European Research on Management and Business Economics最新文献

Logistics startups gradually rely on digital marketing strategies to acquire a competitive advantage. The main aim of Logistics startups is to increase their digital brand name and user engagement in order to acquire a competitive advantage. To the completion of this target, various digital marketing strategies could be implemented to ensure a differentiating factor. A three-stage data-driven methodology was adopted to evaluate the contribution between the parameters and to reflect strategies that can be presented to improve the website's user engagement and digital brand name. The first part of the study collects data from nine logistics startups’ websites over a period of 180 days. The second part of the study employs Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) to develop an exploratory diagnostic model that visually depicts the cause-and-effect relationships between the metrics under consideration. In the last part of the study, a predictive simulation model has been created to present the intercorrelation between the examined metrics and to present possible optimization strategies. According to the findings of this study, Logistics startups’ websites must be developed with fewer web pages and need to be focused on the customers’ target. Additionally, in contradiction with other industries’ websites, logistics startups must maintain a steady flow of digital advertisements to optimize brand name and profit.

Non-financial information and its contribution to the achievement of each Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) are assuming great relevance in the business world, in which it is not enough to be economically sustainable without also being sustainable from ethical, environmental, and social points of view. An analysis of how the financial sector contributes to the achievement of the SDGs is crucial in two ways. Firstly, due to the relevance and the magnitude of this sector itself; secondly, and more importantly in our view, because of the financial leverage of the banking sector that has a mandate to facilitate the transition of all economic sectors towards sustainability, guided by the 2030 Agenda. However, despite the expectations placed on banking entities, there is a research gap on their disclosure practices and on the SDG-related information that they report. In addition, the academic literature centered on the analysis of SDG-related disclosures through artificial intelligence is very scarce. To fill this gap, the objective of our study is, on the one hand, to analyze whether there is greater homogeneity in the disclosure of non-financial information in the Spanish banking sector following the transposition of Directive 2014/95/EU into Spanish Law. On the other hand, it is to evaluate the contribution of banking entities to the SDGs. To do so, the non-financial information reports of 12 Spanish banks are analyzed, completing a comparative evaluation and using artificial intelligence to identify mentions of each SDG and its targets. The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was also used to rank the banking entities in accordance with their contribution to each SDG. The results reflected the plurality, in both breadth and quality, in the disclosure of non-financial information and in the contribution to the SDGs. The only point in common between all the entities that were studied was the use of the GRI disclosure framework and the identification of the priority SDGs, positioning SDGs 8, 13, and 4 in priority positions. The banks with higher bank capitalization levels occupied the top of the ranking of contributions to the SDGs. Differences were presented for all other aspects, even to the point of highlighting that some entities or independent verifiers had not offered all the information. In conclusion, greater efforts to improve the quality of non-financial reporting and further development of the common regulatory framework will be fundamental for better comparability between the reports from banking entities. Furthermore, this study shows that natural language processing can be applied to better measure companies' alignment with the SDGs based on the text of their non-financial reports.

Nowadays, investors seek beyond the financial performance of their investments, including Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria in the decision-making process. To this effect, there are currently suppliers who offer different methodologies to evaluate the ESG factors that companies apply in their businesses. In 2016, Morningstar launched the Morningstar Sustainability Rating for mutual funds, which provides information on how well mutual funds incorporate sustainable assets. This rating is obtained from the Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score, the calculation system of which was modified and improved in 2018. However, an important drawback remains to be overcome because the score is only calculated if at least 67% of the portfolio assets have an ESG score and it does not take assets without an ESG score into account. This paper aims to provide a more reliable rating for investors because it proposes the inclusion of all the assets in the fund valuation, regardless of whether they have an ESG score, using fuzzy set theory and specifically triangular fuzzy numbers.

Today, people live in the age of new diseases, such as stress and anxiety, and these diseases can affect users’ decision making regarding different products and services. Another important variable that can affect decision making is the use of mobile applications for marketing purposes. However, despite the importance of the aforementioned factors, relevant academic research on the impact of these variables on decision making has been scarce. The present study fills this gap in the literature using the technology acceptance model and integrating stress and anxiety variables. To this end, a sample of 672 customers of Spanish restaurants is analyzed. After carrying out a descriptive analysis of the sample and the variables, the structural equation model is used. In particular, the partial least squares model is used to test the hypotheses. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the results of the present study contribute to previous research on stress and anxiety, along with technology acceptance model variables, on decision making. In particular, the results have shown that there is no direct relationship between stress and perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, and attitude towards using. Although the relationship between stress and anxiety, perceived usefulness and attitude towards using, perceived usefulness and stress, and other relationships raised in the hypotheses have been confirmed.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the evolution of the domestic market—recessive, stable, and expansive—on export volume in family firms. Although globalization has hastened family firms toward internationalization, little is known of the influence of market evolution on export strategies. We propose a theoretical model that evaluates the influence of domestic market evolution on the percentage of export sales and the mediating role of innovation in this relationship. This model views innovation as a process that may impact export propensity when influenced by the market situation.

