Government ideology and economic freedom

This paper tests the widespread belief that right-wing governments tend to promote economic freedom while left-wing ones prefer more control over the economy. Using annual data for 106 countries over the period 1975-2015 and a two-step system GMM estimator, this study shows that right-wing governments are indeed more prone to promote economic freedom and to deregulate the economy. It also finds that this effect seems to be stronger in developing/emerging economies than in more developed countries. Moreover, the analysis of the broad dimensions of economic freedom indicates that right-wing governments tend to act by improving monetary soundness and freedom to trade internationally and by easing regulations that restrict entry into markets. Mainstream left-wing governments do not seem to affect economic freedom, however populist left-wing parties, when in office, are found to have a detrimental effect.     

How does a firm's life cycle influence the relationship between carbon performance and financial debt?

In a progressively more stringent regulatory context concerning greenhouse gas emissions derived from a growing awareness of how economic activity affects our environment, this study analyzes how the firm's life cycle affects the relationship between carbon performance and financial debt. Using panel data on a sample of European listed firms during the 2005–2018 period, we find evidence suggesting that firms with better carbon performance have greater access to external financing during their growth stages and lesser access during maturity, although it has no effect during the shake-out stage. Furthermore, carbon performance has a strong positive effect during growth, maturity, and shake-out when firms need to finance additional tangible investments. We also find that the negative relationship between liquidity and debt is reversed during innovative stages for firms with better carbon performance. Our results are robust to the use of alternative measures of life cycle stages and to the consideration of industrial, legal, and cultural contexts.     

Disruptive technology adoption,particularities of clustered firms

ABSTRACT

This article explores to what extent the internal attributes of a clustered firm influence its capacity to adopt disruptive innovations. A multidimensional approach to the absorptive capacity (ACAP) model is used to distinguish between potential (acquisition and assimilation domains) and realized (transformation and exploitation domains) internal firm capabilities. Our evidence comes from an empirical analysis of the population of firms belonging to the Spanish ceramic tile cluster which have adopted a disruptive innovation – the so-called digital printing technology – on a massive scale. The econometric estimations suggest the relevance of the Exploitation dimension of ACAP for early adoption of a new technology. In contrast, the other dimensions do not seem to play a decisive role when it comes to adopting one novelty earlier than others. In conclusion, and contrary to what was expected for non-clustered firms, the results revealed an uneven effect of the potential and realized domains of ACAP of clustered firms regarding the rate of adoption of distant technologies.     

Rockets and feathers behaviour in the Spanish gasoline and diesel market: New evidence

In this paper we analyse the potential asymmetric response of retail prices for gasoline and diesel‐fuel to changes in oil prices for the Spanish economy and its relation with the so‐called ‘rockets and feathers’ behaviour. We show that the assumption made by previous studies, which use as the key explanatory variable the sign –positive or negative‐ of the change in international oil prices, is inadequate for the Spanish case and the magnitude of the change in international oil prices is also relevant. For small changes in international oil prices there is neither price asymmetry nor rockets and feathers behavior in the retail markets. However, price asymmetries in line with rockets and feathers behavior in retail gasoline and gasoil markets are present when these changes exceed a certain threshold. Following Martín‐Moreno et al. (2018) we first apply an Auto‐regressive Error Correction Model and endogenously estimate the threshold triggering the rockets and feathers behaviour. A time‐varying nature for the dynamic response of retail prices to oil price shocks is revealed when we estimate the TAR‐ECM model using rolling windows. Hence, in a second stage, we use a Markov‐switching estimation of the model to test the robustness of the results given its suitability to changing environments. This study could have relevant policy implications for the Spanish gasoline and gasoil retail markets due to the ongoing debate on the existence of a rockets and feathers behavior in gasoline and gasoil retail markets between the Spanish regulatory body and the oil companies.     

Twenty-five years (1992–2016) of the International Business Review: A bibliometric overview

The International Business Review (IBR) is a leading international academic journal in the field of International Business (IB). Such leadership is reflected in the large number of publications that grow year after year and particularly in the large number of citations received from other journals of high academic prestige. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric overview of the leading trends regarding the journal’s publications and citations since its creation in 1992 until 2016. The work identifies the authors, universities, and countries that publish the most in IBR by mainly using the Scopus database though eventually complemented with Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection. It also analyzes the most cited papers and articles of the journal. Besides, the study graphically maps the bibliographic material by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. In order to do so, the work uses co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence of author keywords. The results show the prominent European profile of the journal where contributors from European universities and countries are the most productive ones in the journal. Particularly, British and Scandinavian universities obtain the most remarkable results. However, mostly scholars from North America, but also from Oceania and East Asia are increasingly and regularly publishing in the journal. In addition, IBR is very well connected to other leading journals in the field, such as the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and the Journal of World Business (JWB), as well as with other top management journals, thus demonstrating its core position in IB research conducted worldwide.     

Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the life histories of migrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Spain, this article explores the influence of transnational trajectories on their social positions and business strategies. A translocational positional approach enables us to research the transnational strategies of women entrepreneurs more effectively in addition to examining the changes in social positions and gendered identities between the country of origin and the country of destination. This approach contributes to scholarship on ‘context’ by offering a transnational gendered dimension in relation to the effects of social, spatial and institutional factors. Our findings demonstrate how female migrant entrepreneurs redefine their social status in different contexts by establishing a business and challenge, contest or comply with gender relations in their transnational entrepreneurial journeys.     

Integral decision analysis in mutually exclusive capital investment projects. Case study: Hard Rock Cafe at Riviera Maya

Brands that have worldwide recognition are perceived as profitable businesses. One of the reasons for this perception might lie in the belief that these companies usually employ some degree of financial evaluation to make the right choice in terms of investment; Hard Rock Cafe is no exception. The brand opened one restaurant in the Riviera Maya in 2011 which closed within nine months. Could a better investment decision have been made if the Hard Rock Cafe Mexico management had followed the Integral Decision Analysis (IDA) method? This method gives decision-makers a chance to analyze mutually exclusive capital budgeting projects. The case study illustrates the type of elements that the model can yield, it provides a brief explanation on how this process could have been used by the Hard Rock Cafe management and it offers an explanation on how this knowledge might have helped in supporting a final investment decision. In conclusion, the IDA method used to analyze this project might reduce the risks in capital investments.     

What's Behind CRM Research? A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications in the CRM Research Field

The diversity of approaches to customer relationship management (CRM) brings about the need for systematic reviews. The objective of this article is to identify and categorize the most used publications in the CRM field. We conducted a bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science database. To identify and categorize the subfields, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis. The most used publications were categorized into: (1) methodology in the CRM research field; (2) relationship marketing; (3) service quality and customer loyalty; (4) implications of market-oriented strategy; (5) CRM theory and its practical implications; (6) strategic management; and (7) customer value.     

Sustainability and visitor management in tourist historic cities: the case of Santiago de Compostela,Spain

Tourism has a leading role in heritage cities and this implies a major challenge. The overall objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of tourism planning and management with the view of achieving sustainable tourism in the historic center of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The study addresses topics collected during a long research process of more than 10 years, such as strategic tourism plans, the implementation of quality management systems for tourism, the tourist supply and the regulation of flows. The results show a destination that has introduced alternatives to improve the tourism experience and diversify its offer beyond the Camino de Santiago. There is also growing concern in promoting the sustainability of the historic center. From our point of view, the strengthening of synergies between the different agents involved in the tourism sector of the city has been a key factor in dealing with this situation. However, in this sense, the main problem which is decongesting the tourist flows to the cathedral and its surroundings is still unresolved.