Eulogio Cordón-Pozo

Differentiating the effects of the institutional environment on corporate entrepreneurship

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how different dimensions of the institutional environment of a region may influence the level of corporate entrepreneurship of firms.Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops the relationship between the institutional environment, differentiated in regulatory, cognitive and normative dimensions, and entrepreneurship in existing firms, corporate entrepreneurship, via a questionnaire study covering 150 firms in Spain.Findings – The relation between institutional environment and corporate entrepreneurship can be distinct. The results show that both the normative and cognitive dimension of the institutional environment influence an organisations entrepreneurial orientation. They also show that regulatory dimension influences what type of corporate entrepreneurial activity is carried out.Originality/value – Literature about institutional theory and entrepreneurship has been both descriptive and fragmented. This paper...

Inter-departmental collaboration and new product development success: a study on the collaboration between marketing and R&D in Spanish high-technology firms

This research paper presents an analysis model formed by 12 hypotheses containing predictions about the influence that collaboration between the RD thus, allows us to make a significant contribution to the issue under analysis. The hypotheses have been verified empirically with a sample of 104 Spanish firms belonging to various high-technology activities. The results obtained support the proposed hypotheses and highlight the relevant role of variables related to organisational climate as opposed to that of variables associated with organisational structure. The influence of business context factors has also proved to be important for final results.

Coaching: An Effective Practice for Business Competitiveness

– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of one of the more widespread techniques for personnel development and training: coaching. This technique in the business context entails boosting of a managers capabilities so as to improve business results through a combination of experience, knowledge, support and the motivation provided by advisers who specialize in business management., – To analyze the effectiveness of this innovative technique, the authors examined a sample of 40 small companies located in Ceuta (an autonomous Spanish city in North Africa) using a Wilcoxon‐Mann‐Whitney test. Participants were divided into two groups; in one group, an individualized audit process was conducted to obtain an actual picture of managerial practices (focusing on needs and corrective measures). In the other group, an advising process also complemented a coaching phase that was implemented to facilitate employee adoption of the proposed measures. Ultimately, differences between these two groups were found., – Results indicate that coaching substantially increases the level to which processes of improvement are established within organizations, consequently increasing the competitive capability., – The findings highlight the potential benefits of the use of coaching in the business context. Coaching facilitates the implementation of a set of improvement measures designed to increase business competitiveness, suggesting that this type of advising stands to be very beneficial for companies., – Practices that lead to the development of human capital in organizations are basic tools for managers that are becoming increasingly essential for achieving business efficiency and strategic change. The paper analyzes the implementation of coaching in the business arena, specifically in the case of managers, which is a novelty given the dearth of empirical research on coaching. Thus, the results of the paper provide the wider academic community with empirical evidence on how coaching is a profitable practice for improving human resource management.

Industries Regulation and Firm Environmental Disclosure A Stakeholders’ Perspective on the Importance of Legitimation and International Activities

The potential negative environmental consequences of the activities of international firms has been scrutinized. In response to these pressures, international firms have started to disclose (voluntarily or not) environmental information in order to increase transparency and ensure legitimacy. While several factors have been pointed out as the drivers of such disclosing behavior, the role of industrial regulation has remained underesearched. To better understand this challenge, we rely on a sample of 1,150 international firms (top vs. nontop) worldwide from regulated and unregulated sectors. Our results suggest that unregulated firms disclose—to cope with higher stakeholders pressures—more environmental information than firms operating in regulated environments. Additionally, a firm’s international position positively influences its environmental disclosure, but it does negatively and partially moderate the relationship between industrial regulation of the sector in which the firm operates and such firm’s environmental disclosure. Our findings may also entail interesting contributions both for practitioners and scholars.

Coping: Impact of Gender and Stressful Life Events in Middle and in Old Age

ABSTRACT Objectives: This study seeks to identify different life events that participants considered stressful and to study the joint effect of gender, age group, and main stressful life events on the use of different coping strategies.Methods: The sample comprised 243 men and women, 55 to 99 years old, who attended senior activity centers. Analyses were conducted using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).Results: Three main categories of stressful life events were identified: health problems, family problems, and other problems. Significant main effects of gender and stressful life events, and marginal effects of age group on coping strategies were found. Furthermore, an interaction between gender and age group, and also between gender and stressful life events emerged in some of the coping strategies analyzed.Conclusions: Age, gender or type of stressful situation impact on the coping strategies used by older people. Older men and women were found to use different strategies depending upon the situation they are facing and upon their age group. The results may prove useful to practitioners and clinicians who directly work with older people and may help clinicians provide effective coping strategies to address the specific life events that older adults find stressful.

