In the first article, professors Jose Pla-Barber, Cristina Villar and Ana Botella (University of Valencia) analyze the keys to the success of Caixa Ontinyent, one of the two savings banks which, remaining true to the founding principles of savings banks, managed to survive the restructuring of the sector as a distinct entity. Using an inductive methodology, the authors draw the dimensions that define both the business model developed by Caixa Ontinyent and its strategy, and reflect how Caixa Ontinyent’s retail banking model and the choices made based on its strategy are completely compatible and aligned with the mission, resources and common values of the entire organization. The authors suggest the need to adjust the business model and strategy to maintain its competitive advantage, link the strategy formulation and implementation, and offer a more dynamic view of the behavior of companies.

Businesses are currently increasingly concerned with showing their social commitment with their stakeholders, including their employees. The second article aims to analyze the responsible management of employees and their transparency. As there are different information requirements in European countries, professors Rosalía Díaz-Carrión, Macarena López-Fernández and Pedro M. Romero-Fernández, of the University of Cádiz, analyze social transparency as determined by national institutional characteristics. Their research focuses on a sample of 195 German, Spanish, Swedish and British listed companies, and the results show quantitative differences in the information regarding socially responsible human resources activities, as well as uniformity in the use of certain reference standards, with the exception of British businesses.

Recent decades have brought an increase in the number of eco-innovative solutions with distinct levels of environmental improvement. Thanks to these solutions, businesses can maintain their competitive position by improving their environmental performance. However, as implementing eco-innovation presents challenges, their number is still limited in Spanish businesses. In this context, professors Jesús Valero-Gil, Sabina Scarpellini, Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe and Pilar Rivera-Torres, of the University of Zaragoza, provide a conceptualization of eco-innovative processes to be adopted by businesses. They also analyze the most relevant barriers and incentives, exploring the specific capabilities and noteworthy changes for practitioners.

In the last article, professors Jean David Polo Vargas (Universidad del Norte, Colombia), Manuel Fernández Rios (Autonomous University of Madrid, UAM), Mariana Bargsted (Universidad Adolfo Ibánez, Chile), Lorena Ferguson Fama, Miguel Rojas Santiago (Universidad del Norte, Colombia) attempt to explore the relationship between Organizational Commitment and Satisfaction with Life, and to determine whether engagement acts as a facilitator. It was proposed that the affective and regulatory dimensions of commitment would create a significant relationship with life satisfaction through engagement. In order to test this approach, data was collected from a sampling of 305 Spanish workers and analyzed using structural equation modeling. It was found that the affective dimension of commitment is the most strongly associated with life satisfaction; this relationship is mediated by engagement, specifically by the vigor or energy experimented at work.

I encourage you to read all the articles. This year we hope to continue to earn the trust of everybody: Associate Editors, members of the Scientific Board, Editorial Board, evaluators, authors-collaborators, businesses and above all readers, both from the University and the world of business.

Universia Business Review begins its fourteenth year by fully adhering to our periodicity and with the standards of editorial quality that are internationally accepted. We want to insist on the commitment made by the Steering Committee to remain indexed in the major international databases and that UBR continues to be viewed as a scientific journal of proven quality. Since January 2016, all UBR articles have been included in the Web of Science, UBR is a part of the Journal Master List and is indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index.  This commitment to quality has earned UBR the certification of EXCELLENT journal by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Innovation (FECYT) and is indexed in SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2015 (SJR) : Category: Business, Management and Accounting. Q2, Position 133 out of 285).

UBR is categorized as an A journal and is in position 31 out of 233 (1/11 of the Business journals) of all the Spanish journals of human and social sciences in Web of Science and/or SCOPUS (ISOC-CSIC). UBR currently holds the first position of 87 Spanish journals in the area of “economy and business” according to the H Index of Spanish Scientific Journals according to Google Scholar Metrics, 2011-2015. We encourage authors to submit articles that, complying with eligibility requirements, enable executives and entrepreneurs to find answers to their reflections, concerns and problems.

As in all first issues of each year we would like to sincerely thank the work of the associate editors and professors who, with their work as evaluators in the previous year, have been the best formal guarantee of the rigor of the journal’s submissions, proposing improvements to the articles and guaranteeing the sustained levels of requirement. In 2016 we received 92 submissions, with a 10.96% acceptance rate of the evaluated articles.

In the first article, Luis Carlos Sánchez, Ángel Barajas and Patricio Sánchez-Fernández (UniversityofVigo) aim to analyze the influence of ownership on the performance of European football teams. Studying efficiency shows their performance in relation to achieving various goals, as is the case with football teams, which strive towards financial performance and sporting success. For the authors, research shows that those football teams organized as clubs with dispersed ownership and not controlled by foreign investors perform better. Thus, ownership structures that facilitate less control over executives positively influence performance.

Turnkey contractors take on a twofold risk during the execution of their projects. On one hand, that of not being able to satisfactorily execute them in terms of cost, quality and/or deadlines. An on the other hand, that the client adopts an unyielding attitude in the renegotiation of the projects by taking advantage of the specific investments made by the business. Using the case of Astilleros Gondán, SA as empirical evidence, professor Esteban García-Canal (UniversityofOviedo) shows the role played by project execution capabilities and accumulated relational capital with clients in reducing the risks mentioned above. The analysis made suggests that the key to managing these businesses is to move into development cycles that enable benefitting from accumulated technical and relational capital instead of constantly executing new kinds of projects for new clients.

