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In the macroeconomic environment of the Iberian Peninsula, this paper aims to understand which factors, intrinsic to management, affect the performance of wine companies.

The sample comprises 3,113 wine Iberian companies between 2011 and 2018. This study has used the panel data methodology, specifically the generalized method of moments system estimation method of Arellano and Bond (1991); Arellano and Bover (1995); and Blundell and Bond (1998) to test the hypotheses proposed.

Using return on assets (ROA) and sales growth as measures of corporate performance, this study’s results suggest that sales growth is the variable that has the most significant determining factors, both specific to the company and given the macroeconomic environment. Investors and civil society well understand the meaning of sales growth, namely, in a sector close to the final consumer. When using ROA as a dependent variable, the results suggest that because it is a pure management variable, the manager tends to be more concerned with maintaining adequate levels of economic profitability to ensure sustainability and future solvency, without giving prominence to the macroeconomic environment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that a study has been carried out in the Iberian Peninsula on the wine industry using ROA and sales growth as measures of corporate performance. This study shows that sales growth is a measure traditionally known to external stakeholders, and to that extent, its determining factors are the variables that these players most value in the market.

This paper aims to explore the trade-off between liquidity, risk and return under sectoral diversification across distinct economic settings and investment strategies.

A novel multi-objective portfolio model is proposed to assess investment decisions under sectoral diversification, where the objective functions and constraints are interval-valued. The objective functions used are risk minimization (through the semi-absolute deviation measure of risk), maximization of liquidity (using turnover as a proxy) and the maximization of logarithmic return. Besides coherence constraints (imposing that the sum of the percentages of investment assigned to each stock should be equal to 100%), constraints regarding the maximum proportion of capital that can be invested (ensuring a minimum level of diversification) and cardinality constraints (to account for transaction costs) are also imposed.

Besides the trade-off between return and risk, the study findings highlight a trade-off between liquidity and return and a positive relationship between risk and liquidity. Under an economic crisis scenario, the trade-off between return and liquidity is reduced. With the economic recovery, the levels of risk increase when contrasted with the setting of the economic crisis. The highest liquidity levels are reached with the economic boom, whereas the highest returns are obtained with the economic recession.

This paper suggests a new modeling approach for assessing the trade-offs between liquidity, risk and return under different scenarios and investment strategies. A new interactive procedure inspired on the reference point approach is also proposed to obtain possibly efficient portfolios according to the investor's preferences. Regarding previous approaches suggested in the literature, this new procedure allows obtaining both supported and unsupported efficient solutions when cardinality constraints are included.

Bread is one of the most consumed foods in the world, and its main function is to provide nutrients and energy for the body. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to raise awareness about the consumption habits of bread and consumer preferences in the region of Viseu (centre of Portugal), assessing the extent to which the preferences and consumption habits differ based on individual variables.

The study was conducted by means of a questionnaire by direct interviewing. The questionnaire included sections aimed at gathering information about demographics, consumption habits and preferences related to bread. The sample consisted of 500 consented respondents.

The results showed significant differences between genders regarding the type of bread eaten: women consumed less wheat bread (52 per cent against 62 per cent; p = 0.029) and less unsalted bread (0.3 per cent against 3 per cent; p = 0.023), but more whole bread (25 per cent against 11 per cent; p < 0.001) and more bread with cereal grains (23 per cent against 11 per cent; p = 0.001), thus revealing a trend for a nutritionally more adequate choice. Accordingly, women valued more the composition of the bread when purchasing it (p < 0.001). It was also observed a trend for a lower consumption of wheat bread among classes with more advanced studies (47 per cent on university graduates against 60 per cent on nongraduates; p = 0.004).

This work is innovative because it was the first time the preferences and consuming habits of a sample of Portuguese population regarding bread were accessed, altogether. The results hereby obtained may be of importance both to understand the nutritional importance of bread in the diet of the Portuguese and also for the industry and manufacturers to better correspond to the buying preferences.

This paper aims to better understand if speculative activity is a factor or even the main factor in the run-up of oil prices in the spot market, particularly in the recent price bubble that occurred in the period from mid-2003 to 2008.

The methodology used is based on an existing vector autoregressive model proposed by Kilian and Murphy (2014), which is a structural model of the global market for crude oil that accounts for flow demand and flow supply shocks and speculative demand oil shocks.

From the output of the authors’ structural model, the authors ruled out speculation as a factor of rising oil prices. The authors have found instead that the rapid oil demand caused by an unexpected increase in the global business cycle is the most accurate culprit. Despite the change of perspective in the speculative component, the authors’ conclusions concur with the findings of Kilian and Murphy (2014) and others.

