Domingo Ribeiro Soriano

Analyzing Social Entrepreneurship from an Institutional Perspective: Evidence from Spain

Abstract In recent years, social entrepreneurship (SE) has been regarded as an important source of social, economic and environmental wealth, and many scholars are focusing their inquiries on this emerging area. Little is known, however, concerning the environmental factors that affect this entrepreneurial phenomenon. In this research, we analyze how these factors affect both the emergence and implementation of SE in the highly entrepreneurial Spanish region of Catalonia, using institutional economics as the main conceptual framework. We also apply an inductive theory, building an empirical approach to conducting a multiple-case study in order to develop theoretical propositions that enhance our understanding of the phenomenon.

Exploring alternative approaches in service industries: the role of entrepreneurship

Today, it is widely recognised that the success and vitality of the service sector are essential factors in measuring an economy’s progress, its quality, and its future expectations. It not only improves competitiveness in all national markets, but also indicates growth at a global level, consolidating competitiveness in advanced economies and assuring social welfare in less economically developed countries. The service sector is the only area that has continued to grow and create new employment over the past two decades on a worldwide scale, while industry and agriculture have suffered a decline in activity with a sharp drop in employment figures. The service sector plays a decisive role in economic development. Maybe not as the main contributor to GDP but as a driving force that facilitates the need for growth in other sectors. It is therefore important to study, on a more micro level, the various sub-sectors that, together, make up the service sector. In Europe, services have become a strategic sector of the European Union’s new Employment Policy (Mas-Verdú, 2007). European policy does not merely put emphasis on services as a means of stimulating the economy, but as a key factor in creating wealth. In the United States, service sectors, especially knowledge-intensive industries, have become the core strength of the economy. The service sector represents 80% of the activity in the USA while in Europe 65% of jobs are related to this sector. Service sector activity is constantly growing. In addition, entrepreneurship has been the topic of scholarship and research in a variety of academic fields, including, but not limited to, management and economics (Chorev & Anderson, 2006; Sciascia, Naldi, & Hunter, 2006). Much has been written from the viewpoint of aspects linked to entrepreneurship in many top international journals, and some journals have even been created with the aim of analysing entrepreneurship from different perspectives: business, economics, management, or regional development. For its part, the study of service industries is an already highly consolidated field of research in the world of management, marketing (Furrer & Sollberger, 2007), and business, though few written contributions interrelating both concepts and fields have been published. In this special issue, we intend to directly link both

Transmitting the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team in SMEs: the importance of leadership

Purpose – To establish the extent of the influence of variables which, under a particular style of leadership, form the necessary basis for encouraging and developing group, entrepreneurial activities carried out within the context of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) thus explaining the transmission of the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team and, consequently, the existence of collective entrepreneurship in the firm.Design/methodology/approach – From the results of a questionnaire carried out via personal interviews with over 100 firms, a confirmatory factorial analysis was carried out that provided us with the variables to be studied. The cause/effect relationships and their implications were obtained from applying a LISREL8 analysis.Findings – A leadership based on relationships shows a positive impact, with an intensity of more than double that of participative leadership. A task‐oriented leadership style reduces the chances of transmitting the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team by hav...

An overview of the service industries' future (priorities: linking past and future)

The innovative future of service industries in detail from any viewpoint or theoretical perspective forms the central subject matter for this special issue. One of the sectors considered to be relevant for favouring the growth of the international economy is the services sector. The relative ease with which services can be implanted in certain activities with notably less capital than that required for most industries, as well as the direct and indirect effects it generates on the job market, are factors that have brought about belief and reliance on this sector to provide a means of growth and a way of recovering from any international economic crisis, and in the future may prove to play an even more vital role.

Regional development and innovation: the role of services

This special issue examines the role of services within the relationship between regional development and innovation. The analysis described here clearly shows the importance of the institutional elements that go to make up each regional environment. These institutional elements are not only formal and informal but also include intermediary organisations and services, in particular, knowledge-intensive ones. Fostering services based on connection and transfer (technological centres etc.), constitutes a strategic line of action in regional innovation policy. These services have a dual purpose. They both enable interaction between agents located in the same area and promote connections between firms in networks outside the region.

Evaluating European Union support for innovation in Spanish small and medium enterprises

Finding funding is one of the main problems small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face, which is why the European Union has set up programmes to support SME development. This paper has two objectives: firstly, to describe the different European funding programmes available to Spanish firms; secondly, to present an empirical study on the use Spanish SMEs (and especially, SMEs in the service sector) make of these programmes in order to innovate, together with an analysis of the importance these funding programmes have on SME innovation.

Quality in the consulting service – evaluation and impact: a survey in Spanish firms

The paper deals with the importance of the work of external consultants in firms and of consulting as a function. The study deals with the analysis of external advice within small to medium‐sized enterprises. It tries to reflect the actual importance of external advice sought by firms in trying to reach the highest possible level of client satisfaction. The survey reported in this paper was carried out to evaluate the impact of consulting and to determine the degree of satisfaction of the clients that had used Spanish consulting services. To this end, firms that had used such services were interviewed on‐site. The purpose of the research was to analyse the effects on management processes within the firms where a plan was drawn up by an external consultant.

Human resource management and corporate entrepreneurship

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to introduce the special issue on “Human resource management and corporate entrepreneurship”. Design/methodology/approach - The paper discuses the articles in the special issue, which investigate the relationships between human resource management and entrepreneurship from different points of view, approaches and employing different empirical contexts. Findings - The papers highlight different human resource management factors of entrepreneurial behaviour and their influence on corporate entrepreneurship. Results from different empirical contexts as small and medium-size firms, case studies, joint ventures, in the USA, China, and Spain, among others, make important contributions to the previous literature. Originality/value - The paper discusses the intersection and association between human resource management and corporate entrepreneurship. Human resources play an essential role in so far as they can encourage or hinder corporate entrepreneurship.

The new role of the corporate and functional strategies in the tourism sector: Spanish small and medium-sized hotels.

This article aims at establishing the presence or lack of possible relationships between the existence of a logical global strategy definition in Spanish small and medium-sized hotels and its links with functional or department strategies involving four areas – marketing, technology, human resources and finance. Results show that there is a relationship between enterprise size – using business turnover as a yardstick – and the proper definition of technology, human resources and finance functions. There is also a relationship between enterprise size, determined by the number of employees, and an adequate definition of corporate strategy and technology and human resources department functions. A binding relationship has been found to exist between marketing and human resources department policies, between technology and finance policies, and lastly between the areas of human resources and finance. A relationship has also been established between strategies devised by enterprise management and policies conducted by marketing and technology departments.

Modeling the enterprising character of European firms

In an increasingly globalized economy, innovation pursuing the speeding up of technological changes takes a renewed interest. In this study, we attempt to show those characteristics and variables that make businesses successful, especially innovative small and medium‐sized enterprises. The article focuses on this business sector because the contribution of it to employment generation, wealth distribution and economy appraisal is frequently set to the fore in current political and economic debate. A study of 408 businesses, according to data from the European Commission and the Spanish Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico Industrial – Center for Industrial and Technological Development – (year 1999), will enable the modeling of this success.