One of the reasons most often given by SMEs to avoid implementing Corporate Social Responsibility programs is a lack of resources. The option proposed by professors M. Luisa García-Hernández, Estrella Martínez-Rodrigo (University of Granada) and Juan Salvador Victoria Mas (University of Málaga) is to supply them with something that some have in abundance, knowledge. Dissemination thus becomes the substance of those programs, an accessible resource from which they can obtain benefits, not only in the form of reputation. This study focuses on 32 biotech SMEs located in four Andalusian technological parks. Based on the answers given, the authors believe that it is viable to work with the businesses so that they devote space for information on their websites; improve their relations with local media, until now almost non-existent; and establish ties with their neighbours through direct communication actions, which could be the basis for their CSR.

In the following article, Estefanía Palazuelos Cobo, Ángel Herrero Crespo and Javier Montoya del Corte (UniversityofCantabria) attempt to analyze the usefulness of audits in the loan approval processes to SMEs. Based on a survey of 471 risk analysts in Spain, the authors show that the fact that financial statements are audited increases the perceived quality of the accounting information, decreases the perceived risk in operations, increases the trust placed in the businesses and has a positive impact both on the possibility that the SMEs will be granted a loan and on getting better financing terms.

The last article, by professors Cristina Villar García, José Pla Barber (UniversityofValencia), Luis Silva Domingo (Universidad ORT) and Anoop Madhok (YorkUniversity) analyzes a model of inter-regional expansion using springboard subsidiaries. From their location inSpain, these subsidiaries facilitate expansion of multinational companies inLatin America, inasmuch as they provide part of the necessary experimental knowledge to deal with the region without the initial need to invest there. By analyzing the expansion strategy in the region of five European multinational businesses, the authors propose an inductive model, where the functions of the parent company –coordination, control and knowledge generation – are distributed between the parent company and the springboard subsidiary depending on the skills accumulation process over time. In this sense, the springboard subsidiary helps align control with the context, so this model provides a strategic referral strategy to prevent the destruction of value by the parent companies.

I encourage you to read all the articles. This year we hope to continue to earn the trust of everybody: Associate Editors, members of the Scientific Board, Editorial Board, evaluators, authors-collaborators, businesses and above all readers, both from the University and the world of business. 

Over the course of the fourth quarter of 2016, we proceeded to replace the seven area editors that make up the Editorial Committee.  We would like to thank the seven outgoing area editors for their more than two years of service. They will be joining UBR’s Scientific Committee.  Their dedication, skill and academic worth have allowed us to guarantee the quality of the editorial process. We would also like to thank and welcome the new members of the Editorial Committee as they simultaneously take on this new phase with their inherent rigour and with the excitement and dedication required by a project like UBR.

In the first article Mariano Méndez Suárez (ESICBusiness & MarketingSchool) and Macarena Estevez (Conento) use a real-life example of a consumer product to try and explain the construction of a Marketing Mix model. This is done to illustrate the calculation of return on marketing investment (ROMI) as a profitability metric and how to calculate the economic value added of marketing (EVAM) as a metric for shareholders regarding value creation.  The authors propose a new method for estimating the l coefficient of the Adstock model through impulse-response functions. We measure the profitability of short-term advertising and the joint effect of short and long-term advertising by using the brand recognition variable measured via brand tracking over the course of the entire analysed period.  The results of the analysis indicate that short-term advertising has a negative return that becomes positive when we bear in mind its combined effect with the brand’s recognition.

Despite the relevance that transactions between related parties (TPs) have acquired over the years in capital markets, there are no preliminary studies that analyse the presence of these types of transactions on the Spanish stock market. As a result, professors Marina Elistratova, Carolina Bona Sánchez and Jerónimo Pérez Alemán from Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands’ University of Las Palmas) studied TPs on the Spanish continuous market from 2004 to 2014. The results bring to light a significant presence of TPs, with such transactions appearing in more than half of listed companies on certain years.  Additionally, it can be seen that there is a greater use of TPs in larger companies, more concentrated companies, those that are family-controlled, and those that are a part of a pyramid.

In the next article, professors Enrique de Diego, Lourdes Susaeta, José Ramón Pin Arboledas (IESE), and Esperanza Suárez Ruz (ESIC Valencia) analyse the change in course of the NH Hotel Group.  As a result of the transformations that have taken place in its competitive circles as well as the effects of the economic crisis, the group needed to look ahead by implementing a strategic plan and restructuring its business portfolio.  The authors expose the stages that NH went through when implementing said plan and present the positive change it has undergone as they analyse the company’s historic evolution through an analysis of secondary sources.  For the authors, the case of the NH Hotel Group supports the statement that the definition and execution of an appropriate strategic plan helps improve business results.  Furthermore, flexibility in implementing said plan is equally important in order to be able to adapt to possible changes in the environment.

The inclusion of the Expected Profitability inSpain’s insurance regulation can be considered an important milestone in improving the transparency of the insurance system. Its addition it will allow for comparisons to be carried out, in terms of profitability, between insurance products offered by different entities.  One of the goals of this work – written by José Enrique Devesa Carpio; Mar Devesa Carpio; (Polibienestar and University of Valencia); Juan José Alonso Fernández (University of Extremadura); Inmaculada Domínguez Fabián (Polibienestar and University of Extremadura) Robert Meneu (University of Valencia) and Borja Encinas Goenechea (Polibienestar and University of Extremadura) – is to propose the methodology that should be followed in its calculation, such that this indicator can fulfil its main purpose: to compare different insurance policies.  The second contribution of the work will allow for an analysis of the impact that the change in the premium’s value has on Expected Profitability, such that this can be transformed into a new element to be considered by insurance entities.

The quality standards have developed significantly in the service sectors, particularly in the tourism industry.  The proliferation of different types of standards with vastly different focuses has subjected the hotel industry to a high degree of uncertainty with regard to its decisions about the most advisable quality certification system.  That’s why there are so many works that associate the different quality standards with the financial performance of hotel companies. Professors Francisco Javier de la Ballina Ballina and Luis Valdés Peláez ofUniversityofOviedohave gone a step further by raising the possible existence of synergies between the different standards, which would help management and the certifying bodies to administer the different quality standards in a coordinated and organised fashion.  The work specifically proposes the resource of the Q regulation of Spanish Tourism Quality as the foundation on which to build an effective quality plan for hotel companies.

