Encarnación González-Vázquez

Motivations for Implementing a System of Quality Management in Spanish Thalassotherapy Centers

This article presents results from an empirical study of 31 thalassotherapy centers out of the total national number of 44 (as of 2011). The objective was to identify motivations that drive these centers to implement and certify a Quality Management System (QMS). Following a comprehensive theoretical review, the empirical research method consisted of descriptive and factor analyses to determine the importance and structure of motivations. Results show that the key motivations driving thalassotherapy centers to implement a QMS are enhancing service quality, improving processes and procedures, and creating awareness of quality in centers.

Influence of Attitudes Toward Immigration on State Legitimacy

The current article studies the influence of attitudes toward immigration on state legitimacy. We analyzed the European Union countries that received the greatest immigrant inflows in 2014: Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, through data from the latest edition of the European Social Survey. Our results show that citizens with negative attitudes toward immigration consider their states to be less legitimate. Conversely, positive attitudes toward immigration are not associated with increased state legitimacy (except in Spain). Based on these findings, there is a clear need for communication strategies that provide information on the actual effects of immigration. In their absence, the political discourse on this matter will continue to be co-opted by power-grabbing actors.

Literature Review of Wine Tourism Research: Bibliometric Analysis (1984–2014)

Economy of different regions of our planet is based on constantly developing touristic industry, and enotourism has been recently added to its supply. Enotourism, or wine tourism, combines wine industry and tourism. The aim of this study is to show an actual situation of written articles and studies about wine tourism, to know this way the status of the issue, and to find out who, what, where and how has studied about this topic. A bibliometric analysis of articles forming part of the Scopus database has been carried out. This database belongs to the Elsevier editorial group that provides a general view of the world scientific production. As a result, 166 articles, papers and chapters that speak about the importance of enotourism were found. The first article was published in 1984, but only at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century the studies on enotourism started to be important in the academic literature. As a conclusion, we can say that about one half of all existing literature on enotourism was written in Australia or the USA, and that a tool used for its spreading was a touristic review. However, due to the multidisciplinary nature of the industry, there are articles about enotourism in different kinds of scientific journals.

Integration of Information in Higher Education Institutions for Quality Evaluation

Higher education institutions have adopted education, research, and cooperation as their main missions. Students, teachers, and non-teaching staff articulate for lecturing, researching, and developing projects and internships, according to the institution goals and strategy. Quality evaluation is of the utmost importance in the whole process, as it allows providing a competent and rigorous service as well as maintaining high level of attractiveness for additional funding, through cooperation and research projects. In this process, well-supported management through rigorous information is necessary, providing a sound basis for reasoning and improvement. In this paper we present a custom made application, which we call JagPAD, to integrate, process and visualize information from several departments and sections, such as student records, human resources, scientific repository, and others. This application is in use at the Polytechnic Institute of Braganca and constitutes a valuable tool for overall evaluation of the mission compliance.

Escala multinível e multidimensional para confiança on-line

This paper examines the nature of the construct of consumers’ trust toward the electronic channel of their financial institution. Through a study of a total of 372 individual users of Internet banking in Spain, we have managed to develop a third-order measuring instrument that integrates a total of seven dimensions. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the validation and reliability of the proposed scale. Findings provide useful information to professionals who seek to identify how customers trust is formed in the online channel and in the financial sector.

Empirical evidence of the influence of environmental concern on the ecological behaviour of the consumer / Evidencia empírica de la influencia de la preocupación ambiental sobre el comportamiento ecológico del consumidor

Abstract In recent years, environmental degradation has raised awareness in society about environmental protection and conservation. Consequently, the concept of ‘ecological consumers’ has appeared along with the need for a clear understanding of the antecedents for their responsible behaviour. The aim of this research is to develop specific measurement scales for environmental concern and ecological behaviour, and verify their psychometric properties; and to analyze the relationship between environmental concern, which reflects an individual’s values and beliefs about the environment, and ecologically responsible behaviour. The results obtained, based on a data factor analysis of 500 respondents in Spain, show how the constructs are explained and suggest that the beliefs and values of an individual about the environment are an important and meaningful predictor for ecologically responsible behaviour. This is particularly relevant for academics and professionals.

Management by Processes: An Effective Tool for Employee Motivation

This article shows, through different case studies, how the introduction of Management by Processes methodology not only has contributed to improve quality services and efficiency at different type of organizations, but it has also reinforced team spirit, achieving high levels of employee motivation. When a radical change is needed in a company, and a “process management culture” is named to substitute the “function culture”, the “Management by process” concept becomes an effective way of introducing behaviour changes. Innovation is generally defined as the development or use of new products, services, production, processes, organizational structures or administrative systems that are new to the adopting. And Management by Processes is a kind of innovation. It has been verified that explaining and involving employees in the process from the beginning, by means of training and communicating, from the first steps, the methodology, skills and techniques that are involved in the “Management by Processes Approach”, encourages employees to cooperate actively in the whole process.