maria alvarez

Abstract Purpose This chapter aims to discuss the key issues of green entrepreneurship in tourism (GEiT), paying special attention to the environmental performance of green entrepreneurs and its relationship with strategy, brand reputation and long-term business growth. Methodology/approach Literature review is conducted on conceptual issues and several hotels first-hand experiences that were categorised to provide readers with business-world examples. Findings This chapter highlights how small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs are the agents who started green innovation initiatives and how larger corporations tested and validated them. A myriad of small green interventions awaits to be undercovered and implemented. Most of them can bring financial improvements to the entrepreneurs as the required initial investments are not necessarily high. Research limitations/implications This chapter is explorative in nature, based on a literature review and interviews-based analysis of consolidated green initiatives, most of them being successful ones. Practical implications The forces driving green initiatives are identified and classified. Most important categories of green entrepreneurs are described and emphasis was placed on the managerial and marketing benefits linked to green initiatives and action plans. Originality/value This chapter presents models and concepts in an integrated way, facilitating a useful knowledge for prospective entrepreneurs wishing to acquire a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to eco-friendly business.

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This paper analyses the transformation of the Spanish university system in the wake of Bolonia. The characters of this new educative model seem to transform it, a priori, into the most effective one in order to face the challenges of the knowledge society in an increasingly globalized world and defined more and more by complexity and diversity.The students' lifelong learning becomes the main element of the system enabling the student to face the challenges of competitiveness and the use of new technologies. On the other hand, the skills, abilities and competencies of the profesional field concerned are seen for the first time, as the object of higher education. These two elements lead us to reinforce on practical problem-solving and lead us therefore to a change in teaching methodologies towards techniques, that seek a greater involvement of students in the learning process.This change from an educational model centered on the teaching towards a model centered on the learning, i...

Strategy scholars have proposed that capacity for managing alliance can be a source of superior performance. This study focuses on the role of this capacity, and investigates how alliance management capability of entrepreneurial firms affects the relationship between a firm’s allying and its performance. Because the capability is inherently unobservable, we take alliance experience and average duration of each alliance as proxy variables for measuring alliance management capability. An analysis of multiple allies of entrepreneurial ventures in Korean photovoltaic industry indicate that capacity for managing varying allies, and alliance type positively moderate the relation between alliance and its innovation outcomes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of smart city initiatives and big data on supply chain management (SCM). More specifically, the connections between smart cities, big data and supply network characteristics (supply network structure and governance mechanisms) are investigated. Design/methodology/approach – An integrative framework is proposed, grounded on a literature review on smart cities, big data and supply networks. Then, the relationships between these constructs are analyzed, using the proposed integrative framework. Findings – Smart cities have different implications to network structure (complexity, density and centralization) and governance mechanisms (formal vs informal). Moreover, this work highlights and discusses the future research directions relating to smart cities and SCM. Research limitations/implications – The relationships between smart cities, big data and supply networks cannot be described simply by using a linear, cause-and-effect...

La literatura sobre privatizaciones es básicamente teórica, de forma que el número de trabajos empíricos sobre sus resultados, especialmente el relativo al intercambio de recursos que generan, es muy reducido. Habida cuenta de los diferentes grupos y agentes con intereses diversos -y a menudo contrapuestos-que se generan en torno a estos procesos, parece interesante estudiar en qué medida y cuantía las privatizaciones afectarán a estos grupos. Comparar los beneficios y costes de estas decisiones públicas, en las que se comprometen recursos escasos, puede ser una vía sensata de actuación dentro del sector público. El objetivo del presente trabajo consiste en evaluar los beneficios y costes derivados de la privatización de Seat, identificando los agentes ganadores y perdedores tras la adopción de dicha decisión. En la realización de la evaluación se han seguido muy de cerca las pautas metodológicas aplicadas por Galal y otros (1994) en lo referente al estudio de casos. En primer lugar...

Existe un amplio debate internacional y multidisciplinar en torno a los resultados de las privatizaciones acaecidas a lo largo de las dos últimas décadas. La evidencia empírica disponible en la literatura no parece confirmar los argumentos de carácter macro y microeconómico en relación con la privatización, ni tampoco ayuda a identificar cuáles son las mejores formas de privatizar. Por otro lado, algunos estudios recientes apuntan la posibilidad de que los agentes que intervienen en la privatización tomen decisiones del tipo "accounting choice" , en la medida en que ello les ayudaría a la maximización de la utilidad individual de las entidades a las que representan. El presente trabajo persigue comprobar, mediante los contrastes estadísticos pertinentes, y a partir de la utílización de un conjunto pre-seleccionado de ratíos fmancieros y contables, si la crisis de racionalidad que se pudiera haber producido con respecto al mantenimiento de las acciones de Seat en manos del ...