Lastly, I cannot conclude this letter without once again thanking Universia for its trust and the work performed by the Area Editors, the members of the Scientific Committee, the Editorial Board and the reviewers.

The “H Index of Spanish Scientific Journals according to Google Scholar Metrics (2011-2015)” has recently been published in the third quarter of 2016, revealing that Universia Business Review ranks first among the 87 journals analysed in the field of ECONOMY and COMPANIES. The publication’s leading status is also confirmed by the findings of one of the relative quality indices on which Universia Business Review is indexed: SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2015 (SJR) :0,219 Q2; Category: Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous). We are now, therefore, embarking on the process of being reassessed by the Social Science Citation Index and we are confident that our journal will once again be accepted before too long.

In the first article, the authors discuss possible correlations between tourism and buying, paying particular attention to how shopping for fashion products might influence our travel choices. The concept of cognitive and hedonic involvement allows us to relate the perceived importance of buying by consumers of fashion products with tourism. Professors Haydeé Calderón-García, Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza and Teresa Fayos-Gardó (University of Valencia) analyse whether the act of buying fashion products by the tourist affects the duration of the trip or holiday. They also investigate whether the length of the trip is influenced by classic demographic factors (age, gender and level of income), along with other factors relating to buying behaviour at fashion establishments (quality of service, product quality, and buying enjoyment). The empirical study involved a sample of 370 tourists and offers some interesting conclusions for tourism management purposes by revealing that involvement with fashion, buying enjoyment, quality of service, cognitive involvement in selecting the destination, age and income all shape the length of the trip.

Six Sigma is currently one of the most powerful tools when it comes to improving quality. Originally designed for highly repetitive, high-output production processes, it has been adopted by many of the world’s largest organisations across a wide spectrum of sectors. Professors Pedro Garrido-Vega, Macarena Sacristán-Díaz and Luis Miguel Magaña-Ramírez (University of Seville) explore how this set of techniques can be applied at SMEs, which have relatively low production outputs, while attempting to identify the main success factors and hurdles to implementing the system. In doing so, they employ the “research to action” methodology at an SME from the aeronautical sector, applying the DMAIC improvement cycle to a specific Six Sigma project. Their results reveal that it can be applied and suggest that whether or not this is successful will ultimately hinge on certain key factors such as team commitment, resource availability and prior training.

Technological progress has allowed education to evolve in tandem by providing innovative teaching aids to improve the learning experience for individuals. Business simulation games are one such aid to active and experiential learning. These new educational tools allow us to improve the student’s motivation, autonomy and control over his or her learning process. In her article, professor Iguácel Melero (University of Zaragoza) aims to analyse the degree of success in implanting a subject based on a business simulation game, by studying the student’s learning experience through that game. Her findings reveal that the support received from teaching staff, plus the enjoyment and enthusiasm experienced by the student while playing the simulator are all particularly strong factors positively shaping the student’s opinion of this ground-breaking educational aid.

In the following article, Federico Carril-Caccia and Juliette Milgram Baleix (University of Granada) study the profile of Chinese investors in Spain by using company-level information and primary data obtained through a questionnaire targeting the manufacturing, renewable energies and distribution sectors. For the authors, Chinese companies in the manufacturing sector are seeking to acquire and develop new capacities and to penetrate not only the Spanish market but also other markets both within and outside the EU. In the field of renewable energies, investors are also geared towards exports, yet in contrast to other sectors they are particularly attracted by highly skilled Spanish labour. Chinese companies engaged in distribution are most swayed by domestic demand: they are looking to acquire new capacities, increase exposure for their brand and support their exports to Spain. They conclude that the study may be useful for those wishing to understand the strategy of these new investors in the Spanish market and the associated risks and opportunities.

The maturity stage of an industry life cycle tends to generate concentration processes as a natural response to increasingly fierce levels of competition. A prime example here is the mobile telephony sector, in which we have seen a large number of mergers in recent years now that the industry has reached maturity. Although there is ample evidence of concentration processes in other more traditional sectors, far fewer studies have explored the phenomena in the still relatively young mobile telecommunications sector. In their recent study, professors Pilar Bernal, Elisabet Garrido and Pablo Ríos (University of Zaragoza) aim to shed further light on the matter, evaluating the potential of domestic mergers as a valuable means of increasing the competitiveness of telecoms operators in the long term. Existing analyses within the wider context of European industry reveal that merger operations have had a clear impact on competition in the long run, on top of the immediate effects on the market power of the companies involved. It has been shown that mergers effectively slowed down the increasing levels of competition we saw from 2000 to 2015, and this is down, among other factors, to the arrival of new competitors and the efforts being made by the market regulator.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Universia once again for its ongoing trust and for the hard work of the Division Editors, the members of the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board and reviewers.

During the second quarter 2016 SCOPUS has published the new index SJR: SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2015 (SJR): 0,219 Q2; Category: Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous), in category position 136 out of 285 and area position 735 out of 1318. We would like to emphasise the Steering Committee’s commitment to remaining indexed in the main international databases and that the UBR continues to be considered a quality scientific journal. This commitment to quality has enabled the UBR to be granted the EXCELLENT journal certificate by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Innovation (FECYT). For this reason, we have initiated the process of being re-evaluated by the Social Science Citation Index and are confident that the journal will soon be readmitted.

