Ladislao Luna

FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT AQUACULTURE

Beliefs about food harvesting methods have increased their importance in consumers purchase decisions since the beginning of the new century. This article tests different factors that may affect consumers’ beliefs and attitudes towards aquaculture as a method for food production. Individuals demographic characteristics, place of purchase and generic advertising credibility, are the factors whose effects were tested using two independent samples in consecutive years. A factor index from a set of scales recording different beliefs about aquaculture and its products is used as the dependent variable in two linear models testing for significant relations in both years. Educational level, retail format and advertising credibility appear to be the major factors affecting the scores of the beliefs’ index in all samples.

ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY OF WILD AND CULTURED SEABREAM IN SPAIN

This paper explores the relationship between product quality evaluation scores for wild and cultured seabream. Data comes from a consumer survey representative of the Spanish fish and seafood market, from where seabream consumers who were able to distinguish wild from cultured were selected for specific questions. A behavioral structural equation model with factorial latent variables was formulated to test the interaction hypothesis. Results suggest that both wild and cultured seabream share a common image linked to the whole species, becoming complementary goods rather than substitutes.

Bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture: an overview of the literature

Abstract Bioeconomic models consist of the use of mathematics to model the behaviour of biological systems conditioned by biological, environmental, economic and technical factors. At present, market competitiveness in aquaculture is growing steadily and the amount of data that producers have to manage is increasing. In this context, bioeconomic models are a crucial tool for improving the efficiency of decision-making processes. This paper reviews the literature on bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture from 2004 to 2015. In order to find the papers reviewed in the present study, an exhaustive online search was conducted in various databases that contain papers published in the most relevant journals in this area of research. After identifying the application of these models to aquaculture throughout the last decade, an analysis was developed for the papers published in the three main research areas: aquaculture management, economic viability and risk management. The last section presents a discussion about the types of relationships modelled, the data used, the estimation techniques, and the limitations and challenges within this discipline that would improve knowledge about aquaculture management.

The relationship between labour social responsibility practices and reputation

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether labour social responsibility (LSR) practices influence on corporate reputation (CR) and on labour reputation (LR). Design/methodology/approach - – LSR is defined as all those labour practices made by a company for the benefit of employees voluntarily and not imposed by labour legislation. An index developed by content analysis was created to measure LRS. CR and LR scores were obtained from the Business Monitor of Corporate Reputation (MERCO) for the period of 2006-2010. Furthermore, based on the previous literature, the study considers other generic variables that influence the process of creating reputation, such as visibility and environmental impact, as well as intrinsic characteristics of each company (size, financial performance and debt). The model was estimated by the generalised method of moments (GMM) on a data panel for the 100 most reputable firms in Spain in each year during the period 2006-2010. Findings - – The results obtained show that LSR carried out by the company has a direct and positive relationship with the reputation. Thus, corporate and labour reputation and their evolution depend on ability of the LSR strategy of the company to satisfy to future expectations of stakeholders. Originality/value - – Previous literature considered the impact of different dimensions of corporate social responsibility on CR, e.g., environmental, communication, quality of products, but did not consider labour practices.

Economic optimisation in seabream (Sparus aurata) aquaculture production using a particle swarm optimisation algorithm

The purpose of this study is the economic optimisation of seabream farming through the determination of the production strategies that maximise the present operating profits of the cultivation process. The methodology applied is a particle swarm optimisation algorithm based on a bioeconomic model that simulates the process of seabream fattening. The biological submodel consists of three interrelated processes, stocking, growth, and mortality, and the economic submodel considers costs and revenues related to the production process. Application of the algorithm to seabream farming in Spain reveals that the activity is profitable and shows competitive differences associated with location. Additionally, the applications of the particle swarm optimisation algorithm could be of interest for the management of other important species, such as salmon (Salmo salar), catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), or tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).

Swarm Intelligence in Optimal Management of Aquaculture Farms

Optimization techniques inspired by swarm intelligence (SI) have become increasingly popular during the last two decades. These techniques are based on the idea that groups of extremely simple agents with little or no organization can exhibit complex and intelligent behavior by using simple local rules and communication mechanisms. Thanks to this intelligent behavior, a group of social agents can carry out actions on a complex level and form decentralized and self-organizational systems. The advantage of these optimization approaches over traditional techniques is their robustness and flexibility, making SI especially appropriated to deal with complex optimization problems. In this chapter we introduce the concept of computational swarm intelligence; we present an overview of the most important optimization techniques inspired by swarm intelligence and examine the research contributions to the application of SI metaheuristics in different problems related to optimal management of aquaculture farms. As example of application we will present a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm based on a bioeconomic model that helps managers of aquaculture enterprises in the process of decision-making, maximizing gross margin and minimizing operational risk.

Labour reputation and financial performance: is there a causal relationship?

The purpose of this paper is to analyse if there is a circular relationship of causality between the labour dimension of corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP).,The sample is formed by the best companies to work for in Spain according to the labour reputation (LR) ranking developed by MERCO from 2006 to 2013. This study overcomes the limitations of previous studies using the panel data methodology (System generalised method of moments) and the Granger causality test.,The results suggest that the labour dimension of CSP cause CFP, but there is not causality in the opposite direction.,Studies about the relationship between dimensions of CSP and CFP demonstrated that there are divergences in the results depending on the dimension analysed. Despite managers and employees are interested in the impact of labour dimension of CSP on CFP, there are few studies about it and they have important limitations.