Antonio Chamorro

Characteristics of the research on reverse logistics (1995–2005)

This paper aims to describe and analyse the main characteristics of articles on reverse logistics published in the production and operations management field, in order to determine the evolution of this current research over recent years and improve our understanding of this issue. We built up a database with the articles on reverse logistics published in the most relevant journals within the period 1995–2005, and we have explored the topic, the methodology and the techniques of analysis, as well as other relevant aspects of the research. We have evaluated the first decade of research on reverse logistics, observing what has been done and how, where and by whom it has been carried out. The result is an extensive review of the research works that have created and developed the reverse logistics concept, outlining some directions of research for the near future and offering practical help to those who begin to research on this topic.

The region-of-origin (ROO) effect on purchasing preferences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the “region-of-origin” effect in the purchase of cava, a sparkling wine. Cava is a multiregional designation of origin: although it is a product typical of a particular Spanish region (Catalonia), it is also produced in other regions in Spain. Design/methodology/approach – The technique of conjoint analysis is used to identify the structure of the preferences of cava consumers, and to evaluate how that structure is affected by the inclusion of a message that highlights the regional origin of the product. A survey was conducted among 473 wine buyers in the region of Extremadura (Spain). Findings – The main findings show that the “region-of-origin” effect is significant for the regional buyer of this type of wine, and that the sales of regional brands of cava would be greater if their regional origin were emphasized by indicating the location of the producer in a prominent place on the label. Moreover, three segments of purchasers differentiated by their pre...

Professional Sports Teams on Social Networks: A Comparative Study Employing the Facebook Assessment Index

Professional sports teams are increasingly using social networks to better connect their sports and businesses to fans and the general public with the aim of providing team-related information, fostering fandom, and building team reputation. However, few, if any, studies have been done that analyze and evaluate the efficacy of this important portion of the professional sports business model from an informationmanagement perspective. This study employs the Facebook Assessment Index (FAI) to effectively compare, assess, and rank the Facebook sites of top European and North American professional teams. The study also shows how information artifacts in sports can be systematically analyzed, evaluated, and compared. In more general terms, the findings and analysis demonstrate how the information perspective can serve as a novel theoretical lens and important dimension in sport management. The results of the study show large differences between teams in the 3 FAI dimensions and a great improvement opportunity i...

Implementing a reverse logistics system: a case study

This paper is based on the results of a research project developed in an important Spanish industrial group to analyse if a reverse logistics system can be implemented in some of its companies. The business activity of this group is focused on the steel industry and the aim of the project was to design and evaluate a recovery system for packaging materials used for galvanised steel coils. Up to now, this type of packaging is disposed of because the current structure of the packaging system is not appropriate from a reverse logistics point of view. For this reason, we propose a new packaging system that can be recovered through a reverse logistics system generating economic and environmental advantages.

The Web as a marketing tool in the Spanish foodservice industry: evaluating the websites of Spain's top restaurants.

The quality and recognition of Spanish cuisine are fostering the development of culinary tourism, both domestic in origin and from abroad. Another detected trend is that an ever-greater proportion of tourists are using the Internet to obtain information and make decisions about activities to include in their trips. Given this context, the present work describes a comparative analysis of the websites of Spanish restaurants which have at least one Michelin star in order to assess the quality of those webpages and provide some guidance to their designers to facilitate their use as a marketing tool. The instrument used is the Web Assessment Index. This has been validated in other studies, and measures the quality of a website based on four dimensions: visibility, speed, navigability, and content. The results showed the quality of the website to be positively correlated with the category of the corresponding restaurant.

Customer Loyalty in the ADSL Services Market in Spain: Background and Moderating Effects

It is important for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service operators to maintain a stable and lasting relationship with customers. They thus need to know which are the factors influencing customer loyalty, and how those relationships of influence are established. In the present study, structural analysis applied to data from a sample of 525 ADSL users showed the variables perceived quality, perceived value, and satisfaction to act as antecedents of loyalty. A novel finding of the study was the importance of the users attitude and aptitude with respect to Internet as variables moderating the relationships of the model.

Determinants of the intention to create a spin-off in Spanish universities

With the growth in the popularity of the concept of an entrepreneurial university, over recent decades the commitment from European universities to commercialising research findings through the creation of spin-offs has also grown. In this way, academics become potential entrepreneurs or, as they are called in the business literature, intrapreneurs. Taking into account that the theories regarding planned behaviour consider intention as the main antecedent of behaviour, the aim of this paper is to test the influence that certain variables - demographic, psychological and those relating to the environment - have on the intention of academics in Spanish universities to create a spin-off. After conducting a survey of 1,178 academics from all fields of knowledge, the results show that the variables influencing this intention to be an entrepreneur are entrepreneurial personality, gender, academic experience and the entrepreneurial abilities of the individual, as well as the perceived utility of being an entrepreneur, the assessment of the economic environment and the productivity of their research group in terms of patents and articles published. Identifying the profile of the academics with the greatest entrepreneurial intention can help to guide university policy in matters of transferring knowledge and promoting spin-offs as an alternative way of commercialising research findings.

An Assessment Methodology for Hotel Websites: Application to the Top 10 Cities Destination in the World

It is essential for hotel companies to evaluate and improve website performance in order to keep and increase their online presence and competitiveness in the marketplace. Based on the relative literature, in this article, the authors adapt the Web Assessment Index (WAI) to evaluate the attractiveness of the hotel websites. This has been validated in other studies in the literature, and measures the quality of a Website based on 4 dimensions: visibility, speed, navigability, and content. An application compares the performance of 10 hotels from each of the 10 top cities destinations in the world. The results show that there were significant differences between cities in the overall index and also between 4-stars and 5-stars hotels. The authors’ study also found a significant correlation between the WAI and the room price, so the more expensive hotels also show the best sites according with our index. The results could be useful for hoteliers to conduct a benchmarking analysis of the best sites, and propose improvements.

Evaluation of Social Network Sites: An Empirical Study of 150 Top-Ranked Firms in the World

Social networks are one of the more notable sociological phenomena of the last years. Moreover, its apparition and acceptance by majority of the citizens also suppose an important challenge for the firms. Social networks are a new and relevant channel of communication and interaction with their consumers. For this, firms have to create his own place in the social network and manage of active form the content that shares and the dialogue that is supported by their followers. In the first part of this paper we explain the creation of an index to evaluate the presence of the companies in the social network more used to international level, Facebook. The Facebook Assessment Index FAI is formed by several indicators grouped in three dimensions: popularity, interactivity and content. The weights for each category were obtained as recommended by a Delphi study conducted with 10 independent experts community managers and internet marketing experts. In the second part, we applied this index to the 150 largest firms according to Fortune 2011 ranking. At present, only 44% of these firms tested had an international official Facebook page. The results showed that the larger firms are those that in general terms best manage their presence on Facebook, have the greatest number of followers and a higher degree of interactivity with them. However, the most interesting contribution of this work lies not in identifying firms that achieve higher scores on the FAI, but in comparing the pages with each other and making suggestions of ideas and practices that may improve a firms Facebook presence as a marketing tool.