Let us start off by discussing how omnichannel marketing can help improve both customer experience and customer performance. For professors Iguacel Melero, Javier Sese (University of Zaragoza) and Peter C. Verhoef (University of Groningen), the concept has become a cornerstone of marketing strategy, yet putting it into practice remains one of the main challenges facing companies today. The authors analyse how companies can comprehensively manage all points of contact across all channels so as to provide an enhanced customer experience and thus improve their competitive edge. In doing this, they flag a series of key questions that companies must first address before rolling out the changes that their organisations need in order to reshape the customer experience and ensure superior levels of performance. These include the need to adopt a customer-oriented focus, unify all points of contact across all channels, ensure personalised experiences for each and every customer, integrate available channels, cater to customers across all channels, rethink the role played by physical stores and outlets and commit themselves to mobile marketing.

In the following article, Joaquín Miñarro-Gómez (BMN, Risks Analysis Levante), Ginés Hernández-Cánovas (Polytechnic University of Cartagena) and Pedro Martínez-Solano (University of Murcia) will attempt to analyse how posting a guarantee through a Mutual Guarantee Society (Sociedad de Garantía Recíproca) can affect borrowing cost and loan availability for small- and medium-sized enterprises. In doing so, they analyse a sample of SMEs that received such a guarantee in 2010. Their findings reveal that SMEs that obtained a guarantee from a Mutual Guarantee Society generally had an easier time securing bank financing than those that chose a different path to financing their business.

In the third article, professors Ana B. Escrig-Tena, Juan Carlos Bou-Llusar and Inmaculada Beltrán-Martín (University Jaume I) attempt to answer the following key questions: what employee performance and remuneration assessment systems are used by companies geared towards quality management and excellence? Is there a prevailing pattern among these organisations? The authors present the results of an empirical study conducted on a sample of 180 Spanish companies that have an excellence recognition system in place under the EFQM model. The findings reveal that only one group of companies employs performance and remuneration assessment systems that are geared towards development and, therefore, aligned with what experts on the subject of quality management view as the right approach to follow. The authors also spotted other types of systems where the assessment of performance and remuneration is improperly matched, as well as systems focused on attaining objectives.

The aim of the following article is to show the benefits of internalising the requirements of a quality-based rule. By interviewing senior figures from the tourism sector and conducting a quantitative study, Jorge Pereira-Moliner, Juan José Tarí, José Francisco Molina-Azorín and María Dolores López-Gamero (University of Alicante) conclude that results can be improved by internalising quality rules and standards. By becoming more committed to implementing quality requirements, tourism companies can effectively improve their management system because they will be applying quality requirements through a more advanced model. This means that companies that genuinely believe in the concept of quality and apply it in their day-to-day business can improve their results.

 

We will finish off with an article that seeks to analyse open innovation practices that can be implemented by service-provider SMEs operating in the auto industry. Professors María Isabel Rodríguez Ferradas and José Antonio Alfaro Tanco (University of Navarra) use the results of a multiple case study to show how useful innovation practices can be in responding to changing market needs and remaining competitive. The authors go on to provide a detailed discussion of one of these practices that can help systematise the process of developing new products: co-developments.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Universia once again for its ongoing support and express my appreciation for all the hard work of the division editors, the members of the Scientific Committee, the Editorial Board and evaluators in the period leading up to this edition.

José Ignacio López

Editor in Chief of UBR

Now in its thirteenth year, Universia Business Review has never been late going to print and has earned international renown for its editorial quality. The Management Committee firmly intends to ensure that UBR remains indexed on the main international databases and continues to be widely seen as a journal of outstanding scientific quality. UBR is categorised as a journal A and is ranked 31 out of the 233 (1/11 in business journals) Spanish publications on the subject of human and social sciences according to Web of Science and/or SCOPUS (ISOC-CSIC). We are currently being reassessed by the Social Science Citation Index and we are confident that before too long the journal will once again be accepted.

This ongoing commitment to quality has earned UBR the badge of EXCELLENT from Fundación Española para la Ciencia y Tecnología (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) attached to the Ministry of Science and Innovation (FECYT); enabled it to be indexed on SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2014 (SJR): 0.230 Q3; Category: Business, Management and Accounting. Position 133 of 236; and last but not least earned it third place out of the 65 Spanish economic journals (h-index of Spanish scientific journals under Google Scholar Metrics, 2010-2014). We encourage authors to send articles that meet the required standards of quality to provide executives and business owners with responses and valuable insight in relation to their own business concerns and problems.

As is customary in the first edition of the year, we would like to express our sincerest gratitude for the hard work of all the associate editors and professors in evaluating the contributions made to the journal during the year, thus guaranteeing the quality and scientific rigour of the articles published in the journal, while proposing improvements to the work and ensuring that our strict requirements are met. In 2015, we received a total of 95 articles, 15.3% of which were accepted after due evaluation.

Issue 49 of Universia Business Review is essentially devoted to the subject of “Servitization: strategy, innovation and impact”. The published articles were submitted in response to the “call for papers” and defended at the 4th International Conference on Business Servitization (ICBS 2015) (November 2015) following a rigorous selection process. The selected articles were then sent to UBR ahead of the start of the editorial review process. The Management Committee wishes to thank the guest editors for their hugely valuable work, namely Professor María Luz Martín-Peña (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) and Professor Ali Ziaee Bigdeli (Aston University), who were without doubt the driving forced behind this special edition by expertly handling the entire process of editing the published work.

In their editorial for the issue, Professors Martín-Peña (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) and Bigdeli (Aston University) explain what we understand by servitization and how the concept can help companies become more competitive while bringing them closer to their customers. They review the articles published on the subject of servitization and explain through case studies how they have helped bring the academic community closer to the business world.

