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Purpose - The paper seeks to extend co-link analysis to web sites of heterogeneous companies belonging to different industries and countries, and to cluster companies by industries and compare results from different countries. Design/methodology/approach - Web sites of 255 companies that belong to five stock exchange indexes were included in the study. Data on co-links pointing to these web sites were gathered using Yahoo!. Co-link data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) to generate MDS maps that would position companies based on their co-link counts. Findings - Comparisons of results across different countries and economies showed the following overall pattern: companies whose businesses are information-based tend to form well-defined clusters, while companies operating on a more traditional business model tend not to form clear groups. A comparison between the EU zone and the USA suggests that the EU economy is not well integrated yet. Practical implications - The findings from the study suggest the possibility of using co-link analysis to distinguish information-based industries from traditional industries. Originality/value - The paper extends co-link analysis from a single industry to heterogeneous industries with global and complex business phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - In recent years, an increasing interest in the participative practices of the workpeople in their companies has taken place in the European Union. Taking advantage of this situation, the purpose of this paper is to show additional evidence of the benefits from companies with majority worker's capital participation as opposed to firms that do not follow this approach. Bearing in mind, also, that Spain is the only European country with the juridical form of financial majority participation of the workpeople, in order to recommend it in the European context according to the reached results. Design/methodology/approach - To study whether or not there are differences in the two types of companies, a logistic regression model is used. Findings - In this study, results indicate that business profitability (return on assets), productivity and equity capital coefficient are not significant variables for the purpose of determining the distinguishing features of labour-owned firm (LOF) as against capitalist firm. The only variable of those originally included which has turned out to be significant is the financial profitability (return on equity). Practical implications - Initial proposal: specific European law governing investment capital of employees. - Originality/value - The study will be useful to show the characteristics of Spanish LOFs (operating under their own legal structure) and their benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]