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Online sources of information are a matter of special interest in tourism research. In particular, they are key elements in the formation of destination image. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between online sources of information and destination image and to analyze the mediating role of motivation to co-create in that relationship. A research model was developed, and hypotheses were tested on data collected from 394 usable responses about the World Heritage city of Cuenca (Spain). The results show that online commercial sources have a direct positive impact on the conative, affective and cognitive dimensions of the tourist image, in this order. Additionally, this study supports the view that motivation to co-create mediates the relationship between online information sources and destination image. Finally, motivation to co-create was also found to have a positive and direct impact, in this order, on conative, cognitive and affective image. The main value of our research is that it underlines the essential influence of motivation to co-create in the relationship between online information sources and destination image. This study also provides a critical review of the existing literature by positing a conceptual theoretical framework that links three types of online sources of information (social media sources, online commercial sources and online non-commercial sources) and destination image.

This study analyzes whether entrepreneurial intention mediates between opportunity recognition and the start-up phase of a business. It also sheds light on how the access to entrepreneurial social networks moderates this mediated relationship, as well as exploring which type of entrepreneurial social network (family- or friends-based) helps most in advancing the business project through the start-up process. The study uses original data on 616 university students enrolled in a variety of campuses and degrees in the central-southern area of Spain. The data reveal that entrepreneurial intention partially mediates the opportunity recognition–start-up phase relationship. Importantly, it reveals that a positive effect of this state of awareness on the start-up phase via entrepreneurial intention is stronger when someone in the social network owns a venture, especially if this person belongs to the potential entrepreneur’s family-based social network. The findings suggest that opportunity recognition is enough to advance through the start-up process, while also revealing that courses or curricular activities oriented towards fostering entrepreneurship should facilitate students’ access to entrepreneurial social networks. This paper is one of the few that helps better understand the path an individual should follow in order to advance through the start-up process once a market opportunity has been recognized. As a novel contribution to the literature, this paper elucidates how entrepreneurial social networks can help bridge the entrepreneurial intention-behavior gap and shows that access to family-based entrepreneurial social networks has a greater impact in this regard than friends-based entrepreneurial social networks.

Corporate sustainability has emerged as an important area of study recently [...]

Nowadays, there is a new area of Marketing named Marketing 4.0 where technology and digitalization have leveraged consumers to be part of companies, participating in the innovation and development of products and services through value co-creation activities. Especially, social media have an impact on the Tourism industry. Tourism activities are considered as a huge network of agents co-creating experiences. Every day, thousands of travelers and tourists create multimedia content, share comments and upload their photographs, videos, and suggestions. They share their experiences in a destination, using social media. Consequently, companies must respond to these comments and ideas in order to create a positive image of the tourist company. It is about to co-create tourist products and services in a collaborative way peer-to-peer between consumers and companies and motivate and inspire other travelers to visit the tourist destination.

Science and technology parks (STPs) are considered as a kind of public-private partnerships designed to increase regional wealth and technology start-ups growth in developed and/or in developing regions. The main aim of these institutions is to reproduce the successful factors of regional phenomena such as Silicon Valley or Boston's Route 128. These institutions are focused on fostering knowledge flows, mainly among tenant institutions, as well as between tenants and nearby external institutions. The main objective of this chapter is to shed some light in the role of STPs as specialized institutions leveraging knowledge creation and diffusion. First, the origin and evolution are analyzed. Second, the evolution and typology of models of STPs are showed. Finally, conclusions and future research directions will be proposed

Despite the growing professional and academic interest in sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recent decades, moral lapses continue to happen in the business arena. Because undergraduate students will be the managers and professionals of the future, training these students to be socially responsible is seen as critically relevant for reducing the likelihood of such moral lapses. However, the question of whether CSR courses can be effective is still debated and little is known about the role that gender may play in this relationship. This study analyzed data from 97 undergraduate students enrolled in a CSR course at a Spanish state university. These data were collected twice, (1) a week before the course had started and (2) a week after the course had been completed. The general lineal modelling (GLM) (repeated measures) procedure in SPSS revealed that CSR courses enhance students&rsquo, ethical decision-making. More importantly, the positive impact of these courses is stronger for female students than for male students. Thus, this study demonstrates the positive impact of corporate social responsibility courses on students&rsquo, ethical decision making, and sheds light on the target (female students) on which these courses is most effective.

