El desempeño económico financiero y responsabilidad social corporativa Petrobrás versus Repsol

Alterations in the institutional environment, as a result of the markets integration process and the consequent alterations in stakeholders’ conduct are one of the important vectors of changes in companies’ behavior. In that context, in addition to their yields those companies happen to worry about their attitudes in relation to social and environmental factors. Thus, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) is seen as one more strategy to maintain or increase their income and to harness the enterprise development. The main purpose of this study is the verification of the existing relation between Social Responsibility and the economic and financial performance of two companies in the business of Petroleum, Gas and Bio-combustibles. The investigation was based on a comparison of social-environmental practices developed by Petrobras S/A (Brazil) and Repsol S/A (Spain). For the purpose of verification of the relation between social-environmental performance and the economic-financial one, a linear regression analysis was carried out.     

Research into Quality Management and Social Responsibility

This article presents a systematic literature review on quality management and social responsibility (focusing on ethical and social issues). It uses the literature review to identify the parallels between quality management and social responsibility, the extent to which qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods are used, the countries that have contributed most to this area, and how the most common quality management practices facilitate social responsibility. The literature review covers articles about quality management and social responsibility (focusing on ethical and social categories) based on a computer search in three databases, namely ABI Inform, Emerald and Science Direct, and includes articles dealing with the subject that were found in the lists of references of the articles found in the primary search, as well as a search in six top management journals. The results show (1) the journals most likely to publish this type of article; (2) the range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods used; (3) the most productive countries in this field; (4) the parallels between quality management and social responsibility; and (5) how the most common quality management practices facilitate ethical behaviour and social aspects.     

R&D Subsidies,Spillovers, and Privatization in Mixed Markets

We examine the use of subsidies to research and development (R&D) in a mixed and a private duopoly market. We show that the socially optimal R&D subsidy is increasing in the degree of spillovers, but it is lower in the private duopoly. The optimal R&D subsidy leads to an increase in total R&D and production; however, it does not lead to the equalization of per firm output and therefore to an efficient distribution of production costs. We also find that privatization of the public firm reduces R&D activity and welfare in the duopoly market. This result stands even when optimal R&D subsidies are provided.     

Do global CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel consumption exhibit long memory? a fractional-integration analysis

In this article we use an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average approach to measure the degree of fractional integration of aggregate world CO₂ emissions and its five components – coal, oil, gas, cement, and gas flaring. We find that all variables are stationary and mean reverting, but exhibit long-term memory. Our results suggest that both coal and oil combustion emissions have the weakest degree of long-range dependence, while emissions from gas and gas flaring have the strongest. With evidence of long memory, we conclude that transitory policy shocks are likely to have long-lasting effects, but not permanent effects. Accordingly, permanent effects on CO₂ emissions require a more permanent policy stance. In this context, if one were to rely only on testing for stationarity and non-stationarity, one would likely conclude in favour of non-stationarity, and therefore that even transitory policy shocks have permanent effects. Our fractional-integration analysis highlights that this is not the case.     

Graph efficiency and productivity measures: an application to US agriculture

Hyperbolic measures of efficiency and productivity change with respect to a graph representation of production technology allow researchers to consider output and input dimensions simultaneously in measuring producer performance. Hyperbolic efficiency measures have been proposed, but empirical implementation has not followed, either in efficiency analysis or in productivity analysis. The objectives of this paper are to define hyperbolic performance measures on a graph representation of production technology, to motivate their use by stating some of their advantages over their radial counterparts, and to introduce a direct formulation to calculate them making use of Data Envelopment Analysis techniques. The ideas are illustrated by calculating hyperbolic efficiency and Malmquist productivity indexes for a US agricultural panel data set.     

Category management and consumer choice

This paper shows the results of an exploratory analysis of the structure of a complex product category: Wine. In complex categories, a usual strategy of consumers is the partitioning of alternatives into homogeneous subsets and the sequential eliminations of subsets until a product/brand is chosen from among few homogeneous alternatives in the last subset. To identify if there is such a kind of strategy and the product attributes involved is of great interest for the retailer. After a discussion of the different modelling alternatives of the choice process, the authors provide an application of the additive trees (ADDTREE) model to explore the hierarchical structure. The ADDTREE results provide a first overview of the competitive market structure of the wine category: competition becomes more intense as the wine category is partitioned by, first, the type of wine criteria and, second, the designation of origin (DO) criteria.     

Flexibility at the Margin and Labor Market Volatility in OECD Countries*

We study the business‐cycle behavior of segmented labor markets with flexibility at the margin (e.g., just affecting fixed‐term contracts). We present a matching model with temporary and permanent jobs (i) where there is a gap in the firing costs associated with these types of jobs and (ii) where there are restrictions in the creation and duration of fixed‐term contracts. We show that a labor market with ``flexibility at the margin'' increases the unemployment volatility with respect to one that is fully regulated. This analysis yields new insights into the interpretation of the recent volatility changes witnessed in the OECD area.     

Does involvement matter in online shopping satisfaction and trust?

Consumer involvement in online shopping can play a moderating role when explaining Web site effect on satisfaction and trust. This study proposes a set of hypotheses based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion, a conceptual model that explains the formation of individual attitudes that are prompted by central and peripheral cues. The model proposes the use of central signals when the buyer is highly involved and peripheral signals when the buyer is less involved. Nevertheless, the results of this study would suggest that these relationships are not so clearly defined in the case of online buying, which implies that certain assumptions associated with the ELM need to be revised to take the particularities of the online context into account. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strategic groups and performance in the Spanish hotel sector

This study uses the strategic group theory to identify business strategies and competitive advantages implemented by Spanish hotels, which are grouped together according to three variables (size, chain affiliation, and category) and the degree of development of the different business strategies. An analysis carried out with the aim of checking the potential existence of significant differences in performance among the strategic groups revealed that the highest performance levels are achieved by larger-sized, chain-affiliated, and higher-category hotels as well as by establishments which base their competitive advantage on category and capacity or size and internal management.     

Does self-regulation work? Experimental evidence of the reputational incentives of Self-Regulatory Organizations

Self-regulation (SR) is a common way of enforcing quality in markets (such as banking, financial services and several professions) and in a variety of public and private organizations. We provide experimental evidence of the reputational incentives of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to publicly disclose versus cover-up fraud in an incomplete information environment. We find that observed behaviour is generally consistent with Bayesian equilibrium when subjects are informed about the relative likelihood of fraud detection by a ‘vigilant’ versus a ‘lax’ SRO type. In particular, a fraud disclosure equilibrium is supported when subjects are informed that the ‘vigilant’ SRO is more likely to detect fraud; otherwise, a cover-up equilibrium is supported. However, when subjects are not informed about the relative likelihood of fraud detection by the SRO types (as expected in real SR situations), no equilibrium is strongly supported. Our results suggest that in practice, the reputation-based incentives for effective SR may be inherently ambiguous and weak.