To post or not to post: social media sharing and sporting event performance

Social networks are becoming increasingly important for consumers, especially in the context of sport, where the service experience is highly intense. Few studies have combined subjective event performance variables and social network variables to analyze social network content sharing by sports practitioners. This article investigates the use of social networks in relation to sporting events. An empirical study examined the role of social network variables and sporting event performance variables in social media use. The sample consisted of 410 triathletes (72.2% male) aged between 18 and 66 years (mean 37.03 ± 8.62). Four analyses were performed using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the causes of sharing comments through social media, sharing photos and videos on social media, participant satisfaction, and word‐of‐mouth (WOM). The event's general image was a necessary condition in all cases. The combination of participants’ satisfaction and positive event image and the combination of social network use and positive event image lead to social network content sharing by athletes. The combination of positive event image and participant satisfaction leads to a positive WOM.     

A Representative Committee by Approval Balloting

A new voting rule for electing committees is described. Specifically, we use approval balloting and propose a new voting procedure that guarantees that if there is a committee that represents (with a given proportion of representatives) all of the existing voters, then the selected committee has to represent all of voters in at least the same proportion. This property is a way of selecting a committee that represents completely all of voters when such a committee exists. The usual voting rules in this context do not satisfy this condition.     

Leadership: The Being Component. Can the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Contribute to the Debate on Business Education?

In recent years, scholars have increasingly dedicated their attention to analyse and reflect on the topic of leadership. However, the debate has often focused on the figure of the leader, as if being a leader were a self-sufficient function in itself, understood without finalities or independent of them. I would argue that leadership is not a position that can be assumed, but, rather, a relationship that is constructed. Similarly, the question of leaders has often given rise to a deconstruction of its components, without any insight as to how the reality is put together. Leadership cannot be understood solely from a technical or instrumental perspective. It is not a mere relational skill that simply requires developing competencies. The exercise of leadership always includes—explicitly or implicitly—a connection with values. Therefore, developing leadership is impossible without a personal process that develops the person’s capacity for perception, learning, interiorisation, explicit sense-making and constructing meaning. These issues are truly important at a time in which the debate on business education and its contribution is completely open, targeting the very core of business education’s reason for being. Though open, the debate can only become a truly dynamic discussion if there is a real dialogue between the different positions and traditions. For this reason, this paper proposes an anthropological and non-denominational reading of some of the fundamental meditations found in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius which could be used as a heuristic in the debate regarding what business schools propose. This paper represents an initial step in this direction, exploring some of the potentialities of the Spiritual Exercises for business schools that do not claim any religious tradition.     

Ethics in Finance and Accounting: Editorial Introduction

In light of the recent crisis and its aftershocks, it becomes crucial to reflect on the relationship between finance and accounting and on how to integrate ethics and efficiency, as well as on how to motivate and empower practitioners in the world of finance to commit to justice, fairness and enhanced understanding, and to improving their personal integrity. This article, written as an editorial introduction to a special issue includes works related to control measurement and ethical behavior, misbehaviors in finances and accounting, professionalism in accounting, ethical investing and corporate reporting. We conclude by suggesting further research for a better integration of technical aspects of accounting and finances into business activity—human activity actually—and an for understanding of ethics not limited to rules, but as a mutual and interdependent system of values (human goods), virtues and principles.     