The special edition starts with an article by Professors Heiko Gebauer, Simon Joncourt, Caroline Saul (Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Research), in which the authors discuss the past, present and future of product-oriented services within companies. Alberto de la Calle and Inmaculada Freije (Universidad de Deusto) then attempt to answer the question of whether servitization is really as profitable as it might seem. Jose Ruizalba, Anabela Soares and Javier Morales (University of West London) analyse the servitization process in relation to pharmaceutical distribution and ask if it is returning to its roots. Sara Mountney, Abhishek Asthana and Kashif Mohammed (Sheffield Hallam University) and Mark Almond (B S Stainless) analyse other alternatives, including a services SME that has bucked the trend by developing manufacturing capacity to improve its range of products and services for customers. Lorea Narvaiza, David Ruiz de Olano, Tontxu Campos and Iñigo Arroniz (Universidad de Deusto) focus on how customers perceive the services offered to them by retail companies. Ion Iriarte, Daniel Justel, Alazne Alberdi, Ester Val and Itsaso González (Universidad de Mondragón) investigate the design of services for servitization in manufacturing companies through university-company partnerships. And last but not least, Vasileios Myrthianos (Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña), Ferran Vendrell-Herrero (University of Birmingham), Oscar F. Bustinza (Universidad de Granada) and Glenn Parry (University of the West of England) analyse consumer attitudes and behaviour in the musical industry through digital servitization.

I would encourage you to read all the articles. We hope to continue to inspire the trust of everyone as we move through 2016: associate editors, members of the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board, evaluators, authors and contributors, and above all our readers from both the university community and the business world.

In the first article, professors María del Mar Miras Rodríguez, Bernabé Escobar Pérez and José Luis Galán González of the University of Seville (Universidad de Sevilla) study the impact of the economic crisis and the financial status of businesses on Corporate Social Responsibility actions (CSR) undertaken by Spanish companies listed on the IBEX-35, allowing them to verify the degree of engagement with these types of strategies and initiatives.  Based on various theoretical approaches, (the Resource Scarcity and Agency Theory Hypothesis), we analyse changes in CSR and Financial Performance prior to and during the crisis, grouping companies according to these variables.  The results show that a large group of companies, the majority of which are characterised by the existence of a leading shareholder, have either maintained a consistent level or increased their social engagement during the crisis.

Manuel Rico Llopis and Francisco Puig Blanco of the University of Valencia (Universidad de Valencia) analyse the reasons behind the extraordinary success of football clubs’ insolvency proceedings.  The Spanish insolvency scene has shown very high rates of failure (in excess of 90%).  By contrast, the vast majority of football clubs in such circumstances have successfully resolved their legal insolvency situations. According to the authors, the study indicates that such results were made possible by (i) a financial structure with less of a concentration of special privileged credit (particularly secured banks) than other corporate entities and (ii) the systematic support that public administrations have provided them (even adhering to proposals for arrangements). 

Technological implants are being developed to increase innate human abilities (implantes tecnológicos para aumentar capacidades humanas innatas - ITACI) such as memory or calculation speed.  In order to contrast their acceptance, Cristina Olarte Pascual, Jorge Pelegrín Borondo of the University of La Rioja and Eva Reinares Lara (King Juan Carlos University / Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) have applied a sequential cluster analysis to a sample of 600 individuals, identifying four groups: integrated, semi-integrated, non-integrated and apocalyptic. According to the authors ITACI are considered interesting, especially those that delay aging and improve the speed of thought, although there is much fragmentation with regard to their intended use.  These results open a new scenario for insideable technology.

Professors María José Palacín Sánchez and Fernando Alonso Canales of the University of Seville (Universidad de Sevilla) assess the financial forecast process of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in their flotation, analysing the quality of the profit forecasts made and exploring the factors that determine the accuracy of such forecasts.  The study considers all companies that have been listed on the Spanish alterative investment market, the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil (MAB). The authors believe that the results show that the majority of executives from companies on the MAB have been optimistic and highly inaccurate in their future profits estimates. 

In the final article, Carme Martínez Costa, Marta Mas Machuca (International University of Catalonia / Universitat Internacional de Catalunya) and Jordi Olivella Nadal (Polytechnic University of Catalonia / Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), analyse the staffing policies of leading business consulting companies in Spain in order to identify their characteristic factors and the similarities and differences between them. To do so, they presented a case study on Accenture, IBM and Compañía Z. The results suggest that partnership and management models by professionals continue to be relevant, but are insufficient when explaining different policies. The authors identify five factors that characterise them and the main trends.

I would like to conclude by once again thanking Universia for its trust and the work performed in this last period by the Area Editors, the Scientific Committee, the Editorial Board and the evaluators.

Last July 2015 Universia Business Review appeared in two relative quality indexes: SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2014 (SJR): 0,230 Q3; Category: Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous), in category position 133 out of 236 and area position 681 out of 1102; and the H-Index of Spanish Scientific Journals according to Google Scholar Metrics, 2010-14, where it is in third position out of 65 Spanish journals of economy and business. We would like to emphasise the Steering Committee’s commitment to remaining indexed in the main international databases and that the UBR continues to be considered a quality scientific journal. This commitment to quality has enabled the UBR to be granted the EXCELLENT journal certificate by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Innovation (FECYT). For this reason, we are in the process of being re-evaluated by the Social Science Citation Index and are confident that the journal will soon be readmitted.

The articles published in number 47 of the Universia Business Review offer a monographic study of "Entrepreneurship as a social and economic phenomenon". The papers published were defended at the 9^th international Workshop based on GEM data (July 2015) after a rigorous selection process. The Scientific Secretariat of the Workshop and the UBR Steering Committee selected several lines of research and invited their authors to submit their papers to the established editorial process. The Steering Committee would like to thank Professor Alicia Rubio (University of Murcia) for her work, as well as all the editorial effort in identifying the authors, carrying out the review process and proposing the papers that met the requirements of the UBR.