Flexibility of benefit systems and firms’ attraction and retention capacities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze three different forms of benefit systems and the effects of their application on Spanish firms’ attraction and retention capacity, differentiating these systems depending on the flexibility offered to the workers. Design/methodology/approach – The data of this study have been collected from a sample of 308 human resources managers in Spanish firms, through an online questionnaire. The hypotheses were tested by ordinary least squares regression analyses. Findings – The results show that firms having more flexible compensation systems, that is, those providing greater freedom to workers in the election of their benefits and the design of the benefit system, reported to have a higher attraction and retention capacity than firms offering to their employees a unique and similar benefit package for all the employees. Research limitations/implications – Future studies could extent this study by analyzing different contexts in order to determine whether some insti...

Employees are satisfied with their benefits, but so what? The consequences of benefit satisfaction on employees’ organizational commitment and turnover intentions

Abstract Firms are increasing their efforts to offer benefits that satisfy their employees. However, the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of such satisfaction remain unclear. This article draws on the social exchange perspective and organizational support theory to examine the consequences of three dimensions of employees’ benefit satisfaction on organizational commitment and turnover intention, by considering the mediating effect of perceived organizational support (POS). A hypothesized model is developed and tested using partial least squares analysis on a sample of 870 employees working in Spanish firms. The results show that three dimensions of benefit satisfaction contribute to the development of POS, and that POS mediates their effects on organizational commitment. However, only benefit determination and benefit administration satisfaction have an effect on turnover intention, through the mediation of POS and organizational commitment.

A network view of innovation performance for multinational corporation subsidiaries

ABSTRACT A network view of innovation performance for multinational corporation subsidiaries: functionality and geography. Regional Studies. The literature has recognized the need to understand better the role of network partner characteristics on innovative performance in cases of multiple network embeddedness. This study argues that innovation performance is partly a function of the value created through intra- and inter-organizational flows of knowledge within and across regions. The analyses are based on two random-effects logistic models with sample selection. Results show that the functional breadth of a subsidiary’s inter-organizational network has an inverted ‘U’-shaped relationship with its radical and incremental innovation performance. Additionally, radical innovation performance is influenced by internal and external partners from different geographical locations.

Benefit flexibility and benefit satisfaction: does employee’s personality matter?

Purpose Although previous studies have analyzed the affective reaction of employees toward benefits, results remain inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to pay specific attention to the flexibility of benefit systems and analyze whether the effect of this flexibility on employee’s benefit satisfaction is moderated by employees’ personality traits. Design/methodology/approach The data of this study have been collected from a sample of 874 employees working in Spanish firms, through survey. The data were analyzed using partial least squares modeling. Findings The results of this study show how self-efficacy has a negative moderating effect on the relation between benefit flexibility and benefit-level satisfaction. Similarly, the authors find a negative moderating effect of internal locus of control on the relationship between benefit flexibility and benefit determination satisfaction. Research limitations/implications Future studies should consider other personality traits that have an even stronger moderating effect. Practical implications This paper sheds some light on how the flexibility of benefit systems can be an effective source of satisfaction and what kind of employees can be more satisfied with them. For human resource managers, it is necessary to know how differently employees react to human resource practices in order to be able to effectively adjust these practices to the appropriate employees. Originality/value This work contributes to human resource literature by analyzing some personality traits that may condition the effectiveness of benefit systems. In this sense, it responds to recent calls asking for more studies aimed at analyzing the role of the employees on the effectiveness of human resource practices.

Trust when financial implications are not the aim: the integration of sustainability into management education

Literature has paid detailed attention to the positive financial implications of considering the stakeholders’ environmental concerns. This paper contributes by using a trust framework to delimitate how stakeholders may influence managers’ environmental decisions even if they are not focused on financial objectives. Specifically, we analyse how perceptions of academic department heads about their stakeholders’ ability and benevolence influence the head’s willingness to integrate sustainability issues into the syllabus of the courses. We also investigate the direct and moderating role of the heads’ interest in financial aims and the direct influence of the school environmental proactivity. Our analysis includes a sample of 74 deans in 46 different business and engineering schools and a sample of 95 department heads in the field of management studies of 25 Spanish universities. The hierarchical moderated regression results confirm the positive influence of the ability and benevolence of the stakeholders and the heads’ interest in the financial aims, but not the moderating effects and the influence of the school proactivity. The paper provides research implications on the stakeholders’ dimensions influencing environmental decisions and practical implications showing that managers of organisations who wish to advance their environmental approaches may use partnerships with their stakeholders based upon trust.