The importance of value co-creation processes to firms' competitive strategy is widely recognized, both in practice and in academia. Therefore, it becomes essential to identify which variables drive consumers to collaborate with companies. A primary influence on this consumer decision relates to the search for greater satisfaction. This article proposes a theoretical model that relates the process of co-creating value with customer satisfaction. The proposed conceptual model also includes the user's motivation as a potential mediating variable in the process that transforms co-creation activities into consumer satisfaction.

The onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 undermined trust in financial markets, with immediate damages to businesses and enduring negative effects for numerous national economies. The situation also has endangered progress in terms of investments in environmental and social management (ESM) issues, because managers may be more likely to embrace the misguided notion that such investments represent a non-returnable costs that will hinder firms’ financial performance. Yet ESM is needed now more than ever, because “doing good and doing well” messages are highly appreciated by stakeholders and can substantially improve a firm’s competitiveness. This article analyzes the performance of the Spanish FTSE4Good IBEX index, compared with that of the Spanish IBEX 35 index, during the financial crisis and reveals slightly better performance for the former. Thus, considering the difficult financial context, indicators of good environmental and social performance, among other factors, might have positive effects on stock index performance. The findings offer some key implications for managerial practice.

A methodology based on group work to facilitate the assimilation of the concepts and competences to be acquired by university students is presented as part of the teaching activities in second and third courses in the Business and Management Administration Degree at University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). This methodology allows that students benefit from synergies between group members and complete the training received with one system that permits, in a better way, the achievement of a series of important generic and specific competences.The present article is aimed at assessing student satisfaction after the completion of the group work activity in terms of motivation and involvement. The authors conclude that the degree of satisfaction is acceptable and good and that the activity per se is perceived as having a close relationship to the themes of the corresponding subject. An important collaboration between group members is observed, although there are students who shirk their responsibilities fully.The study concludes that group work is a good teaching and learning tool that facilitates the acquisition of a series of important specific and generic competencies to pass the subject and at a low investment of study time.

Purpose – This study aims to determine which factors underlie the store attributes that contribute to a particular food store image. Furthermore, heightened recent attention to private labels in the food retailing industry creates the need to assess whether the factors vary, depending on customers' brand proneness and their impact on key marketing performance variables (satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty, behavioural loyalty). Design/methodology/approach – The proposed analysis features 211 questionnaires out of a sample of 391 consumers surveys gathered in four different store formats; 137 of which were completed by consumers who admitting being private label prone, and 74 pertaining to consumers who considered themselves national brand prone. The underlying food store factors were identified using factorial analysis of principal components, and their influence on consumers' satisfaction and loyalty was evaluated with linear parametric regression models. Findings – Store attributes related to providing sufficiently convenient purchasing experiences and a special atmosphere are most important for private label brand-prone consumers and enhance their satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty. For national brand-prone consumers, attributes related to quality are more important for enhancing marketing performance variables. Research limitations/implications – The results enable a clear identification of food store factors that vary with the consumer segment being considered (private label prone consumers vs. national brand prone), as well as their differential impacts on key marketing performance variables. Practical implications – To appeal to private label-prone consumers, food retailers should put particular emphasis on the attributes of the store itself, especially those that enhance convenience and the pleasantness of the store atmosphere. To attract national brand-prone consumers, they primarily need to highlight aspects related to quality. Originality/value – This research emphasises the importance of building competitive strategies in food retailing based on: an increased knowledge about the attributes and factors that food consumers value more highly; and brand type preferences.

College years determine the essential academic and personal training for students future success. Certainly, higher education period is essential in the development of students as persons, setting out their emotional and intellectual capital and therefore determining their professional and personal life expectations. However, this process generally must be faced with few help and also sometimes students have to create, sometimes blindly, their own path. In this sense, Social Sciences Faculty of Cuenca (Spain) has created a Tutoring Action Program that is designed to provide more supportive, collegial and discipline-specific training for students. This plan defines also a new tutorial role for professors as personal mentors of students. The aim of this paper is to present the new methodology used for the implementation of the Tutorial Action Plan which includes the assignment of this new role attributed to professors, and that consist in advising and guiding the students in those questions that may arise throughout the university degree, as well as advising students to do those things that are most appropriate for their profiles relative to their future labor orientations.