Entrepreneurs play a crucial role when introducing innovations on the market. However, there are major differences among them, resulting in only a few that effectively introduce the most new products or services. In the first article, Professors Lucio Fuentelsaz and Javier Montero (University of Zaragoza) attempt to characterise individuals who are more likely to take innovative initiatives by using a sample of more than 65,000 entrepreneurs from 88 countries who participated in the GEM project from 2008 to 2012. The results concluded that, in psychological terms, the most important variables are risk tolerance, awareness of opportunities and individuals’ self-confidence. From a human capital standpoint, education and previous experience are especially relevant. As a result, any government policy geared towards improving the level of innovation of an economy will have to stress some of these variables.

According to Yaima Díaz, Maribel Guerrero and Iñaki Peña (Deusto Business School), there are few entrepreneurs in Spain, and of these, fewer still are clearly committed to innovating. Launching innovation-oriented business projects can lead to business failure. In the following article they analyse the effect of corporate entrepreneurship on the productivity of innovation obtained by recently created spin-offs. The results reveal that new spin-offs that have the support of a parent company, and that can absorb information more easily and have a clear entrepreneurial market focus, better capitalise on the efforts made in innovation by launching unique products and services. Both conditions – the capacity to absorb and entrepreneurial focus – are essential for making the most of the effort put into innovating, and where possible, these two conditions should be developed under the guidance of a parent company (corporate entrepreneurship) as this increases their chances of success.  

In the next article, Professors Daniel Alonso Martínez, Nuria González Álvarez and Mariano Nieto (University of León) highlight the need to create socially innovative environments in order to boost business creation in a region. The authors determine that these more socially innovative environments reap some of the benefits generated by public innovation policies when creating new businesses. Furthermore, they conclude that the influence of public policies on business creation, in this case measures such as public investment in R&D, is likewise a fact. This points to the importance of adapting public policies to the growing needs of society, and to the economic, technological and social development of a territory. At the same time, the fact that innovations enable opening new business opportunities, developing new products and services and accessing new markets is also a fact.

Business failure is at least as significant as business success. However, academics and professionals have spent much more time analysing the latter. Research by Professors Lucio Fuentelsaz and Consuelo González (University of Zaragoza) focuses on failure, suggesting that in order to understand it you have to consider the institutional context and the quality of entrepreneurship. In a sample of 69 countries between 2007 and 2012, the authors show their failure rates depending on the institutional framework and the quality of business enterprise. The results reveal that there is less business failure when the institutions are well-developed and when the quality of business enterprise is higher. And, interestingly enough, the business failure rate is lower when both dimensions, institutions and quality, move in the same direction.

More and more social enterprises are making up the productive fabric of the country. As with any organisation, they must be managed efficiently. However, there is little research that analyses the management of these kinds of companies, and even less that focuses on human resource management. Professors Catalina Nicolás Martínez and Alicia Rubio Bañón (University of Murcia) used case studies to analyse the human resource management by Spanish social enterprises. The results confirm that social enterprises organise internships that sometimes differ from those organised in non-social enterprises due to the strong social component that moves them and which attracts workers to contribute to their mission. To prevent social enterprises from losing talent, they need to organise internships that are ethical and responsible in terms of human resources, and manage the volunteers that collaborate with them in accordance with their characteristics.

In the last article, Professors Antonio Fernández Portillo, Mari Cruz Sánchez Escobedo, Ricardo Hernández Mogollón and Héctor Valentín Jiménez Naranjo (University of Extremadura) propose an economic approximation of electronic commerce on a world, European, national and regional level (Extremadura), underscoring the high potential of e-commerce growth in national and regional companies. The authors suggest a model with predictive capabilities that associates company age, size and innovation with e-commerce, showing the relationship between innovation and e-commerce, company size and e-commerce, and where the age of a company also has a positive influence on innovation and size, with innovation being the key to developing e-commerce and benefiting from it.

I encourage you to read all the articles and would also like to thank everyone for their trust: Associate Editors, members of the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board, evaluators, collaborating authors, companies and especially our readers, both from the university and business communities.

In today’s challenging economic times, many companies support more competitive, innovative and creative organisational and remuneration models. In the first article, professors María Dolores Vidal Salazar, Eulogio Cordón Pozo and José Manuel de la Torre Ruiz (University of Granada) elaborate on Flexible Compensation Models, highly personalised and highly flexible indirect remuneration formulas specifically designed to improve salary efficiency. These systems make employees stakeholders in designing the composition of their remuneration packages and lead to optimising their net remuneration through adequate tax planning without increasing personnel costs. A total of 328 human resources managers at companies located in Spain participated in the research, which analyses the effects of applying these models to organisations’ ability to attract and retain talent.

CSR-based policies have resulted in a new understanding of organisations – not only do they have to maximise their return on assets, but they also have to be socially responsible. For its part, the level of significance reached by football in recent decades has turned this activity into a powerful socio-economic phenomenon that transcends purely sporting consideration. For professors Raúl López Martínez and José Luis Fernández Fernández (Universidad Pontificia de Comillas) one of its fundamental elements – the clubs, have become genuine companies that, in many cases, are not managed in accordance with the legal and ethical imperatives that govern other companies and organisations. The authors raise the debate on applying such practices to the clubs so that they have an impact on improving their corporate governance structures as well as their reputation, and ultimately contributing to creating a country brand image.

There is little, and at times contradictory, research on whether the Service Recovery Paradox is true. The aim of the following article is to verify whether this paradox is true in the retail sector and to analyse how it changes according to the customer’s socio-demographic characteristics and their shopping experience. By studying a sample of customers who were satisfied with the outcome of their complaint, professors Teresa Fayos Gardó, Beatriz Moliner Velázquez and María Eugenia Ruiz Molina conclude that it is not true in this context and that the difference between satisfaction before and after the problem is related to those characteristics.

