Cuadernos de Economía y Dirección de la Empresa最新文献

The decade of 1995–2006 is being considered a key period on Spanish economy. In this period, when one person wants to undertake a business in the retailing, the franchise appears as the most adequate commercial format. The goal of the current paper is analyse the possible influence of economics and contractual variables to make a decision to choice a franchise brand in Spain during 1995–2006. The methodology data panel has been used about 496 franchise brands. One person, who wants to open a franchisee store, do not take risk during a period of economic growth and he has not preference to sector.

In the attempt to understand an organizations’ survival and growth, legitimacy plays a key role. Organizations that show more credibility, convenience and adjustment to social norms, values and beliefs are more predictable, trustworthy and balanced. While institutional theory identifies legitimacy as a critical success factor that all organizations must consider, there is little empirical research in this field, essentially because of the hurdle of quantifying the concept of legitimacy. In this study we take a step forward in the effort of establishing a methodology for measuring organizational legitimacy. We have studied Spanish Mutual Guarantee Societies. We have evaluated their legitimacy and ranked them according to his criterion. Furthermore, we have analyzed the relative importance of the different aspects of legitimacy in MGS and established a legitimacy profile for the sector.

Information and communication technology (ICT) may represent a source of benefits for retailers. However, there is a debate in the literature on how ICT influences customer-supplier relationships. In addition, the evidence on the effect of age on consumer attitudes towards retail technological solutions is not conclusive. This paper proposes and tests a model to analyze the influence of retail ICT on consumer loyalty towards the retailer, as well as to assess the moderating role of consumer age on this relationship. As a result, customer assessment of retail ICT, together with perceived value, exerts a positive influence on consumer commitment and satisfaction, being the latter an antecedent of attitudinal loyalty towards the retailer. Notwithstanding, consumer age does not seem to play a moderating role in the relationship between retail ICT and its correlates.

This paper analyses the influence that image associations have in the perceptions and satisfaction with the Spanish bank industry. For that, the role of location, personnel, social responsibility and perceived price fairness as determinants of global impression and satisfaction with the entity is examined. Moreover, it also studies if socio-demographic variables and the fact that the client is customer of a traditional or saving bank moderate the relationships. To fill these aims, structural equation modeling is employed with a sample of 300 clients of the Spanish banking industry. Results show different paths of influence of the associations over the satisfaction. Besides, differences among segments are found, what highlights the importance of offering differentiate services in this market.

The creation of value for individuals through strong, favourable and unique brand associations (branding) is required in order to develop a more competitive position for organizations and, in particular, for tourist destinations. In this context it is necessary to develop a more complete study on the brand image formation, which is the central element of destination branding. In this study it is established a new and improved framework that includes stimulus factors –i.e. informational familiarity and experimental familiarity– and personal factors –i.e. motivations, values and demographic characteristics–, as well as the role of the tourist's involvement and the reliability of information in the formation of destination brand image. After polling 807 tourists who were visiting a holiday destination, the results indicate that: 1) the stimulus factors and personal factors have a different influence on destination image; and 2) the reliability of information is a quasi-moderator variable.

The increase in the number of firms owned by women and their contribution to the economy has generated many studies which include a “gender perspective” in order to study entrepreneurship. The majority of them evidence that female-owned firms are at a disadvantage with respect to resource mobilization and performance, although there is no consensus on the effect of gender on these aspects. Therefore, in this study those potential differences are investigated, taking into account not only structural variables, but a broad conception of resource endowment and different effects of gender. Results show that a businessowners’ gender is anymore an explanatory variable of performance once other variables are included in the model, but the existence of a moderating effect on performance is observed. Hence, it can be affirmed that the effect of gender on entrepreneurship is far more complex than stated in previous studies.

Micro-foundations have emerged as an important foundational theme in recent management research. I offer an interpretation of what micro-foundations may mean in the context of management research; argue that the interest in micro-foundations have arisen as a consequence of the shortcomings of extant, dominant macro perspectives with respect to coming to grips with key management and organizational challenges related to knowledgebased production; and offer some alternative foundations, based on goal-framing theory, that are better capable of handling these challenges.