The impact of electronic commerce on small and midsized spanish companies

Electronic commerce (EC) is not new for some European Union countries, but in others, such as Spain, it is only at the developmental stage. Now that Spain has joined the third phase of the economic and monetary union, Spanish companies' internationalization and the progressive change in the Spanish consumers' buying habits are determining the search for new business strategies. Starting with an analysis of the Spanish business environment, followed by an internal scanning of small and midsized Spanish companies, this paper will analyze the viability of EC as a new business strategy.     

The contribution of minimum wage valorization policy to the decline in household income inequality in Brazil: A decomposition approach

There is a vast literature that estimates the effect of the minimum wage on wage inequality in various countries. However, as the minimum wage directly affects nonlabor income of families in some countries (in the Brazilian case via the benefits of the pension system and of certain social programs), this article extends the empirical analysis by studying the effects of the minimum wage on the level of inequality of household income as a whole. To accomplish that we employ a decomposition method that gauges the contribution of the increases in the minimum wage that occurred in recent decades in Brazil through the labor and nonlabor sources of household income. The results show that the minimum wage had a contribution of 64 percent to the observed fall in income inequality between 1995 and 2014 and that pensions were the most relevant channel over this period.     

The market valuation of ethical assets in Spain: an application of the hedonic pricing method

The aim of this paper is to calculate the market valuation of non‐financial characteristics, namely, the social responsibility criteria (social, ethical and environmental) included in the Spanish Socially Responsible Investment Funds. The hedonic price method is applied for this purpose. This method relates the price of Socially Responsible Investment Funds with both financial and social responsibility characteristics. Because of the large number of social responsibility characteristics included in these funds, prior to application of the hedonic price method, the principal components factor analysis technique is used. The data are taken from the prospectus for each fund and from the data provided by the National Securities Market Commission. Results indicate that the Spanish market is sensitive to the social responsibility practices of companies. In particular, the market value practices related to environmental sustainability, the enforcement of labour rights, sustainable production and consumption and non‐abusive market practices.     

Partnerships and the private recruitment industry

This article, based on a postal survey and qualitative interview‐based research, examines the relationship between major private recruitment bureaux and their clients in the UK, with particular attention to the recruitment and selection of temporary workers. The private recruitment industry is growing and large bureaux are seeking closer partnership arrangements with clients. Contracts for labour services are being developed on a 'preferred' supplier basis – similar in type to the approach taken for the purchase or supply of goods or components. However, formal preferred supplier contracts with temporary work bureaux were used by only a minority of clients, usually larger organisations or those having projects or workplaces with high volume demand. While such bureaux seek models of relational contracting or partnering, many clients prefer less fully engaged or 'semi‐distanced' relations facilitated by the informal dimensions of inter‐organisational contacts.     

Moral Disengagement in Processes of Organizational Corruption

This paper explores Albert Bandura's concept of moral disengagement in the context of organizational corruption. First, the construct of moral disengagement is defined and elaborated. Moral disengagement is then hypothesized to play a role in the initiation of corruption by both easing and expediting individual unethical decision-making that advances organizational interests. It is hypothesized to be a factor in the facilitation of organizational corruption through dampening individuals’ awareness of the ethical content of the decisions they make. Finally, it is hypothesized to contribute to the perpetuation of corruption in organizations, because if individuals who have a greater propensity to morally disengage are more likely to make decisions that advance organizational interests regardless of the ethicality of those decisions, they may also be rewarded for those decisions in terms of organizational advancement. Together these studies form an argument that moral disengagement plays an important role in processes of organizational corruption.     

A note on a value with incomplete communication

The Myerson's models on partial cooperation have been studied extensively [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 5 (1992) 305; Math. Methods Operations Res. 2 (1977) 225; Int. J. Game Theory 19 (1980) 421; 20 (1992) 255]. In [Game Econ. Behav. 26 (1999) 565], Hamiache proposes a new solution concept for communication situations. In this work, we analyze this value making some deficiencies clear and generalize this value to union stable cooperation structures emphasizing the differences in the extension.     

The self-employed without employees—autonomous or atypical?

The 1980s and early 1990s have witnessed a substantial growth in the self-employed component of the national labour-force. Of these, around two-thirds are one-person businesses without employees. This article identifies an occupational grouping which occupies a position at the extreme point on a continuum of small business independence, virtually indistinguishable from that of employees.     

Nonparametric neural network modeling of hedonic prices in the housing market

This article addresses the contribution to hedonic modeling of a nonparametric approach based on artificial neural network (ANN) regressions. ANNs provide consistent estimates for the hedonic price of each attribute and permit a number of hypotheses on the hedonic price relationship to be tested nonparametrically. In particular, we exploit results by Stinchcombe and White (Econom Theory 14:295?C324, 1998) in order to carry out misspecification testing in linear and semiloglinear hedonic models. The same approach directly applies to testing misspecification of any parametric specification for the hedonic relationship. A nonparametric significance test for the variables in the hedonic model is also proposed. The test extends the approach developed by Racine (J Bus Econ Stat 15(3):369?C378, 1997) in kernel-based nonparametric testing to ANN-based inference. The finite sample performance of the proposed tests is analyzed through Monte Carlo experiments, and simulation-based algorithms for computation of the null distribution of the tests are proposed. Then, the performance of three classes of regression models??linear, semi-log, and ANNs??applied to hedonic price modeling in a Spanish regional housing market is compared. Our results indicate the presence of nonlinear behavior, as predicted by economic theory, with the ANN-based tests detecting statistically significant evidence of misspecification??both in the linear and the semilog specifications??and ANN regressions providing moderate improvement of predictive performance.     

Evaluation of the profitability of quality labels in rural tourism accommodation: a hedonic approach using propensity score matching

In recent years, quality labels for the Spanish tourism sector have been developed as part of a competitive strategy focused on the differentiation of the product. Given this development, it is interesting to analyse the profitability of quality labels for the accommodation owners and managers. In particular, this article calculates the profitability of a rural tourism quality label. Through the use of the hedonic price approach, the market valuation of the quality label for rural self-catering cottages is obtained. This valuation is subsequently compared with the expenses incurred by establishments in achieving the quality label. In order to address the usual methodological problems associated with the endogeneity, prior to application of the hedonic approach, the propensity score matching is used. The results indicate that possessing a quality label has a positive impact on the profitability of rural tourism.     

Unit roots in the presence of abrupt governmental interventions with an application to Brazilian data

This paper considers econometric issues related to time-series data that have been subject to abrupt governmental interventions. The motivating example for this study is the Brazilian monthly inflation rate (1974:1–1993:6) which we use throughout for illustration. This series has been heavily influenced by the effect of so-called shock plans implemented by various governments starting in the mid-1980s. The plans act as ‘inliers’ in the sense that the series is temporarily brought down to low levels before returning to its previous trend path. We analyse the effects on standard unit root tests and measures of persistence caused by the presence of these ‘inliers’. We show a substantial bias in favour of concluding that the series is stationary and that shocks have temporary effects. We then construct appropriately corrected statistics which take into account the presence of the plans. These show, unlike the standard tests, that the stochastic behaviour of the inflation rate was indeed unstable over this period. Simulation results are presented to support the adequacy of our corrected statistics. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.