This study aims to improve understanding of the ethical nature of the relations in two labour-intensive industries to facilitate the creation of an ethical culture. For this purpose, the authors fi...

A multidimensional measure of ethical culture (EC) was examined for its relationship to person–organization (P–O) fit, ethical intent and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using a sample of 525 employees from the financial industry in Spain. As hypothesized, relative to studies using unidimensional assessments, our measure of EC was more strongly related to ethical intent and organizational citizenship. Also, significant differences were found in the degree to which each the EC dimensions related to both ethical intent and OCB. Finally, in a first for the literature, we demonstrated the important role of overall P–O fit in connection with EC, ethical intent, and organizational citizenship. Specifically, as hypothesized, P–O fit moderated positively the association between EC and ethical intent, but mediated the EC–OCB relationship.

In the current highly interconnected modern world, the role of consumers has changed substantially due to their active collaboration with companies in product and process innovation. Specifically, consumer participation has become key to the development of successful products and services, as companies have come to rely more and more on consumers' opinion as a source of innovative ideas and brand value. However, whereas existing research has focused on identifying the different elements involved in consumers' co-creation, there is still the need to comprehend better this complex mechanism by integrating distinct dimensional insights. With an integrative review of research into three important perspectives, one nurturing from the Service-Dominant logic, another one based on the information and communication technologies (ICTs) platforms, and (the ethical values-driven) Marketing 3.0 paradigm, this article proposes a conceptual framework in which consumers' ethical values and transcendent motivations play an important role in encouraging their engagement in co-creation activities. In this connection, and with consumers increasingly embracing the need to fulfill a social and ethical function in society, the co-creation process is here comprehended as a means to emphasize the social and moral aspects of co-creation. This article also identifies the important, supportive role of the Marketing 3.0 paradigm and Web 3.0 tools to initiate the co-creation process, as well as the important valuable benefits attained by both companies and consumers after consumers engage in this process. Importantly, these benefits are highlighted to increase when ethical products are the object of these co-creation activities. All these insights have notable implications for both research and managerial practice.

Traditionally, research focused on determining the causes of employee pay satisfaction has investigated the influence of job-related inputs, both extrinsic and intrinsic to the job itself. Together with these inputs, pay-related fairness issues have played an important role in explaining the phenomenon. However, few studies consider the factors linked to fairness issues, such as ethical leadership. Because ethical leadership necessarily entails the concept of fairness, it seemingly should have a positive effect. Furthermore, because the presence of supervisor ethical leadership (SEL) offers strong chances for employees to achieve moral accomplishments and excel in the practice of their jobs, SEL should enhance the effects of intrinsic job inputs. Whereas high job motivating potential (JMP) makes it easier for employees be self-actualized, moral fulfillment is necessary for them to obtain authentic self-actualization at work and minimize the impact of pay deficiencies. Along with SEL, JMP should be shaped to increase positive experiences of job meaningfulness, responsibility for job outcomes, and knowledge of results at work, which can lead to enjoyment in doing the job in itself, not just for compensation-related motives. Hierarchical regression analysis with a sample of 151 employees in a diverse set of Spanish organizations supports the direct effects of JMP and SEL and shows that higher levels of SEL increase the positive effects of JMP on pay satisfaction. The practical implications of these findings and further research directions conclude this article.

We build on limited research concerning the mediation processes associated with the relationship between ethical culture and employee outcomes. A multidimensional measure of ethical culture was examined for its relationship to overall Person-Organization (P–O) fit and employee response, using a sample of 436 employees from social economy and commercial banks in Spain. In line with previous research involving unidimensional measures, ethical culture was found to relate positively to employee job satisfaction, affective commitment, and intention to stay. New to the literature, ethical culture was also found to be associated positively with employee willingness to recommend the organization to others. These effects were observed even when perceptions of P–O fit were controlled. Importantly, ethical culture was also positively related to overall P–O fit, which in turn, partially mediated the relationship between ethical culture and employee outcomes. Our findings add to studies that focus on the importance of the degree of ethical congruence between the individual employee and the organization. They suggest that ethical culture, with its expected impact on virtuousness and emotional well-being, will positively influence outcomes independently of the degree to which there is a match between employee and organizational values.