Este documento es un estudio del mercado laboral con particular énfasis en las actividades productivas de carácter informal que se evidencian al interior de ese mercado. Por medio de un Modelo Basado en Agentes (MBA) se establecen características propias de los ...

We do not know, as yet, whether or not the internationalisation patterns followed by manufacturing firms can be applied without further revisions to the service companies, as a whole, and to the financial service industries. This article examines the internationalisation patterns followed by Finnish and Spanish financial-services companies, to find out whether they are more influenced by "customer following" or "market seeking" approaches. It can be acceptable that larger Finnish firms which have been leaders in internationalisation are market seekers, while the smallest ones are following the market leaders or their industrial customers. When Spanish firms are considered, no conclusive evidence is found. It seems that they are following both, their customers and their leaders, as well as opening new markets. 1. Introduction In spite of the increasing importance of the financial service-sector, the theoretical literature that revises the internationalisation process of the firm, has mostly focused mainly on the manufacturing sector. The general theory on the internationalisation of the firm in research on the manufacturing firm has been applied to explain the recent phenomenon of the internationalisation of service firms. One of the dominant features in the internationalisation of service companies is what might be called the "customer following". A particular case can also be considered, wherein the domestic market is organised as an oligopoly: the internationalisation process might be a reaction to the strategy followed by the main local competitor. This phenomenon is known as the "follow the leader" approach. Secondly, it has been observed that certain service companies behave as "market seekers". The article analyses if there are differences between the approaches following by the Spanish and Finnish firms, what is interesting to compare because: i) the countries have undergone a similar kind of deregulation process of capital markets during the period studied; ii) both countries have become members of the European Union (EU); and iii) Finland and Spain are culturally very distant. Our article follows the outlines of previous papers by Engwall and Wallenstal (1988); Hellman (1996); Majkgard and Sharma (1998); Sharma and Johanson (1987), who studied the internationalisation of Nordic financial-service companies all over the world, as well as the work by Alvarez, Cardone, Lado and Samartin (1999), who studied the evolution of Spanish financial-service companies in Latin America (LA). After this introduction, section 2 presents the theoretical framework, as well as the hypotheses to be contrasted. The data and methodology used in the analysis are shown in section 3. The empirical study is presented in section 4. Finally, section 5 presents the main conclusions of our research. 2. Theoretical background and hypotheses The internationalisation of the firm research area is divided into two main research streams: i) research tradition deals with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) decisions as the result of a rational plan decided; and ii) research stream views the FDI as an incremental process (Scandinavian "Nordic School"). Nordic School researchers argue that exporting begins with countries close in terms of "psychic distance"(1) and extends incrementally to "psychic distant" ones as the firms gain experience. However, Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul (1975) did not fully find support for this notion. Luostarinen (1979) on the other hand found that, firms enter into markets in a sequential order, i.e., first into countries with a short "business distance"(2) and later into countries with larger "business distance". Previous studies have identified two large groups of conditions which determinant the entry forms and the gold country of the service-sector firms in their internationalisation process: i)Market seeking: A service firm enters foreign markets primarily to access new markets and opportunities. …

En el presente trabajo se realiza un estudio exploratorio para definir las estrategias medioambientales de operaciones entre los establecimientos hoteleros. Para ello, tras una breve revisión teórica, donde se expone la necesidad de integrar las cuestiones ambientales en la ...

In this paper, we examine the determinants for the success of reverse logistics (RL) programs. Based on a supplier-customer relationship framework, we argue that trust and relational commitment–two fundamental aspects of relational marketing–are essential in defining the performance of RL programs. Furthermore, we analyze the role of resources and their impact on the achievement of successful RL systems. Applying partial least squares (PLS) analysis, we test our contention using data of 158 Spanish firms in the ...

There is a growing awareness among practitioners and scholars regarding the importance of Relationship Marketing and its advantages in the supply chain management context. This is particularly appropriate for Reverse Logistics (RL) activities, which are characterized by several relationships between different stakeholders and the firm. Drawing on multiple theoretical approaches, we propose that RL programs result from the combination of external, organizational, and individual factors. We emphasize the role of trust and commitment as key influential elements on the RL systems implementation and their subsequent performance.

PurposeWhen acquiring advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), the greatest caution should be taken regarding the performance measurement system to be used: the decision regarding new investments should not be conditioned by the excessive use of financial indicators to the detriment of the strategic objectives that motivated the investments. It is intended to analyze the aeronautical sector, for which the purchase of AMT is qualifying criteria, with two intentions: first, to identify the performance measurement systems that are used, and second, to test their correspondence with the objectives that motivated the investments.Design/methodology/approachA survey of the 20 plants in the population was conducted via a postal questionnaire plus a structured interview. The unit of analysis has been maintained through the triangulation of data sources.FindingsThe findings suggest that both financial and non‐financial indicators are used, with the latter gaining predominance over the forme...