Project Management of Production Line Automation: A Comparative Analysis of Project Management in Brazil and Colombia

This article aims to evaluate the production line automation projects developed by Brazilian and Colombian companies from the Project Management perspective, through the analysis of the application degree of PMBOK processes, to understand how formal techniques are being employed in these countries and also to identify improvement opportunities, when necessary. Data were collected through a survey. The similarity index between the ten processes, with the highest application degree in the Brazilian and Colombian samples, was 70%. For the processes with the lowest application degree, the similarity index was 60%. No similar study was found in the literature.     

Stock picking,market timing and style differences between socially responsible and conventional pension funds: evidence from the United Kingdom

As far as we are aware, this study presents the first comparative analysis of the stock picking and market timing abilities of managers of conventional and socially responsible (SR) pension funds, and of their use of superior information. For the United Kingdom, the results obtained show a slight stock picking ability on the part of SR pension fund managers (although it disappears if multifactorial models are considered), and a negative market timing ability on the part of both SR and conventional pension fund managers (these results hold for multifactorial models controlled by home bias). In relation to the management styles, both conventional and SR pension funds usually invest in small cap and growth values, although it is the SR pension funds that are the most exposed to these styles. We also observed that, while conventional pension fund managers make certain use of superior information to follow stock picking strategies, managers of SR pension funds use superior information to follow market timing strategies.     

Are incentives against economic justice?

We consider the problem of fairly allocating a social endowment of indivisible goods and money when the domain of admissible preferences contains, but is not restricted to, quasi-linear preferences. We analyze the manipulability of the Generalized Money Rawlsian Fair (GMRF) solutions. (i) We show that the Nash and strong Nash equilibrium correspondences of the “preference revelation game form” associated with each GMRF solution coincide with the no-envy solution (in equilibrium, efficiency is preserved according to agents' true preferences). (ii) A corollary is that the GMRF solutions “naturally implement” the no-envy solution in Nash and strong Nash equilibria.     

Cross-Border Shopping: A Survey

The aim of this paper is to undertake a review of the most important literature on the phenomenon of fiscally induced cross-border shopping. Following the presentation of the principal theoretical models, the study concentrates on applied literature. Firstly, the elements common to the diverse applications are described, and then, a detailed analysis of the research undertaken into cross-border shopping for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, fuel, and lotteries is provided, concluding with a reference to the interaction between cross-border purchases and those effected over the internet. The results achieved by the empirical research coincide and support the principal result of the theoretical literature: the tax differentials between neighboring territories induce consumers to purchase in the territory where taxation is lower, on the condition that the tax saving compensates for the transport costs associated with the travel made by the purchaser in order to take advantage of the lower taxation.     

Business Ethics in Spain

This article is an introduction to the selection of papers on "Business Ethics in Spain" included in this monographic issue of the Journal of Business Ethics. Specifically, this article is a survey of the development of the social, political, cultural and economic background of business in Spain since 1940, in order to show how the ethical values, attitudes and problems of the Spanish managers changed in these years. First, the global evolution of this background is explained, and then several relevant problems are discussed, namely those of the attitudes of business towards the State and the law (with an aside on the attitudes of society towards profit and wealth), corruption, and the grey economy, taxes, and irregular labour. The article concludes with a survey of the scientific developments of business ethics in Spain.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Trade: A Causality Analysis

In this article, we analyze the relationship between outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports, using Spanish quarterly data for the period 1977–1998, by means of Granger causality tests in a cointegration framework. Our results point to the existence of a relationship of complementarity between both variables, with Granger causality running in the short run from outward FDI to exports, and bilateral Granger causality in the long run.     

Growth options and poverty reduction in Ethiopia – An economy-wide model analysis

This study focuses on which agricultural subsectors are important in Ethiopia’s economic growth and poverty reduction and what kind of agricultural and nonagricultural growth is needed to achieve the millennium development goal of halving the incidence of poverty by 2015. A spatially disaggregated, economy-wide model was developed, enabling the analysis of growth and poverty reduction linkages at national and regional levels using national household surveys, agricultural sample surveys, geographic information systems, and other national and regional data. The study reveals that agriculture can play a central role in decreasing poverty and increasing growth in Ethiopia. Within the agriculture, growth in cereals and other staple crops should receive priority. Agricultural growth also requires concurrent investments in roads and other market conditions. At the subnational level, similar growth rates within agricultural subsectors have different effects on poverty, necessitating regionally based strategies for growth and poverty reduction.     

Influence of technological support,skills and competencies,and learning on corporate entrepreneurship in European technology firms

In the today′s changing environment, firms are hardly competing with each other to achieve a competitive advantage that can differentiate them from others and improve their organizational performance. In this sense, it is crucial to develop corporate entrepreneurship and promote strategic variables that foster it.The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of different technological variables (top management support to technology, technological skills and technological distinctive competencies) and organizational learning on corporate entrepreneurship, and thus analyze the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on organizational performance in the context of technology firms.A sample of 160 European technology firms was selected from the database Amadeus in 2009 with CEOs as our main informants. The hypotheses studied are empirically confirmed by using a hierarchical regression model.