locations. The results show that the firm effect is the one that accounts for the largest proportion of performance variance, whereas the strategic group and location effects have a relevant role in explaining firm performance.