New Geography of M&As: A Framing Device of Firms' Strategies

The emergence of new economic centers is changing the competitive scenario. The diffusion of power across an increasingly broad range of countries has opened a window of opportunity for firms from China that want to compete globally. These firms understand their options in exploiting economic geography, and they frequently use cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to penetrate developed countries. The United States and Europe are becoming natural destinations for such investments because of their huge markets and leading‐edge technologies. This article provides a “framing device” for firms’ strategies in a multipolar world. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Does Green Public Procurement lead to Life Cycle Costing (LCC) adoption?

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is rarely used in public procurement and public institutions have yet to fully understand its potential value for sustainable procurement. The new European Directive on Public Procurement is, however, designed to position LCC as central to sustainable sourcing. Although previous studies have identified positive correlations between Green Public Procurement Policies (GPP) and LCC, it is still unclear how public institutions can further adopt LCC practices by leveraging their experience of green sourcing. In this study an organizational learning theoretical perspective is taken to investigate the circumstances under which public administrations’ experience of GPP – considered as a way of integrating the dimension of environmental sustainability into the sourcing process – stimulates their LCC learning and capabilities – considered as a way to include the sustainability economic dimension. The goal is to understand if the adoption of GPP can stimulate the internalisation of LCC in public tenders. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted using a sample of 120 public administrations located in different countries. The results show that experience of GPP stimulates the internalisation of LCC at a public level, but only under specific conditions. The study contributes to the Sustainable Supply Management literature, being one of the first studies in the field adopting an organizational learning theoretical lens to review the role of experience as significant opportunity to develop capabilities. It also contributes to the organizational learning theory, by confirming that experience can aid learning but only in specific environmental contexts.     

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

Organizational studies have widely debated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Some papers have dealt with managerial satisfaction and businesses' performance adopting agency theory to interpret the results. However, no studies have yet considered the relationship between the satisfaction levels of an environmental manager and corporate environmental performance. This paper thus analyses the role played by the environmental manager's satisfaction in enhancing corporate environmental performance and reputation. The paper uses data from a survey of 412 Eco Management and Audit Scheme registered organizations. The results show a positive relationship between managerial satisfaction and environmental performance, whereas no such positive relationship was found when considering eco‐innovation performance. In addition, the environmental manager's satisfaction has a positive and indirect influence on the corporate environmental reputation. These results contribute to the literature on agency theory and aim to extend the debate between job satisfaction and job performance to the sustainable business field.     

Policy mix to foster innovation in the Dominican Republic: attempts from an empirical perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to understand firms’ preferences for incentives to foster innovation in Dominican firms. A key research question arises: What are the most preferred science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy options to support innovation in Dominican firms? This research relies on the concept of policy mix and the conjoint analysis to support the empirical approach. Over 300 firms were surveyed across the country, and we discovered that Dominican firms prefer more complex STI policy options, including at the same time research grants, guarantee funds, and tax incentives to support several kinds of innovative activities. But also, firms need to understand the potential of available options such as tax credit and other monetary instruments, including guarantee funds. It is concluded that in the medium and long term, the STI policy mix approach could support as part of the Dominican policy agenda, an economic transition toward a more resilient and competitive economy.     

A comparison of family and nonfamily small firms in their approach to green innovation: A study of Italian companies in the agri‐food industry

Despite the growing scholars' attention toward green innovation, on the one hand, and family firms, on the other hand, there is still limited attention toward the intersection of these two streams of literature, because very few studies deal with green innovation in family firms. This paper aims at comparing family and nonfamily small firms in their approach to green innovation. To this aim, a multiple case studies methodology was used to understand whether and in which aspects family firms and nonfamily firms differ. In particular, a sample of 14 small enterprises (seven family and seven nonfamily firms) operating in the agri‐food industry and located in Italy was studied. Results suggest that family and nonfamily firms are similar with regard to green innovation characteristics, features of the green innovation process, faced challenges, and achieved outcomes. On the contrary, family firms differ from nonfamily firms in three key areas: firm's motivations, most relevant pressures, and green innovation view.     

Las condiciones laborales en la industria exportadora del norte de Marruecos. Entre el marco jurídico y la realidad de los actores

Las empresas exportadoras de productos manufacturados y de servicios del norte de Marruecos siguen un sistema de producción caracterizado por la alta presión, la flexibilidad, la supervisión directa y el cuestionamiento de ciertos derechos laborales. En el presente trabajo se estudian las condiciones laborales de estas empresas a partir del modelo teórico de la «economía global localizada», estableciendo una diferenciación según el tipo de empresa, la rama de actividad económica y la categoría profesional. Los resultados muestran cómo la reforma laboral de 2004, que adaptó la normativa a los convenios internacionales, ha servido para otorgar mayor poder a la empresa transnacional.     

Sustainable Consumption: Proposal of a Multistage Model to Analyse Consumer Behaviour for Organic Foods

Explanatory models of consumer behaviour can be used to steer decision‐making in the complex task of designing generic strategies to increase sustainable consumption. This paper proposes an operational model which assumes that the purchase of an organic food is a complex process that can be broken down into phases. It is applied to a concrete case – organic olive oil in the Spanish market – quantifying each phase to determine which ones should be acted on to increase demand. Results indicate that it is possible to adopt the model proposed, and that the problems hindering consumption are a lack of confidence in organic certification, not perceiving differences between organic and conventional foods, and the perception of barriers in their purchase. Given the context, marketing communications strategies have a key role to play. This model can be used to analyse the specific situation of each market and propose development strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Identification of determinants for rescheduling travel mode choice and transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas

This paper presents a qualitative analysis about the determinants related to rescheduling travel mode decisions during the activity scheduling process. Notably, we were interested to study changes between intention and behavior. Data used came from an in-depth Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) follow up survey to habitual drivers carried out during the implementation of a panel survey. An interpretative qualitative method based on Analytic Induction was used to cope with the complex nature of rescheduling decisions and the characteristics of the data. The Theory of Planned Behavior has been used to gain a better understanding of the reasons associated with rescheduling travel mode decisions and to obtain a possible explanation of the phenomena studied. In our sample, 12 codes were identified as the main determinants of travel mode changing. Main reasons for rescheduling a travel mode are different considering gender, age, and the type of travel mode change. Main reasons for changing a nonprivate preplanned travel mode to a private travel mode are different considering the type of travel mode preplanned. New determinants of rescheduling decisions different from those associated with other activity scheduling decisions previously identified emerge when analyzing travel mode changes. A number of important sustainable transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas are derived from the results of this study.     

Being a woman in an ICT job: an analysis of the gender pay gap and discrimination in Spain

Despite policy initiatives aimed at promoting female access to jobs, the information and communication technology (ICT) professions have traditionally been largely monopolised by men. Segregation, gendered stereotypes and environmental factors have a clear impact on educational and professional choices, as well as on working conditions. The spread of ICT to all economic activities has meant that ICT specialists are now to be found everywhere, not only in the ICT sector where many stereotypes related to technical jobs persist. This work aims to analyse the gender wage gap and discrimination in ICT professions, with the emphasis on how working in an ICT-intensive industry might affect that situation. The study uses the Spanish Earning Structure Survey data for 2014, and applies wage decomposition techniques to the wage distribution. The results show that female ICT professionals face unfavorable working conditions, especially in highly qualified jobs and in ICT-intensive industries.