PurposeThis paper aims to empirically examine the mediating role of knowledge acquisition between social capital and innovation for firms located in science and technology parks (STPs).Design/methodology/approachPartial least squares offers the primary statistic technique for assessing survey data collected from 214 Spanish tenants.FindingsKnowledge acquisition fully mediates the relationship between social capital and firm innovation. Moreover, social capital at the firm level has a significant influence on both knowledge acquisition and innovation.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research should include more independent variables to understand the complex phenomenon of firm innovation.Practical implicationsTenant firms in STPs must develop strategic management tactics for their interfirm relations to acquire and exploit key resources such as knowledge. For specialized firms, close social interactions in specific contexts can enhance both knowledge acquisition and innovation to compensate for their resource constraints.Originality/valueBy demonstrating the impact of social capital on knowledge acquisition and innovation in the specific context of STPs, whose artificial environment encourages and promotes close social interactions among tenants, this article overcomes previous and contradictory findings regarding the relationship between social capital and innovation. A key element is the contingent and mediating role of knowledge acquisition. Finally, this study considers social capital at the firm level as a multidimensional, second‐order latent construct that includes structural, relational and cognitive aspects simultaneously.

Concept mapping is a technique to represent relationships between concepts that can help students to improve their meaningful learning. Using the cognitive theories proposed by Ausubel (1968), concept maps can help instructors and students to enhance their logical thinking and study skills by revealing connections among concepts that can simplify all the new concepts that can be introduced in a subject during any subject classes of a semester. In this paper a study is made for the introduction of this technique in the subject Business Management Principles as part of the Employment Relations Degree. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of concept mapping on the learning acquired by the students. For this purpose we use data with the evolution of qualifications of students as the items that show how a planned way of introducing new concepts (relating with concepts that students already have) can be very useful in college teaching. Therefore this paper analyzes within a specific context the way in which concept maps are constructed to reflect student’s knowledge and facilitate their sense-making and improve their meaningful learning.

Despite growing professional and academic interest in business ethics, moral lapses continue in the business sector, which suggests a need to rethink the efficiency of existing ethical strategies. That is, top management’s efforts to promote ethical behaviour among employees tend to focus on the implementation of explicit formal mechanisms, whereas in practice, more informal elements that communicate the true attitude toward ethics may be more useful and necessary. Thus top managers must work actively to make their personal ethics evident to influence the ethical behaviours of employees. Without a perception of ethics at the top, formal mechanisms likely fail to result in a more ethical workforce. This study therefore empirically analyses top managers’ role modelling behaviour along with the efficacy of their sanctioning dimension to promote ethical behaviour. Top management role modelling has a positively impact on employees’ ethics; sanctioning behaviour does not. These findings have critical practical implications, as well as promise for further research.

In the knowledge-based economy, developed and in developing countries are putting an increasingly interest on encouraging their firms to produce, exploit, transfer and apply knowledge. In this context, there seems to be a general agreement about the need to develop and strengthen networking activities using infrastructures to promote knowledge transfer between different economic actors. Science and Technology Parks (STPs) are an important part of these support infrastructures. The main objective of this paper is to analyze how STPs have evolved during the last 25 years in Spain. Therefore with available data we study how has changed their model from a "science push" in the first generation models to a "science pull" for the second generation models of Science Parks. Data from the APTE (Spanish Association of Science and Technology Parks) shows that new parks are redesigning their activities toward a third generation of STPs based on interactive local flows located in science-industry-government relations, increasingly involved with local, regional and even global innovation activities. This paper also analyzes how go-betweens and intermediaries can facilitate the interaction between firms, government and research institutions, and liaise with public and private R&D funding and venture capital organizations.