Studies devoted to innovation management and its effect on business performance feature heavily in the organisational literature of recent years. However, the positive impact of innovation is not only restricted to technological innovation practices. In the following articles, professors Paula Anzola Román, Cristina Bayona Sáez and Teresa García-Marco (Universidad Pública de Navarra) analyse how companies generate value through organisational innovation practices. The authors use a case study to analyse the organisational innovation process carried out by a company and show how the derived implications contributed to creating value, and address both the direct impact and the joint impact of organisational and technological innovation.

The introduction of new technologies in the banking sector has led to significant progress by introducing new channels in the multi-channel environment, such as mobile banking. Professors Jana Prodanova, Sonia San-Martín and Nadia Jiménez Torres propose a mobile banking customer characterisation according to their opinions, perceptions and motivations for using it. They can apply it to both business owners and company executives who already operate in the mobile banking sector and/or those companies that would like to introduce their business in that channel as a complement to the offline or/and online channel. According to the authors, this characterisation can help them choose their target market, personalise the offer to their current and/or potential customers and improve their overall activity in the mobile banking channel.

I do not want to conclude without again thanking Universia for their confidence and the work carried out over the last period by the Associate Editors, the members of the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board and evaluators.

Universia Business Review (UBR) enters its twelfth year faithfully maintaining its regularity and guaranteeing its internationally-recognised principles of editorial excellence. We would like to reaffirm the Management Board's commitment to focusing on those principles in order to remain listed in the main international databases and for the UBR to continue to be regarded as an outstanding scientific journal. For this reason, we are currently being re-evaluated by the Social Science Citation Index and are optimistic about the possibility that the Review will again be accepted within a reasonable timeframe.

This focus on quality has allowed UBR to hold the journal certification of "EXCELLENT" from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation's Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT). It is also listed in SCOPUS (Elsevier Bibliographic Databases. Scimago Journal Rank 2013 (SJR): 0,184 Q3; Category: Business, Management and Accounting) in position 151 of 267, and currently occupies second place among 71 Spanish journals in the field of economics (Index H for Spanish Scientific Reviews, according to Google Scholar Metrics, 2009-2013). We encourage authors to submit articles that, in meeting the necessary requirements, allow managers and entrepreneurs to find solutions to their thinking, problems and concerns.

As in the first editions of every year, we would like to express our very sincere appreciation for the work of the Associate Editors and professors. Through their efforts as evaluators over the last year, they have provided the best formal guarantee of the rigour of the Review's articles, suggesting improvements and ensuring that the level of quality is maintained. In 2014, we received 201 articles, with a 9.3% acceptance rate for those evaluated.

In the first article, Professors Manuela Pérez-Pérez, María José Vela-Jiménez,
Silvia Abella-Garcés and Ángel Martínez-Sánchez (University of Zaragoza) examine the enhancement of work-life balance as an explanatory link in the effect that flexible human resources practices have on job satisfaction and the organisational commitment of employees. For the authors, the results of a study carried out at family-responsible companies in Spain indicate that the explanatory power of enhancement in a positive sense is greater than that of conflict in a negative sense.

Valle, Ballina y Fernández, S.A., the producer of the well-known El Gaitero brand of cider, is a century-old company that fits the profile of a business created with a global objective, oriented towards regional exports. That is because it was created to take advantage of the overseas opportunities in the cider trade associated with Asturian emigration to Latin America. On the basis of this company's historical development, Professors Esteban García-Canal and Ana Valdés Llanez (University of Oviedo) examine determining factors in the initial growth, and possible subsequent corporate development, of export-oriented companies created with a global objective.

For Professors Cristina Aragonés-Jericó (Florida Universitaria), and Inés Küster-Boluda and Natalia Vila-López (University of Valencia) the aim of the next article is to compare the tourists and residents in country hosting a major sporting event with tourists of other nationalities. In order to do this, the authors work from a global sports-sponsorship model based on models of tourist behaviour and sports sponsorship theories. The results allow us to conclude that there are significant differences in some variables of the proposed sponsorship model between domestic and foreign tourists, including experience of the event, the motivation of sports tourists, and identification with the team or competitor.

The new characteristics of the economic and business environment have led to organisational learning capacity becoming a key factor in a company maintaining its competitiveness and achieving success. The need therefore arises to develop business strategies that allow organisations to be created with a high learning capacity. Professors Jacob Guinot, Ricardo Chiva and Fermín Mallén (Jaime I University) demonstrate the importance of altruism in organisations when it comes to facilitating the organisational learning process, thereby leading to an improvement in organisational performance.

The complex nature of the tourism sector and its international dimension contribute to it being one of the industries most exposed to various critical situations. As tourism is an activity that has a relevant impact on the development of the economy, identifying the kinds of crisis that may affect this sector has emerged as a key concern in hospitality management. In this final article, the analysis of the information provided by a panel of experts reveals not only that there are economic crises, but that the tourism sector is faced with numerous types of risks and adverse situations. On the basis of the results obtained, Professors Luis Melián Alzola, Margarita Fernánde Monroy and Marisa Hidalgo Peñate (University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria) propose a management agenda that contributes to controlling and even minimising the negative impact of potential and real situations of risk.

I encourage you to read all of the articles. We hope, during the coming year, to continue counting on everyone’s support: the Associate Editors, members of the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board, evaluators, contributing authors, companies and, above all, the readers − from both the academic and business worlds.

