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The purpose of this paper is to further research on the Kaplan and Norton (1996) balanced scorecard (BSC) model after having discerned that previous work has so far neglected to explore the interrelationships between the model’s dimensions and the influence contextual factors may have.

The data set used to meet this paper’s main objectives was collected using a structured online survey sent to the member companies of the Catalan Association of Accounting and Management (ACCID). Specifically, the surveys were directed to the heads of the finance departments. From the 3,500 mails sent, 336 companies decided to participate in the study. These figures represent an acceptable response rate of 9.6 per cent. As 83 of the companies declared that they would only use financial indicators, the final study sample totalled 253 firms.

The results demonstrate the mediating effects intermediate constructs have, and highlight how important leadership is in achieving success or high performance. These results follow on from previous empirical literature that analysed other management systems such as the Baldrige, the EFQM or the Deming models. In addition, some differences in the relationships as per the contextual factors studied have been detected. Therefore, the conclusions reached in this paper will be of interest to both academics and professionals in perceiving and understanding the logical flow of consequences any decision taken will produce.

The authors’ main contributions are: to have strictly followed the theoretical BSC model by combining both formative and reflective dimensions using the emerging partial least squares methodology; to have based the study on 253 firms and to have used 37 category indicators which, to our knowledge, are more than any other previous work; to have developed a mediation model designed to appreciate the interrelationships the dimensions in the BSC model have; to have analysed the possible differences there are in the interrelationships between the dimensions using two widely accepted influencing contextual factors in current literature, namely a firm’s size and its typology.

Accounting regulation is a highly topical issue for listed companies in Europe. From 1 January 2005 all companies listed in the EU member states have been required to produce financial reports compliant with international accounting standards. Financial reports will be comparable with each other only if full compliance with the international standards can be ensured. Historically, however, an enduring weakness of the international standard‐setting regime has been its inability to enforce compliance with its standards. There is a danger that implementation and compliance will be variable across the adopting countries, and that deeply ingrained national reporting practices will persist. Where such practices include a high incidence of earnings management techniques and behaviours, any improvement in the quality of reported financial information may be slow to materialise.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations for the adoption of quality management practices (QMPs) and the effects exerted by the advanced management information systems (AMIS) as mediating factors in a sector consisting of highly competitive companies with a high mortality rate in recent years: travel agencies.

The results were based on a survey completed by 185 travel agencies with less than 50 employees, covering over 5 per cent of the SME travel agencies in Spain. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the links between the studied dimensions.

The findings indicate that QMPs have a positive, direct influence on the adoption of AMIS and that the adoption of AMIS has a positive, direct impact on financial performance. The results suggest that quality policies facilitate greater use of financial indicators but not in the use of non-financial indicators, where the key to better business performance lies.

Therefore, the results of this paper indicate that being proactive about quality practices can provide travel agencies a great number of benefits through the implementation of AMIS.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the growing literature field of intellectual capital (IC) by analysing corporate IC disclosures by leading Spanish firms over a three‐year period from 2000 to 2002.

Content analysis methodology was applied to the annual reports of 12 Spanish companies over a three‐year period.

A statistically significant increase was found in the volume of IC disclosures over a three‐year period. There is a greater volume of communication in the area of external (customer/relational) capital than in either internal or employee capital. This corresponds with the results of other country‐based studies. However, IC reporting remains at a relatively limited level, and disclosures are dominated by customer relational items.

This paper makes an original contribution to the growing body of empirical studies on IC reporting and describes the development of IC reporting in Spain.

This paper aims to describe the situation of the agrobiodiversity in La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park, a protected area in which the agricultural and animal husbandry sectors play a significant role. It also aims to discuss the activities promoted by the park and by other institutions aimed at conserving and promoting local agrobiodiversity.

One of the three lines of work in the Natural Park in the field of agriculture is the recuperation, conservation and divulgation of notable and/or endangered agricultural species and varieties. This paper describes some of the work carried out in this field.

The institutions are vital in the recovery of interesting species and varieties, and in order to ensure their conservation it is essential to promote projects in which the agrarian sector can participate.

Collaboration between the institutions and the agrarian sector is essential for the conservation of the agrobiodiversity, although the interests of farmers and the use of certain species and varieties do not always coincide.

The commercial interest and the knowledge of the use and management of some of the conserved species and varieties may have been lost over time, which makes their implantation difficult. Thus, it is important to restore popular knowledge associated with all species and varieties.

In light of increasingly homogeneous agricultural and stock‐raising practices, activities such as those implemented by the La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park have a vital part to play in the conservation of agrobiodiversity.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to test the role of the managerial team’s commitment to quality deployment, quality performance and firm performance; second, to shed light on the effects of a certified quality management system on this chain; and third, to analyze the effects of changes in this chain on different management team attitudes, namely, innovativeness.

Based on a survey conducted in a sample of 370 hotels from the region of Madrid (Spain), the model and hypotheses were validated using structural equation modeling analysis.

The results reveal the importance of a commitment to quality for quality deployment. In addition, quality deployment has a strong impact on operations and employee and customer performance. However, only impacts derived from customers’ perceptions of service quality affect firm performance. In addition, a contextual analysis was performed to verify whether various contextual factors (certification in a quality management standard and the innovative attitude of the management team) could modify the previously obtained results for the full sample.

The management team should understand that its attitude toward quality management could affect the company’s overall performance. On the one hand, the team should be aware that the cost of implementing quality practices could be a burden for employees in the performance of their daily activities. On the other hand, there is a positive relationship between involvement in addressing customers’ requirements and financial performance. Therefore, a balance between the efforts to maintain a certain level of quality by the firm’s employees and the service quality offered to the customers is crucial to achieving better financial performance.

The impact of the implementation of quality management practices on performance has been widely studied; however, the role of intangible factors has not been commonly discussed in service industries in general and even less so in the hospitality sector. This paper analyses the influence of the quality management team’s attitudes toward innovativeness and the implementation of a quality management standard.