We perform a study with panel data for a five-year period (2012–2016) from 788 family firms to identify family firms’ behavior in export volume and innovation under different market conditions.

The results reveal that family firms have significant results for export sales under recessive and expansive market situations. They are less prone, however, to export when markets are stable. Contrary to the predictions of the literature, our results indicate that innovation has little relevance to export volume in any of the market situations analyzed.

Corporate reputation has deserved attention in recent years from firms and researchers given its impact on creating a competitive advantage and on keeping a sustained superior performance. However, the impact of corporate reputation on risk, in addition to being less studied, still presents controversial results. Thus, the purpose of this study is to, simultaneously, analyze the effect of corporate reputation on stock return and risk. A model based on firms' financial market data was assessed through a panel data analysis which included 84,745 firm-year observations, which occurred between January 6^th, 2009, and December 31^th, 2019, from a full sample of 156 United States firms listed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), 82 of which were listed in Reputation Quotient (RQ).

The results show that there are no significant differences between listed and not listed firms in Reputation Quotient concerning firms' abnormal returns and firms' systematic risk. This can be justified because stock prices adjusted instantly to the corporate reputation, which supports the market efficiency hypothesis.

This study may provide important insights into the literature: firstly, although the impact of reputation on performance has gained attention in recent years, the firsts studies essentially analyze the reverse impact; secondly, this work aims to, simultaneously, study the effect of corporate reputation on return and risk, being the impact on the risk an area still little explored and with controversial results; thirdly, this study distinguishes itself by using a set of firms listed in a reputation ranking and a set of firms not listed, but with similar characteristics in terms of market capitalization, highlighting the impact of reputation communication through media rankings.

This study investigates if a gender effect exists on the audit fees associated with the presence of women in roles closely related to the audit process. The analysis is based on the largest European corporations studied between 2016 and 2018. The results show that firms with female chief financial officers and more female directors on the audit committee pay significantly lower audit fees than other firms. However, the results for the remaining gender variables (audit partner, chair of the audit committee, and chief executive officer) do not show any association. Additionally, we find that accounting expertise drives the association between female directors and audit fees. Therefore, neither non-expert female directors nor, more surprisingly, female directors who are labelled as financial experts, have any significant effects on audit fees. Another interesting finding is that the gender variables provide significant results when they are observed in more gender egalitarian contexts, though not in less egalitarian settings. These results have interesting implications at various levels.

This study examines the performance of wholesale and retail small and medium enterprises in Thailand, which are integrating innovations in human resource practices, innovation capabilities, and competitive advantage. The data sample comprises 260 small and medium enterprises located in the Eastern Economic Corridor, Thailand. The data were analyzed using quantitative and structural equation modeling. The study finds a significant relationship between innovations in human resource practices, innovation capabilities, competitive advantage, and SME performance. The significant success factors of innovations in human resource practices indirectly affect SME performance through the mediation of innovation capabilities and competitive advantage. These outcomes help develop long-term and business performance effectiveness, as the essential human resource factors and innovation capabilities practices of the current extremely competitive industry will intensify with the digital disruption era.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the complex phenomenon of institutions and the moderation of the main antecedents of business customer experience. Following a combination of literature review and three fieldworks, the main antecedents of business customer experience have emerged: interfunctional coordination, customer engagement and participation in the co-design of services. The role of institutions (level of formalisation) has also been considered as a possible moderator. Consequently, a conceptual framework has been developed which includes seven research propositions. The first four research propositions are related to the main elements of the model and suggest new relationships among constructs. The other three research propositions are suggested and empirically examined using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to find causal configurations and to identify pathways that lead to business customer experience. Necessity and sufficiency of conditions that lead to a positive business customer experience are discussed for both scenarios of high and low formalisation of institutions.