Cristóbal Casanueva

Social Capital and Individual Innovativeness in University Research Networks

Abstract Many studies have examined the relations between individuals and organizations and their influence on innovativeness. Some have looked at networks that improve innovative activity at an organizational, departmental and individual level, using in the latter case the individual’s egonet. This study explores the way in which an individual’s social capital and each of its three dimensions affect innovativeness. Having assessed the entire network of a university department and calculated the social capital of its members, their innovativeness was compared on the basis of their scientific production. The results show that the positions of researchers in the network structure and network quality are less important than the resources that they are able to access through their relations.

Social network analysis in tourism

Elements such as tourists, service-oriented organizations, tourism resources, destinations and public institutions all have a role in tourism activity. If we are to understand the world of tourism, we need to examine the ties between these elements. Social network analysis (SNA) provides tourism research with a set of methods and tools that allow us to comprehend the patterns and the structures of these ties. The objective of this work is to establish how SNA is being applied to tourism, to describe its principal elements and to inquire into its potential in the development of tourism research. To do so, the articles that apply SNA research methods, published in tourism and hospitality journals, and the network of citations between their authors are all analysed. It was found that the application of SNA in tourism-related contexts is rare and very recent, although a cohesive and relevant group of authors is currently applying it. An exciting opportunity for tourism research becomes apparent with the use of SNA and future lines of research are presented in which its methods may be applied.

Antecedents of construction project coalitions: a study of the Spanish construction industry

Research into the formation of alliances, relevant in the field of strategic management and especially, in the construction industry, is often explained in terms of interdependency and complementarities (exogenous factors). In contrast, the influence of a firm’s social relations networks (endogenous factors) has hardly been studied at all. Thus, a model is needed that includes both exogenous and endogenous factors as antecedents to the formation of strategic alliances in the construction industry. Cooperation in the construction sector is especially frequent, above all in public works programmes, as their scale requires coalitions of different‐sized firms. Accordingly, to explore how both exogenous and endogenous factors influence the formation of alliances, a social network analytical method—Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure (MRQAP)—was applied to cooperative project coalitions in the Spanish public works construction sector from 2001–2007. Empirical findings confirm that construction companies form coalitions, principally on the basis of past alliances. Membership of business associations and groups is also a key factor, though the influence of geographic proximity is the most debatable result. In the construction industry, the formation of alliances is conditioned, among other factors, by previous social and economic relations that can generate the necessary information and trust for the selection of whichever partner is considered the most suitable for the development of the joint project.

Access and mobilization of network resources and competitive advantage in hotels: A conceptual framework

Purpose – This paper aims to advance a model that will explain how hotel firms access and mobilize external resources. Hotel operators and firms need to complement their internal resources with external resources, which they can access through their personal and organizational ties, so as to compete and to achieve success. Design/methodology/approach – A framework is proposed, on the basis of the resource-based view and network theory, to explain the process of access and mobilization of available external resources thanks to the professional and social ties of the managers of hotel firms. Findings – This framework distinguishes between access to network resources and their mobilization. This paper introduces network resource mobilization capability as an adaptive capability of managers and employees that can improve hotel firm performance. Previous experience and contextual factors such as the type of property and the management style all influence the nature of this capability. Practical implications – ...

Business Learning in Large Groups: Experimental Results of Problem-Based Learning

The incorporation of innovation into teaching routines in a university setting invariably runs up against various obstacles. Problems linked to student numbers in each group, student motivation, the necessary technical or infrastructural resources or time constraints on their implementation are usually cited as the causes (or as the justification) that make it impossible to introduce changes into teaching and learning processes. The result is that traditional teaching methods predominate in university classrooms, which are highly teacher-centred and which entail standard assessment systems. One important drawback to introducing active-learning processes, such as problem-based learning (PBL), is that they are designed for small groups of students.

Social Capital and Innovation: An Intra-departmental Perspective

This study examines the relationship between social capital that arises from individual relations and individual innovativeness. Social capital is considered a multidimensional construct and individual innovativeness is measured through six different indicators of scientific production. Individual social capital is compared with the innovative performance of each individual in a whole department. Our work shows that the capacity to access and to mobilize resources through these relations is a key factor in increasing individual innovativeness in a context in which it may be measured. This questions the importance of an individual’s position in a network as well as the structure of the network with respect to innovativeness.

Management of alliance portfolios and the role of the board of directors

The objective of the present work consists in testing whether the strategic involvement of boards of directors has a positive influence on the development of alliance portfolio management capability and on the value that the alliance portfolio generates. A variance-based structural equation modelling (Partial Least Squares) has been applied to a sample constituted by 139 top Spanish companies. Our analysis shows that the strategic involvement of the board of directors has a positive and influence on the management of alliance portfolios, thereby influencing the value of that portfolio in an indirect way. Unlike previous literature, this study links the functions of the board of directors to organizational capabilities, connecting the literature on corporate governance and on management of alliance portfolios.

Dynamic panel data models in tourism

ABSTRACT The analysis of relations of dependency is widespread in tourism research. However, there are a series of questions related to endogeneity, such as dependence on the past and reverse causality, closely linked to the specific characteristics of the sector, which cast doubt on the conventional methods that are currently in use, especially Ordinary Least Squares. In this paper, the consideration of those questions and their analysis is proposed with the current methodology of dynamic panel data with the System GMM method. In addition, an practical application is advanced with 187 airlines to demonstrate the use of the tool. The results of dynamic panel data analysis can contribute new nuances in the field of tourism that have hardly been reflected upon until now. Here it is used to examine the complex interrelations and the dynamic components of the sector in greater depth.

RESOURCE MOBILIZATION LEVELS AND THE CONFIGURATION OF THE ALLIANCE PORTFOLIO

Alliance Portfolio Configuration (APC) conditions access to network resources, however, not all access to partner resources is finally mobilized by the firm. Our paper contributes to the understanding of alliance portfolio performance by examining how an acceptable configuration of the alliance portfolio will be conditioned by the level of resource mobilization that the firm really achieves. A variance-based structural equation modelling (Partial Least Squares) has been applied to a sample from the Top International Airlines database. Results from the data analysis show that the Level of Network Resource Mobilization (LNRM) (a) fully mediate the effect of alliance portfolio configuration on the operating performance; and (b) partially mediate this effect on financial performance of airlines.