With great pleasure I would like to present to you the number 61 (first quarter of 2019) of the UCJC Business & Society review. This issue continues to fulfill the objective initiated by Universia Business Review to transfer excellent research to society and productive system in Spain and Latin America. However, this number also starts to take firm steps to expand the audience and the fields of study that are discussed in the journal, in order to reinforce the original, critical, curious and above all interdisciplinary analysis that UCJC BSR aims to make of the challenges and problems of our times through rigorous scientific research in Management, Economics and Social Sciences in general.

Thus, in this issue the journal addresses through the work of Eleuterio Vallelado (University of Valladolid) and Javier Villar (University of Santiago de Compostela) the study of the paradox of the Single Monetary Policy of the European Central Bank, which far from homogenizing financial markets produces heterogeneous effects on the lending policies of banks in the different EU states. In this way, this research notes that the existence of significant differences in terms of characteristics of borrowers, loans and prices distort the effect of the Single Monetary Policy and produce significant differences in conditions for access to lending in the various countries of the European Union which will have a decisive influence on the competitiveness of the firms in different countries.

Within the scope of finance, UCJC BSR analyzes in this issue through to the research of Diego de Mingo and Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez of the University Jaume I of Castellón the different results of the active investment funds and the funds that replicate to a reference index in the United States. Research shows that the financial crisis has changed the differences between these two types of fund. Whereas, prior to the financial crisis, low-turnover funds yield higher gross returns than those obtained by index funds, and high-turnover funds obtained similar gross returns or even worst. After the financial crisis, the gross results of low-turnover active funds matched the gross returns of the funds that replicate an index. However, in terms of net returns, funds that replicate an index get better results due to lower commissions.

UCJC BSR provides very interesting data relating to the internal brand strategies of Spanish universities through the article by Professors Javier Casanoves Boix of the International University of Valencia, and Inés Küster Boluda and Natalia Vila López from University of Valencia. These professors analyze how professors and researchers perceive the brand of their universities and observe that in the private university there is better perception of the brand in the postgraduate studies, while in the public university there is a better perception of undergraduate and doctoral studies. Private university workers also have a better perception of the trust and service received, the value, the needs and respect for the institution, despite a perception of greater labor instability. The authors advocate for the need to create initiatives aimed at building greater team spirit and feeling of belonging in public universities.

Finally, sociologists Alfonso Unceta (University of the Basque Country) and Xabier Barandiaran (University of Deusto) make an interesting contribution on the link between public innovation and social innovation, in which they build a new paradigm of the public innovation based on cooperative and experimental governance, which can and should be supported by dynamics and previous experiences already developed from the perspective of social innovation. However, they also raise the paradox that these initiatives, although initiated by the Administration to survive in time, require that citizens perceive sufficient distance from the Administration itself. 

Prof. Dr. Francesco D. Sandulli

Director of UCJC Business & Society Review