As far as the authors are aware, this is the first time that a study has used as a spread oil variable, a speculative component of the real price, replacing the oil inventories considered by Kilian and Murphy (2014). Another contribution is that the model used allows estimating traditional oil demand elasticity in production and oil supply elasticity in spread movements, casting doubt on existing models with perfect price-inelastic output for crude oil.

In a context where human–machine interaction is growing, understanding the limits between automated and human-based methods may leverage qualitative research. This paper aims to compare human and machine analyses, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of both approaches.

This study applied qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) with machine learning-based text mining on qualitative data from 25 interviews previously analyzed with traditional qualitative content analysis.

By analyzing both techniques' strengths and weaknesses, this study complements the results from the original research work. The previous human model failed to point to a particular aspect of the case, while the machine analysis did not recognize the sequence of time in the interviewee's discourse.

This study demonstrates that combining content analysis with text mining techniques improves the quality of the research output. Researchers may, therefore, better handle biases from humans and machines in traditional qualitative and quantitative research.

The present study aims to investigate an unsuccessful implementation of an active learning methodology. Active learning methods have emerged in order to improve learning processes and increase students' roles in the classroom. Most studies on the subject focus on developing learning strategies based on successful implementations of such methods. Nevertheless, critical reflections on unsuccessful cases might also provide material for developing further contributions to this literature.

The authors conducted an intrinsic case study of an unsuccessful application of the flipped classroom method to an undergraduate basic statistics course at a Brazilian business school. The data collected comprised the course's syllabus, evaluation forms and two rounds of interviews with students and the professor.

The findings indicate that, apart from that which had been mapped by past literature, three additional aspects may limit the chances of successfully implementing a flipped classroom methodology: students' educational backgrounds, the course's structural issues and methodological and relational issues.

The present study contributes to the literature on active learning methodologies mainly by mapping additional aspects that should be considered in the implementation of the flipped classroom methodology. Additionally, the authors investigate an unsuccessful case of such an implementation, an investigation that is still scant within this literature.

In this work, the authors address a gap in the literature on the contribution of dynamic capabilities and internal contingencies to performance in a highly competitive environment.

The authors use data from the Premier Football (soccer) League in Portugal over ten years. This league works as a laboratorial setting and enables the authors to identify the influences of the variables in the study.

The authors find evidence that human capital is decisive to a team's performance. This study’s findings question the role of the alignment between the different levels of the organization: strategic, tactical and operational.

With this work, the authors stress the importance (1) of using alternative scenarios in management research and (2) of the way that human and social capitals and managerial cognition and internal contingencies influence the development of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities, especially in highly regulated industries such has sports clubs.

This work provides evidence on the importance of strategic coherence at different structural levels of the organization. Furthermore, it highlights the need to secure the right resources at the right time.

The authors propose a setting to run the study: a crystal market and an original measure of performance that reflect the relative achievement of market potential.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the relationship between inbound logistics (IL) activities and elements of resilience (EoR) can contribute to organisational resilience.

Two in-depth case-based studies were conducted in the dairy industry. After identifying EoR and IL activities through a systematic literature review, relationships among them have been empirically discussed in six groups (emerged content analysis results): supplier and response capability; transportation; security; quick response to disruption; logistics management; trust and knowledge.

A framework was developed describing the contribution of these six groups to organisational resilience by highlighting and discussing three aspects: rigidity of the hierarchy, type of relationship and geographical dispersion. These aspects emerged from the process of content analysis and are related to the companies’ characteristics.

The proposed framework can assist managers to decide which group of EoR and IL activities they should prioritise, depending on the company’s characteristics and needs.

Although some studies have discussed the IL contribution to generating resilience in companies, none of them have explored in detail the relationship between EoR and IL activities, and their contribution to organisational resilience. The proposed framework shows the contribution of the EoR to three different organisational aspects.

This study aims to investigate how sustainability and ethics are being addressed both by the literature and companies. Furthermore, it seeks to identify the specific strategies that these companies use to foster ethical behaviour and promote sustainability in their business operations.

The study entails a bibliometric analysis and a set of case studies from a sample of companies working in different industry sectors. Based on these tools, it analyses whether – and how – enterprises are placing an emphasis on sustainability and ethics as part of their businesses. In addition, the selected companies' unethical practices or socially irresponsible corporate activities were investigated and presented.

The findings suggest that using an ethics perspective can be a valuable tool in improving the accuracy and correctness of business decision-making. In addition, the paper has identified the fact that sustainability standards can be used to improve customer satisfaction as many important issues are addressed. Finally, the paper highlights the importance of ethical considerations when designing and implementing sustainability standards at enterprises and the need for regulatory guidance in this regard.

The paper addresses the need for studies on how sustainability and ethics are being discussed by both the literature and companies. The paper presents some elements that can be used as possible corporate indicators for a wider implementation of sustainability and ethics objectives in enterprises.