SMEs and CSR: An Approach to CSR in their Own Words

The academic literature reveals the need to undertake more in-depth field studies in order to discover the organisational culture, the difficulties and the perceptions surrounding CSR in SMEs. This study presents the results of analysis of four case studies on Catalan companies that stand out for their social and environmental practices. The conclusions of this paper are the result of dialogue with the main actors – four medium-sized companies – focusing on their actions, understandings and resistance with regard to CSR. The methodological perspective used was Grounded Theory, with the aim of the study being to contribute towards formalising CSR in SMEs, in their daily practices, by analysing some primary data. The results obtained show how difficult it is for SMEs to understand CSR, beyond the explanation of the specific practices carried out by the companies. They highlight the role played by the values of the founding director in the implementation of CSR programmes; they reveal that SMEs still have a long way to go towards learning how to inform both internal and external stakeholders of their best practices, and; finally, they show the interesting links that SMEs establish between responsible practices, improved competitiveness and economic results. Finally, the text points out the implications that the results of this analysis may have on creating ways of promoting CSR in SMEs. We believe that, in light of the opinions expressed by the companies, public organisations should try to concentrate on creating a favourable framework for responsible competitiveness, as a way to deal with CSR when addressing SMEs.David Murillo is a Researcher at the Institute for the Individual, Corporations and Society (IPES), ESADE Business School, Universitat Ramon Llull and Academic Assistant at the same institution. He is the current coordinator of the SMEs and CSR research field at IPES. He holds a degree in Business Administration, a degree in Human Studies and a diploma in Sociology. He is currently pursuing his PhD in SME CSR.Josep M. Lozano is currently a Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at ESADE, Universitat Ramon Llull and Director of the school’s Institute for the Individual, Corporations and Society (IPES). Co-founder of ética, Economía y Dirección (Spanish branch of the European Business Ethics Network), member of the international Editorial Board of ‘Ethical Perspectives’ and member of the Business Ethics Inter-faculty group of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). He has been a highly commended runner-up in the European division of the Beyond Grey Pinstripes Faculty Pioneer Award. Author of Ethics and Organizations. Understanding Business Ethics as a Learning Process. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000.     

The Born-Global Phenomenon: A Comparative Case Study Research

This qualitative, case-based research investigates the most relevant traits shown by several new, export-involved born-global firms and their entrepreneurs-managers versus other more traditional and also recently-established exporting SMEs in a specific geographic region inside Spain. More concretely, we aim to shed light on the type of factors and specific conditions underlying the emergence and further expansion of born-global exporters, as compared to other counterparts, which do not share their rapid internationalising character from inception. From our cross-comparison of four firm cases investigated in this setting against a number of factors generally associated with the born-global or gradual internationalisation paths, our results indicate that both constitute two consistent and distinctive patterns of international development. Another relevant finding in this research is that born globals seem indeed to be more entrepreneurial regarding their export entry behaviour into foreign markets than gradual exporters. Relevant academic, managerial, and policy-making implications are also outlined from these results.     

Regime shifts in stock–flow I(2)–I(1) systems: the case of US fiscal sustainability

In the last two decades, fiscal sustainability has been tested through the use of non‐stationary time series analysis. Two different approximations can be found in the literature: first, a univariate approach that has focused on the stochastic properties of the stock of debt and, second, a multivariate one that has focused on the long‐run properties of the flows of expenditures and revenues, i.e., in the stochastic properties of the deficit. In this paper we unify these approaches considering the stock–flow system that fiscal variables configure. Our approach involves working in an I(2) stochastic processes framework. Given the possibility of the existence of regime shifts in the sustainability of US deficit that the literature has pointed out, we develop a new statistic that can be applied to test several types of I(2) cointegration and multicointegration relationships allowing for regime shifts. To test for these kinds of changing long‐run relationships we propose the use of a residual‐based Dickey–Fuller class of statistic that accounts for one structural break. We show that consistent estimates of the break fraction can be obtained through the minimization of the sum of squared residuals when there is I(2) cointegration. The finite sample performance of the proposed statistic is investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. The econometric methodology is applied to assess whether the US fiscal deficit and debt are sustainable. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The historical origins of the Philippine economy: a survey of recent research of the Spanish colonial era

This article surveys recent research of the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines since the late eighteenth century. While highlighting imperfections in our understanding, the article establishes the parameters with which the Philippine economy entered the twentieth century. It outlines the intensification of Spanish colonial rule through changes in the taxation system, particularly the expansion of forced tobacco cultivation until its abolition in 1882. Since then, the Spanish set out to further change and intensify colonial rule but contradictions in the system of colonial rule caused the effort to come to an abrupt end in 1898.