Urban destination loyalty drivers and cross-national moderator effects: The case of Barcelona

The objective of this paper is to analyze the loyalty of tourists to urban tourism destinations, studying the differences existing on the basis of nationality of origin. The review of the academic literature identified perceived value and satisfaction as antecedents of loyalty. A theoretical model was constructed which was tested empirically with a total of 927 surveys of Italian and American tourists in the city of Barcelona. In the study of the data, structural equation models (SEM) were used, by means of a multi-group analysis. The empirical results show that the causal relationships among perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty and the moderating effect of nationality are partially confirmed. This study contributes to better knowledge of the processes that lead tourists to be loyal to an urban tourism destination.     

Discretionary Accruals and Auditor Behaviour in Code-Law Contexts: An Application to Failing Spanish Firms

This study examines the relationship between earnings management and auditor behaviour in the pre-bankrupt client segment of the Spanish audit market. As proxies for auditor behaviour, we use type of audit firm (Big N/non-Big N) and type of audit report. In contrast to the USA, audit reports in Spain often include modifications other than a going-concern opinion. This allows us to study the relationship in more detail than is possible with US data. The results of our study show that discretionary accruals are negatively related to going-concern opinions but are positively related to reports modified for reasons other than going-concern problems. However, unlike Butler et al. (Journal of Accounting and Economics, 37, pp. 139–165, 2004) the negative relationship is explained not by liquidity survival tactics but by auditor conservatism. We find this conservatism not only in the value of discretionary accruals but also in the qualifications that accompany a going concern. In these cases GAAP violations have a much greater income effect and a stronger relationship with the reversal of manipulation accumulated over the years than with the manipulation introduced during the last year. Finally, our results suggest that Big N differentiation in a code-law country is context-specific and depends on the business risk parameter of the ‘audit risk model’. In particular, for high-risk firms, Big N auditors show a significantly lower level of discretionary accruals and a greater propensity to issue a going-concern opinion.     

Measuring Corporate Environmental Performance: A Methodology for Sustainable Development

Assessing corporate environmental performance (CEP) that is both comprehensive and consistent with sustainable development both for society and companies, while at the same time taking heed of the facts and interests of each stakeholder, is not a simple feat. Due to the multidimensional character of the sustainability concept, several questions must be considered in the evaluation process: (i) the qualitative nature of indicators and the complexity of developing a synthetic index; (ii) the difficulty of choosing properly statistical techniques for aggregation and (iii) the difficulty of introducing stakeholders’ preferences in the assessment models. This paper is an attempt to address this challenge by developing a framework for the assessment of CEP, based on the application of a fuzzy multi‐criterion decision‐making (MCDM) method. To achieve positive scores in a CEP assessment, an organization should be strategically committed and engage in environmental management and governance structures that are translated into good results in terms of both engagement and operational performance. Unless such premises are explicitly incorporated into the assessment criteria, the results would reveal that the CEP measurement could not be brought into a line with an earnest ambition of achieving true sustainable development. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Postmodern Values and Leisure in Young Spanish University Students: An Exploratory Study

This article reports exploratory research about tendencies toward postmaterialism in university students. This paper used the theoretical framework proposed by Inglehart regarding three categories of leisure: postmaterialist, materialist and common. Students from a Spanish university (N = 1036) completed questionnaires that evaluated their materialist-postmaterialist values, how often they practiced the activities included in each category of leisure and the motivational factors involved in them. The results revealed that university students showed a tendency toward postmaterialism. Further, relationships were found between materialist-postmaterialist values and categories of leisure. This study results suggested that the tendency toward postmaterialist values may be a factor in structuring the leisure patterns of young Spanish university students.     

The spanish restaurant sector: evaluating the perceptions of quality

The restaurant sector is one of the fastest growing sectors within the Spanish economy and looks likely to continue its development into the future. The implementation of total quality (TQ) systems in the tourist industry is still a recent phenomenon in Spain. Hence the importance of the client's satisfaction, resulting in the acquisition of an optimum quality level: i.e. cooking is culture and it has to be culturally adapted and promoted. The survey on the customers of Spanish restaurants reported in this article has gathered the perception of quality according to a likert scale from one to five. The objective of the survey was to determine the degree of satisfaction as well as the quality of the establishment, by using a cluster analysis of the data. Amongst the findings of the survey was the importance of the motivation of pleasure that makes people go to restaurants and it is therefore necessary to create a favourable atmosphere of quality the customers will want to come back to. This provides the sector's greatest challenge.     

Outsourcing of advanced business services in the Spanish economy: Explanation and estimation of the regional effects

The use of advanced business services has become an essential element for competitiveness in modern economies in which traditional competitive advantages based on prices, lower labour costs or the abundance of natural resources are being replaced by new advantages based on higher quality, greater knowledge or the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Within this context certain services (computing, communications, human resources, engineering, consulting or management) are generally outsourced so as to exploit the advantages derived from specialisation and division of labour, as well as those of economies of scope and scale. However, some businesses, sectors or regions appear to have very different patterns of outsourcing advanced producer services. This paper presents an explanation of elements of business outsourcing decisions applied to the Spanish economy, applying discrete response models to the information obtained in a survey elaborated by the authors. The data thus obtained have enabled us to identify differences between the Spanish regions in the tendencies of businesses to use internal or external advanced services.     

A legal and economic study of the new Consolidated Text of the Land Use Act of 2008 in Spain

The study conducts a legal and economic analysis comparing the new Consolidated Text of the Land Use Act of 2008 (Texto Refundido de la Ley de Suelo) and the Land Law 6/1998, April 13 now repealed. The study examines various articles contained in the new law and the old law. Although the study analyzes every title in both laws, it focuses on Title III regarding valuations for the expropriation of property owners.     

Co-creation with clients of hotel services: the moderating role of top management support

Hotels can strengthen their competitiveness by expanding their innovation process beyond the boundaries of the firm to exploit the valuable knowledge and skills of their customers. This study examines the effects of new service (NS) co-creation with customers in the hotel industry on NS performance, as well as the moderating role of top management support. The research also explores the main barriers faced by hotels to co-create service innovations. Partial least squares structural equation modelling results indicate that Customer co-creation exerts a direct impact on NS market outcomes and NS development (NSD) speed, which in turn favours NS quality. NS quality translates into better NS customer-related outcomes as well as in improved NS market outcomes. Top management support enhances the effect of Customer co-creation on the NSD speed. The main barrier to NS co-creation in hotels is to find customers interested in devoting time to this activity or with the appropriate knowledge and experience.