Search

The demand for eco-products due to the exigency of friendly and environmental production could affect the employment of the firms. This paper tests whether product and process eco-innovations boost employment in Spain differentiating by the environmental goals (material and energy efficiency and environment responsiveness), by the level of qualification of the workers, and by the dirtiness of the industries. We apply a Green Harrison model, using the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) for Spain from 2008 to 2016. Results show a positive relationship between all types of product eco-innovations and employment, while the influence of process eco-innovations on employment depends on the environmental goals, the level of skills, and the industry. Specifically, distinguishing by industry there is a labour-saving effect in clean industries and a labour-friendly effect for low-skilled employment in dirty industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the relevance in terms of policy, we still know little in Spain about where and by whom jobs are created, and how that is affecting the size distribution of firms. The main innovation of this paper is to use a rich database that overcomes the problems encountered by other firm-level studies to shed some light on the employment generation of small firms in Spain. We find that small firms contribute to employment disproportionately across all sectors of the economy although the difference between their employment and job creation share is largest in the manufacturing sector. The job creators in that sector are both new and established firms whereas only new small firms outperform their larger counterparts in the service sector. The large annual job creation of the small firm size class is shifting the firm size distribution towards the very small production units, although not uniformly across industries of different technology intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effects of new business formation on employment growth in Spanish manufacturing industries. New firms are believed to make an important contribution to economic growth but the extent of this contribution is unclear. We consider time lags of new firm formation as explanatory variables of employment change and identify how long the effect of new firm entries on employment lasts. Our main results show that the effects of new business formation are positive in the short term, negative in the medium term and positive in the long term, thus confirming the existence of indirect supply-side effects found in similar studies for other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the staffing policies of some leading consulting firms in Spain are analyzed to identify the factors that characterize them, as well as similarities and differences among them. The case study method is used for this analysis, and three case studies are considered: Accenture, IBM and Company Z. The results suggest that the professional partnership model and the managed professional business model are still relevant but are insufficient in explaining the various policies. Five factors are identified in addition to major trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective in this paper is to analyse which Spanish businesses are operating within China, what their reasons are for being in this country, study their difficulties and list their priorities for the coming years. Reasons for satisfaction and dissatisfaction are also analysed. Spanish firms operating in China are mostly in the services sector (56%), in particular, in the areas of professional services, such as advertising, legal advice, consulting, etc. Almost half of the Spanish businesses have established themselves in the Shanghai area. Contrary to what is usually believed, most firms set up business in China to access the market, and not to employ low cost labour. In terms of continuity, the answer is almost unanimous: most Spanish firms plan to stay in the country for the next few years. Their main interest lies in accessing the opportunities of this vast market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the presence of women in different spheres of the agri-cultural cooperative enterprises in the province of Teruel, where the preponderance of the agricultural sector is paramount. This research compares, firstly, the extent to which the participation of women as against men differs both in employment and in the governing and representative bodies of cooperatives in the rural agricultural environment in Teruel. Subsequently the presence of women in agricultural cooperatives is compared with other sectors and the existence of statistically significant differences is confirmed for some of the variables analysed. This study contributes to the literature on gender and cooperatives in the agricultural sector, an aspect which has hardly been studied in previous works and which enhances the knowledge on the value provided by the presence of women in agricultural sector cooperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to build the satellite accounts of the Social Economy enterprises in Asturias for 2005, in order to ascertain the chief macroeconomic dimensions so that the importance, strengths and weaknesses of this sector may be explored. These accounts are drawn up according to type of activity and enterprise. A prior descriptive analysis of the Social Economy of Asturias has been made, both at the level of sector enterprises and the employment it generates; likewise, a geographical study of where these third sector enterprises are located and their characteristics has also been undertaken. To enrich the data, a comparative study of the importance of the Social Economy in relation to the "rest" of the economy of Asturias and with the Social Economy nationally was also made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical evaluation of the economic survival of labour-managed firms (LMF) compared to that of conventional companies, paying particular attention to their different forms of capital ownership. There are many arguments both ways; some argue that LMFs enjoy a higher likelihood of survival, since they offer greater employment stability and their workers enjoy more incentives as they are involved in the decision-making process. The counterarguments claim that LMFs are less efficient, due largely to the free-rider problem, serious agent-principal problems, a higher degree of risk aversion on the part of their worker-owners and degeneration due to rent-seeking behaviour, which reduces their likelihood of survival. The results of this evaluation point to the divergence between most of the predictions of economic theory and the successful development of LMFs in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyse the impact on domestic employment resulting from outward FDI performed by Spanish firms, using industry data for the period 1995–2011. Together with the effects on the total employment, we differentiate the effects according to the particular groups of countries and activities to which those FDI outflows are addressed. In addition, the impact of outward FDI on the demand for labour is also analysed separately for high and low skill levels of the labour force. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Firms may find competitive adjustment difficult because they are hamstrung by rigid labor market rules. However, such difficulties may also be caused by conflicts between strategic choices in the management of human capital and the opportunities and limitations created by a given regulatory framework. This latter possibility has been almost totally ignored in the debate regarding the urgency and content of labor market reforms in countries whose labor market institutions have been labeled as “rigid” by international experts. This article uses the results of qualitative interviews with Spanish employers to suggest that strategic choices may be far more important in determining the consequences of labor market institutions than is generally recognized. I show that these choices are often the result of beliefs about how labor market institutions should work. These findings suggest that supposedly “neutral” calls for greater efficiency in labor market institutions are really arguments about the relative appropriateness of different expectations regarding how firms should pursue adjustment, expectations that are directly related both to the relative balance of power between employers and workers and to the structure of their relationship. In other words, the phrase “politics of labor market reform” should be understood to refer not only to the political consequences of reforms but also to the inherently political nature of the reforms themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine how employment relationships and human capital influence innovation in a sample of Spanish firms. Previous research has indicated that human capital directly affects innovation, but few studies have considered human capital as a variable that mediates or moderates the effects of other variables on innovation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 150 innovative Spanish firms and confirmed that, while human capital favours innovations, employment relationships are not directly associated with innovation unless they take human capital into account. Specifically, our analyses suggest that human capital mediates the relationship between a mutual investment employment relationship and innovation, which is characterized by high levels of incentives and expectations. However, we also found that human capital plays a moderating role when organizations develop an employment relationship characterized by low investments in personnel but high expectations from their work (the underinvestment model). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]