The siting of a research centre on clean coal combustion and CO2 capture in Spain: Some notes on the relationship between trust and lack of public information

This paper aims to gain a better understanding of the role played by trust in the context of scarcity of public information, vis‐à‐vis the installation of a Centre for Investigation in Advanced Technologies (Centro de Investigación de Tecnologías Avanzadas, CITA) to be located in a coal‐rich region of Spain. Data from semi‐structured interviews (n = 15), a questionnaire survey (n = 400) and focus group sessions (2) are drawn together to reveal how the local community perceives the proposed CITA scheme, and how this relates to the level of trust placed in the project promoters. Results illustrate how a lay community gives meaning to an unknown technological project, trying to place it within its appropriate economic, social and political context, and relating it to prior knowledge and experiences. Results also show that, in contrast to certain risk communication theories, the public is able to place trust in a technological activity and their promoters despite a general lack of knowledge on either.     

Equity-worthiness and equity-willingness: Key factors in private equity deals

While access to private equity funds (PEFs) provides a unique opportunity for firms to set up sturdy growth paths, how PEFs select companies is an unknown process to entrepreneurs and business owners. This study aims to offer insights regarding the private equity market to entrepreneurs searching for external capital. We analyzed a novel dataset of 240 pre-deal negotiations between small- and medium-sized Italian companies and a closed-end fund. Results indicate that the successful closing of a deal depends on more than just the target firm's equity-worthiness (i.e., the company's ability to meet the expectations of a private equity investor). In fact, there is another dimension: the target firm's equity-willingness (i.e., the company's motivations to accept an outside equity investor). We summarize the results of our study by building a 2x2 positioning matrix on the basis of the target firm's equity-worthiness and equity-willingness. This matrix enables entrepreneurs to grasp how private equity investors evaluate their firms.     

Analyzing relationship quality and its contribution to consumer relationship proneness

Relationship Marketing has emerged as one of the dominant paradigms in the sphere of marketing in recent decades. However, aspects such as globalization, the development of information technologies, or pressure from growing global competitiveness have brought about changes in the way firms approach relationship management with consumers. The modern consumer demands personalized treatment that is customized to individual needs and specific characteristics. In this context, relationship quality (RQ) allows firms to understand the proneness of consumers to keeping their commercial relations alive. This study adopts a comprehensive management approach that includes the resources and capabilities that firms possess in order to enhance RQ and analyzes the effect of a series of elements inherent to business management (market orientation, knowledge management and resources assigned to maintaining the relationship) on the quality of relationships as perceived by the consumer. We analyze the effect of perceived quality on the consumer’s willingness to maintain the relationship, providing a starting point for examining related aspects such as purchase repetition. The study uses PLS to analyze data from a sample of consumers in the banking sector to test the hypotheses posited in our conceptual model and enrich the discussion on the consequences for management practices.     

Firm size and productivity in Spain: a stochastic frontier analysis

This paper analyses the performance of the small and medium-sized manufacturing firms during the period 1995–2001, focusing on the degree of technical inefficiency and its determinants. We use a micro panel data set to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier production function and the inefficiency determinants using an unbalanced panel of manufacturing firms. Our empirical results suggest that small and medium-sized firms tend to be less inefficient than the large firms are. Also, we centre our analysis in the effect on efficiency of some organisational factors related to the managerial ability to use and adjust capital and labour properly.

Gender discrimination and intergenerational transmission of preferences

This paper provides an explanation for the existence of genderdiscrimination in the labour market focusing on the intergenerationaltransmission of preferences related to the attitude of womentowards jobs and family. Changes in women's preferences overgenerations depend on the socialization efforts of their parentswhich in turn are influenced by both the firm's expected recruitmentpolicy and the expected utility from household care. We obtaintwo types of steady state equilibria: the discriminatory equilibrium,in which women are segregated to low-paid jobs, and the non-discriminatoryequilibrium, in which women are hired in highly-paid jobs. Theconditions of convergence to each equilibrium are analysed.     

Unemployment and consumption patterns

In this paper we obtain empirical evidence about the effect of female and male unemployment on household demand of a selection of goods and services. We analyse the percentage of the family income expenditure on a particular group of goods concerning education, domestic services, leisure goods, hotels etc. The impact of several determinants on each group of commodities is estimated using a Tobit specification. The data used for estimation have been taken from The Household Expenditure Survey (1990–91). Our main result is that male and female unemployment has a different impact on the household consumption.     

Temporary workers and productivity: the case of Spain

The primary focus of this paper is on efficiency wages and their testable implications. In particular the nature of the relationship between efficiency wages, productivity and the make up of the labour force is analysed, modelled and subjected to an empirical test. This theory is consistent with the views of many managers and personal administrators, who tend to ascribe primary importance in wage setting to indirect control of the firm's workforce. Here we test a labour augmenting production function where effort depends not only on wages but also on the proportion of temporary workers.     

Service Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Labour Demand*

This article studies the effects of service offshoring on the skill composition of labour demand, using novel comparable data for nine Western European countries between 1990 and 2004. The results show that service offshoring raises the relative demand for high‐ and medium‐skilled workers. Its effects are qualitatively identical, and quantitatively similar, to those of material offshoring. Additional evidence suggests, however, that the two types of offshoring may work through different channels: complementarity between imported services and domestic skills in the case of service offshoring, substitution of low‐skilled labour in the case of material offshoring. Overall, the effects are not large in economic terms.     

The weak linkages between processing exports and the internal economy. The Mexican case

The aim of this paper is to show the internal linkages of manufacturing exports and the rest of the economy. We take the Mexican economy as the case of study. Manufacturing exports constitute the most of exports and processing exports (maquiladora) represent an important part of them. We consider the indirect domestic value added contained in Mexican manufacturing exports, dividing them into exports from the internal economy and the maquiladora industry. We show that the internal backward linkages of exports are weak, that only a few sectors produce inputs for exports, and that the forward linkages are weak too because the Mexican maquiladora industry assembles imported parts and components into final goods for export. The actual picture is quite different from that presented by Hirschman [(1958) The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven, Yale University Press], who argued that the manufacturing sector plays a key role to promote economic growth because of its dense forward and backward internal linkages.     

Consumer Acceptance of the New Red-Fleshed Apple Variety

The aim of this study was to investigate consumer preference for the novel red-fleshed apple genotypes. The information presented provides us with insight into consumer propensity to accept a new variety with radical visible innovative attributes and societal demand for a more sustainable production. The survey was carried out on the population of a province in central Italy, where there is consumer demand for organic and high-quality foods. The consumers’ opinions contrasted greatly and can be divided into two groups. Over one quarter of the respondents declared that they did not like the innovative fruit. The cluster analysis and CHAID analyses were performed on the consumers’ responses to determine sample groupings. Three clusters were identified among the consumers with positive opinions, enthusiastic, health-conscious, and unmotivated illustrating how the hierarchical level of preferences of the potential consumers of the red-fleshed apple fruit are triggered by various motivations. The surveys also pointed out that most consumers of the sampled population were not biased against research activities producing innovative food products. A large number of consumers, especially women, declared that they were willing to pay a higher price considering the increased nutritional value of red-fleshed apple fruits. By examining the broad context of this study, decision-making researchers and operators of the fruit industry will be able to make informed and realistic predictions concerning possible future scenarios and to determine the possible effects and desirability.