The moral ideology of banking and insurance employees in Spain was examined along with supervisor role modeling and ethics-related policies and procedures for their association with ethical behavioral intent. In addition to main effects, we found evidence supporting that the person–situation interactionist perspective in supervisor role modeling had a stronger positive relationship with ethical intention among employees with relativist moral ideology. Also as hypothesized, formal ethical polices and procedures were positively related to ethical intention among those with universal beliefs, but the relationship was much weaker among relativists. Thus, firms wishing to optimally promote ethical attitudes and behavior must tailor their organization-based initiatives to the individual characteristics of their employees.

In its short life, the concept of crowdsourcing has been applied in practice to attain various outcomes, such as business goals, innovation processes, social justice, democratic participation and environmental activism. One of its value-adding applications in the business area involves recruiting organizational members to participate in problem-solving activities. However, because this situation could be perceived as a new job parcel involving complex human relationships governed by a values loophole, the need to improve understanding on how to manage this practice optimally remains. By focusing on how value is created through social aspects and how such practice can be optimally managed, this chapter identifies crowdsourcing as a new type of organizational value created through human relationships inside business organizations. More importantly, this chapter uses the case of IBM to explore how this online relationship can be adequately articulated to avoid counterproductive behaviours by internal crowd participants. A proposal of best-practice principles for corporations interested in addressing this business practice in a more humanizing way concludes the chapter.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze a new concept value co-creation-that has emerged in the context of marketing and business management research. In today's market environment, companies are continually pressured to innovate in order to attract and maintain consumer loyalty and gain and sustain competitive advantage in the market. First, this chapter identifies factors and variables that are leveraged to determine value co-creation in firms. Second, this chapter examines how the development of information and communication technologies-in particular, the Internet and social media networks-has become the main engine of the co-creation activity in a Marketing 3.0 context. Third, this chapter discusses the consequences and benefits of implementing such concepts on the achievement of competitive advantages for firms.

Nowadays, science and technology parks (STPs) generally represent a kind of public–private partnerships that are designed to foster knowledge flows, mainly among park firms, as well as between these firms and external R&D institutions, and thus improve regional economic growth (Link and Scott 2007). Despite there is no official definition of what is an STP, some common denominators across different existing models suggest a set of minimum standards and requirements that any knowledge cluster should have to earn this formal recognition (Link 2009).

Durante el curso académico 2010/2011, se implantó en su totalidad el Grado de RR.LL. y desarrollo de RR.HH. en el campus de Cuenca. Debido a la dificultad que entrañan procesos de este tipo, especialmente en términos de resistencia a la adaptación y al cambio, recabar información del alumnado resulta de interés para la mejora sucesiva del sistema de enseñanza-aprendizaje implantado. Así, con la distribución de cuestionarios en asignaturas del Área de Organización de Empresas se obtuvo información en base a las percepciones y nivel de satisfacción del alumnado sobre el nuevo proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y con los resultados obtenidos. El análisis estadístico realizado permite concluir altas cotas de satisfacción, además de anticipar mayores esfuerzos y calificaciones por parte del alumnado. El trabajo finaliza con la discusión de las limitaciones más importantes encontradas y la propuesta de líneas futuras de investigación., During the 2010/2011 academic course the Degree of Labor Relations and Human Resources Development was completely implemented in the campus of Cuenca. Due to the difficulty of this type of processes, especially because of “resistance to change and adaptation special interest to gather systematic information from students with the aim of improving the teaching-learning system implemented. Therefore, questionnaires were collected from different subjects in the Knowledge Area of Management. Information collected was based on the perceptions and satisfaction of students about the new teaching and evaluating methods and with the results obtained. The statistical analysis conducted shows high levels of satisfaction, as well as anticipates greater efforts and qualifications by students. The paper finishes with the discussion of main limitations and the proposal of future lines of research.

The importance of inter-organizational relations for business competitiveness is widely known. In recent years numerous researchers have been studying firm’s relationships using social capital theoretical framework as a multidimensional concept that integrates various facets of relationships. The empirical evidence in the literature show that is a valuable corporate asset that can determine firm performance. Focusing on Science Parks as a facilitating landscape promoting interactions with Universities and Research Centres, we conducted an empirical analysis on a sample of technological companies located inside Spanish Science Parks. In our research we found that firms’ relations with universities generate social capital and once created it had a significantly positive effect on firm performance measured as knowledge acquisition and reputation of firms. Contrary to our expectations generated social capital has no significant effect on the development of new products and in the technological distinctiveness of firms.