I would like to begin this letter with some information about the changes that have been taking place, or which will be taking place, and our main lines of activity in confronting new challenges. Firstly, in this issue, the composition of the new Management Committee is set out, as are the Associate Editors who will lead each of the UBR areas, and the Deputy Editor who will coordinate them. We would like to thank the seven outgoing Associate Editors for the work they have done over more than two years in their respective areas. Their dedication, ability and academic merit have allowed us to ensure quality in the editorial process. We also want to give our thanks to and welcome the new members of the Management Board, who will confront this new era not only with their characteristic rigour, but with the enthusiasm and dedication that a project such as UBR requires.

Similarly, we have begun a restructuring of the Scientific Committee which, given the need to achieve internationalisation ratios among its members, will in principle now be made up of 14 professors: seven from institutions in countries other than the one in which the journal is edited, and the seven outgoing Associate Editors. This new system will allow the rotation of members, who will change as the outgoing Associate Editors join. We would like to thank those professors who have accompanied us in the last few years for their hard work and dedication, many of them since the committee’s creation. Their trust, advice and good work have been the pillars upon which UBR has established itself as a leading publication. Without their support, UBR would not be where it is today; many thanks to them all on behalf of the Management Board.

It is a priority for the Management Board to continue in its commitment to the quality of articles published, as it has been doing, keeping our founding mission and objective “to transmit the most innovative ideas and developments generated by the scientific and academic communities to business leaders” at the forefront of our minds. For that reason, all authors wishing to submit an article for review must answer the following questions (which will be incorporated into the new platform as a file attached to the article):

• What is the primary message or idea in your article? Can business owners and executives apply it?

Letter from Editor in Chief

 

 My first words as Director of Universia Business Review will be in thanks to the CEO of Universia for the confidence placed in me, and for his words of support in confronting this new era. I am taking the helm with great enthusiasm, but at the same time, I am conscious of the responsibility that leading this magazine entails. The Universia Business Review would not be what it is today without its Founder and Director, Professor Alvaro Cuervo. Over the years, I have been lucky enough to accompany him at the Management Committee as Deputy Director. I have learned a great deal but, without a doubt, one of the things that has stuck with me the most is that we have to make changes in order to confront new challenges, not settle for inertia and self-satisfaction. This we have to achieve by having competent teams, but also through work, work, and more work. I offer Professor Cuervo my utmost recognition and gratitude. In the coming issues, the new composition of the Management Committee will be made public and we will provide information about the changes to be taken on in this new era.

We begin this issue by reflecting on whether banking’s reputation has been damaged since the start of the economic crisis, even though it has not hit all institutions with the same force on a national scale. Professors Belén Ruiz, Agueda Esteban and Santiago Gutiérrez (University of Castile-La Mancha) compare the reputations of the four main financial institutions in Spain based on a corporate reputation index made up of eight dimensions, offering operational keystones to reputational management in banking. The results show the impact of the state intervention in Bankia on that institution’s reputation. They also offer a very precise view of the differences and similarities in the perception of institutions by their own customers and those of their competitors. Based on that analysis, the authors conclude which are the fundamental aspects institutions should act upon when designing effective policies aimed at improving their reputation.

In the following article, Rubén Arrondo García and Carlos Fernández Méndez (University of Oviedo) analyse top executive (CEO) salaries for a sample of companies listed in 2010, from an international perspective. According to the authors, the main results suggest that there are significant differences both in the amount as well as the pay structure in the ten countries studied. The main difference is the greater use of long-term variable remuneration formulae in in the US, compared with short-term in Europe. Similarly, no significant differences were observed between the salaries of CEOs in the financial sector and CEOs in other sectors. Lastly, they state the relevance of the ownership and corporate governance structure in CEO pay.

Professors Eva Perea and Joan Ripoll i Alcon (Abat Oliba CEU University) analyse the Spanish companies that are operating in China, their reasons for establishing themselves in that country, a study of the difficulties they face, and the list of their priorities for the coming years. According to the authors, the Spanish companies operating in China largely belong to the services sector (56%) and particularly to professional service areas such as advertising, legal advice, consultancy, etc. Almost half of the Spanish companies have set up in the Shanghai area. Contrary to what is normally believed to be true, the majority of companies establish a business in China in order to access its market rather than to employ cheap labour. With regard to continuity, the response is almost unanimous: the majority of Spanish companies plan to remain in the country in the coming years. Their main interest lies in accessing the opportunities offered by this great market.

Mergers/Acquisitions (M/A) are currently a booming strategic alternative for growth, as they allow the resources and capacities of two or more companies to be integrated, synergies to be made, and sustainable competitive advantages to be achieved. Even if the initial motive for undertaking an M/A is not to obtain a certain brand, one of the most important organisational and marketing questions that arises after such an operation is choosing the name of the new institution. In order to create and maintain this asset, it is important to have an adequate understanding of the brand integration process and its determinants. Paula Álvarez-González and Carmen Otero-Neira (University of Vigo) attempt to bring marketing literature together with the literature on M/A and provide evidence to show that the type and relative size of the operation influence the brand integration strategy followed after the M/A.

The impact that the internet has had on companies and on society has been incredible. This revolution has generated new behaviours among consumers, such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) which has been widely discussed in the literature. There is currently an incipient phenomenon similar to the last which, although achieving a certain level of relevance, still has not been studied. It is known as weWOM (worker electronic word-of-mouth), which consists of employees and ex-employees, on their own initiative, publically evaluating their companies as places to work. There are numerous websites specifically dedicated to this behaviour. In this article, Santiago Melián-González and Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) describe weWOM, where it can be found, and the consequences and implications it could have for companies.
In the next article, María José Quero and Rafael Ventura (Universidad of Malaga) describe a crowdfunding project as a system of relationships for co-creating value. Based on that idea, the authors draw up a typology for participating agents according to seven different kinds of value co-creation. The research identifies the critical processes that enable the objective of each actor to be achieved and which must be kept in mind in designing and planning a crowdfunding project.