Antonio Aragón Sánchez

Top Managers’ Compensation, Strategic Orientations, and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from Spanish Firms

This paper analyzes the links among executive compensation, a firm’s strategic orientation, and firm performance. A number of key questions relative to the relationships among these elements remain unanswered because prior research on this subject has reported mixed results, and, moreover, has been confined almost exclusively to U.S. firms. We develop a framework that draws on arguments from agency theory to identify such links. A research design with both archival and survey data is used to test hypotheses in a sample of 253 Spanish companies. We found that top managers’ compensation systems are linked with a firm’s strategic orientations, but in a different form than that of previous studies. Results show two differentiated groups of firms: (1) prospective firms that adapt their managerial compensation systems to the requirements of strategic context, consequently obtaining positive performance effects; and (2) conservative firms that design managerial compensation systems independent of strategic context, consequently not obtaining additional performance benefits.

Managerial Compensation and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Firm Strategy as a Proxy of Managerial Discretion

This paper analyzes the effect of strategic context on managerial compensation design, and the interactive influence on firm performance for a set of Spanish companies. Specifically, this study examines the performance implications of the fit between different managerial compensation systems and diverse firm’s strategic orientations – representing various levels of managerial discretion. Based on a framework combining agency theory and managerial discretion concept, a research design with both archival and survey data is used to test hypotheses in a sample of 82 firms. The findings offer sufficient confirmation of theoretical arguments, providing extensions of this research stream for non‐U.S. firms. Results show that firms benefit from the design of managerial compensation systems when they match the managerial control and risk‐bearing requirements imposed by the strategic context. Specifically, risk‐encouraging compensation systems are better for prospector firms – high level of managerial discretion – whereas risk‐discouraging compensation systems are better for defender firms – low level of managerial discretion.

El emprendimiento: una aproximación internacional al desarrollo económico

Querido lector, estamos seguros de que frases como “El emprendimiento como motor del crecimiento y desarrollo economico y social de los paises” le resultan de sobra conocidas, ya que en los ultimos anos han sido habitualmente empleadas, tanto en el ambito academico como social o politico. Pero ?podemos esperar que los efectos sean iguales en todos ellos? La obra que tiene en sus manos trata de contribuir a la respuesta de esta pregunta desde un enfoque internacional y multidisciplinar. Un amplio elenco de academicos y profesionales procedentes de paises tan diversos como Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Espana, Mexico y Uruguay, aunan sus conocimientos para alcanzar una vision de conjunto del fenomeno emprendedor. Confiamos en que la cuidada seleccion de trabajos, teoricos y empiricos, que emplean diversas y actuales metodologias tanto a nivel macro como micro, y que muestran experiencias de exito en diferentes entornos economicos, sera del interes de publicos tan diversos como son los investigadores, reguladores, politicos o los propios emprendedores. Al promover esta obra, la Universidad de Cantabria, la Universidad de La Habana y la Fundacion FAEDPYME esperan estar contribuyendo al avance del conocimiento de este importante fenomeno, ayudando asi al desarrollo de posibles politicas de fomento del emprendimiento.

The Decision to Become an Entrepreneur: A Cognitive Perspective

1 The results of education in university: does it foster students’ propensity towards entrepreneurial careers? 15 José Luis Vázquez, Ana Lanero, Pablo Gutiérrez and Maria Purifi cación García 2 Methodological proposal for determining entrepreneurial competencies from the entrepreneurship education approach 31 José A. Porras, Guadalupe Oliveras and Hernán P.Vigier 3 The decision to become an entrepreneur: a cognitive perspective 42 Alicia Rubio Bañón, Antonio Aragón Sánchez and Paula Sastre Vivaracho 4 Innovative entrepreneurship as a way to meet professional dissatisfactions 58 Jean Bonnet, Thomas Brau and Antonia Madrid-Guijarro