Machiavellianism is usually studied as an individual characteristic affecting an individual’s ethical/unethical behavior in organizations, turning into an important influential factor in that matter. However, no studies have been conducted to date testing the influence of this personal trait on the individual’s intention to stay, which on the basis of the theoretical perspective of the Resource-Based View of the Firm, have important valuable implications for the organization. Furthermore, no empirical research has been conducted in relation to test the comfort that Machiavellians experiment when an unethical climate is perceived in the organization. This paper will study the effect that a Machiavellian personality has on the individual’s intention to stay and what happens if Machiavellians are within the organization in company of workmates who behave unethically in human interaction. Results obtained through the empirical analysis in a sample of Spanish banking employees are discussed and conclusions and implications both for academics and business professionals are presented.

Este artículo presenta los resultados de un estudio empírico en el cual se comparan los resultados obtenidos entre asignaturas iniciales y finales de la Licenciatura de Administración y Dirección de Empresas; utilizando metodologías de aprendizaje activo para la implantación del ECTS, los aspectos analizados son el diseño y utilidad de las Guías Docentes, el nivel de satisfacción con las técnicas docentes y el desarrollo de las asignaturas, la valoración de la mejora de competencias, el nivel de esfuerzo desarrollado y la satisfacción con los resultados obtenidos. El análisis realizado permite establecer un perfil diferenciado entre los alumnos de primer y último curso en la forma de percibir y afrontar la implantación del ECTS, así como en la satisfacción con los resultados obtenidos.______________________________This paper presents findings from an empirical study which compares students' performance among courses at the beginning and the end of Business Studies and Economics. It uses active learning methodology for the implantation of ECTS (European Credits Transfer System). The factors under analysis are design and usefulness of the students'guide; satisfaction with teaching techniques and development of subjects; evaluation of competence improvement; effort level and overall students'satisfaction. This analysis allows establishing a differentprofile between students of the first and the last course in relation to how they perceive and confront the introduction of ECTS, as well as their satisfaction with overall performance.

Recent decades reveal increasing academic and practitioner interest in improving corporations social and ethical reputations. Efforts to promote ethics usually focus on the implementation of explicit, formal mechanisms, aimed at transmitting ethical and moral content and reflecting an interest in behavioural ethics. Although the efficacy of these mechanisms has been demonstrated, such efforts may fail if ethics does not exist in reality in the normal procedures and operations of the firm and in the treatment employees perceive from their employers. Organizational justice is an antecedent of ethical behaviour, though most research depicting this link has centred exclusively on assessing (un)ethical behaviours directed toward the organization. Other insights, however, might suggest a relationship between organizational justice perceptions and general ethical behaviour; therefore, this study conducts an empirical examination of survey data from 436 Spanish banking employees to discern their perceptions of organizational justice by top management and whether these perceptions are related to general ethical/unethical behaviours. Findings, finally, reveal that such perceptions have positive effects on workforce general ethics. That is, actions and efforts by top management that signal organizational justice can help promote ethics among a wider workforce. These findings have substantial practical implications, as well as insights for further research.

Higher education is constantly changing and looking for innovative educational solutions in order to increase the level of the students knowledge and skills. As an important part of this set of educational policies, a new process is emerging for the ideation, planning and implementation of multidisciplinary case studies for students with the aim of developing their knowledge, meaning learning, skills and abilities that necessary for a more complete picture of the problems. In this regard, this paper shows the main results obtained with the realization of joint innovative activity experience developed by multidisciplinary areas in the Business Administration Degree (Management, Corporate Finance and Statistics). This joint activity was proposed on a voluntary basis for those students interested in working in a complete practice with other students and also as a way of replacing the individual activities of each area of knowledge. Fourteen groups of 4-5 people have done this case study, on average, the percentage of participation is about 70% of the students. The design of this methodology with an evaluation system implies students receive a significant percentage of their continuous evaluation. Also, it has allowed the students to achieve at a practical level, the how to and knows how (versus levels, ordered from low to high level of knowledge: dos, shows how, knows how and knows) of a particular set of generic and specific skills.