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Many of the papers that analyse human resource management (HRM) in merger and acquisition (M&A) processes focus on the last two stages (integration and implementation). Then, the purpose of this paper is to propose an HRM model for the first stage of the process (planning) with four key factors: the due diligence process, the integration plan, the communication plan and the learning plan.

From the theoretical model, the authors analyse a case study of a multinational company that operates in the mechanical engineering sector.

The results show the special importance of HRM in the success of the M&A process. And, the main actions implemented in human resources (HRs) contributing to the success of this process are identified.

Subsequent investigations could conduct similar analyses for the rest of the stages of the M&A process (integration and implementation), with the objective of presenting a complete HRM model in M&A processes.

The case study allows researchers to learn from professionals and business leaders while also offering a theoretical model that can help managers make decisions and improve the management of these processes.

The main contribution of this study has been to observe how HRs are managed in the planning stage of M&As.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a human resource management model for the integration stage of mergers and acquisitions (M/A) process with four key factors: leadership and integration team; change and restructuring process; human resources (HR) resistance; valuable HR retention.

The authors analyze a case study of a multinational company that operates in the mechanical engineering sector.

The results show the special importance of human resource management in the success of the merger and acquisition process. And, the main actions implemented in HR contributing to the success of this process are identified.

Subsequent investigations could conduct similar analyses for the planning and implementation stages of the merger and acquisition process, with the objective of presenting a complete HR management model in merger and acquisition processes.

The case study allows researchers to learn from professionals and business leaders while also offering a theoretical model that can help managers make decisions and improve the management of these processes.

The main contribution of this study has been to observe how HR are managed in the integration stage of M/A.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the specification language TML for adaptive mission plans that the authors designed and implemented for the open-source framework Aerostack for aerial robotics.

The TML language combines a task-based hierarchical approach together with a more flexible representation, rule-based reactive planning, to facilitate adaptability. This approach includes additional notions that abstract programming details. The authors built an interpreter integrated in the software framework Aerostack. The interpreter was validated with flight experiments for multi-robot missions in dynamic environments.

The experiments proved that the TML language is easy to use and expressive enough to formulate adaptive missions in dynamic environments. The experiments also showed that the TML interpreter is efficient to execute multi-robot aerial missions and reusable for different platforms. The TML interpreter is able to verify the mission plan before its execution, which increases robustness and safety, avoiding the execution of certain plans that are not feasible.

One of the main contributions of this work is the availability of a reliable solution to specify aerial mission plans, integrated in an active open-source project with periodic releases. To the best knowledge of the authors, there are not solutions similar to this in other active open-source projects. As additional contributions, TML uses an original combination of representations for adaptive mission plans (i.e. task trees with original abstract notions and rule-based reactive planning) together with the demonstration of its adequacy for aerial robotics.

This paper aims at providing an overview and synthesis of the existing body of knowledge about greenwashing. Special attention is paid to the articles directly linked with agriculture, food industry and food retail.

A bibliometric analysis was performed over 351 documents extracted from the WoS database, using SciMAT and VOSviewer software programs.

Three periods in the academic literature about greenwashing can be distinguished: ground-setting (2003–2010), trail-blazing (2011–2015) and remarkable growth (2016–2020). Along this evolution, a body of knowledge which stemmed from the literature about CSR has achieved a major development, deploying different research lines such as stakeholders' management, marketing and communication and audit. A specific analysis of the academic literature about greenwashing in agriculture, food industry and food retail has been carried out, showing a need for further development.

The development of scientific knowledge about greenwashing puts this social claim on the spotlight of business management studies, helping to fight greenwashing and, this way, to reduce the environmental impact of corporate activities. Studying greenwashing will help to reduce its frequency and, therefore, heal the planet.

Some previous studies have provided systematic reviews of the literature using different approaches, but they did not untangle the intellectual structure and the evolution of the body of research about greenwashing. This article originally provides a thorough analysis of these aspects, as well as a closer look at the impact of greenwashing practices in the academic literature regarding agriculture, food industry and food retail.

This study conducts a comparative analysis of the impact of educational mismatch on Spanish wages. This paper aims to focus on the industrial, construction and service sectors at three levels of disaggregation: sector, occupation and gender.

The over-education, required education and under-education (ORU model), was applied to data from the 2018 Spanish Wages Structure Survey conducted by the Spanish National Statistics Institute.

The industrial sector is the one that best manages over-education by offering the highest returns to each year of over-education. It is also the sector that most values the education of women, particularly those in highly qualified positions.

This study compares the wage effects of educational mismatch in the service, industry and construction sectors. Previous literature has ignored the latter sectors in this field of study, but the results of the present study show that the industrial sectors significantly value and remunerates worker education. Therefore, it may be worthy to focus certain economic and social policies on this sector, to contribute to reducing gender wage gaps and gender employment discrimination in the economy.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of quality certifications on apparent labour productivity in a sample of hotels in Spain.

In line with Mairesse and Kremp (1993), the theoretical model was based on a Cobb–Douglas production function readapted to the goals of the study.

The descriptive results show that labour productivity increases only when certifications and quality standards specific to the hospitality industry are implemented and the tourist destination is committed to quality. The econometric analysis shows that the hotel category, belonging to a chain, and outsourcing services have a positive impact on labour productivity. In contrast, the location of the establishment in areas other than the coast or the capital city of a province has a negative effect on labour productivity. Of the quality models and certifications studied, only the Spanish Q-Mark certificate significantly improves hotel productivity (an average increase of 23.27 per cent).

These results provide support for the Spanish Tourism Quality System implemented by the Spanish Ministry of Tourism, which has not only attempted to increase the quality of tourism hotels by increasing their competitiveness and performance but also by providing them with a quality certificate that can be used as a marketing strategy in international markets.

The main contribution of this study is to show how the adoption of quality standards and certifications increases or decreases labour productivity in hotels. Given that most of the previous literature has only taken into account quantities, this study adds to the literature by incorporating the concept of quality into productivity issues.

Cryptography has become an essential feature for many current technological applications. Cryptographic methods are usually divided into private‐key (or symmetric) and public‐key (or asymmetric) algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to propose a client/server architecture to efficiently authenticate users by means of their fingerprint biometric feature. To do this, the personal data of each user are acquired at the client and, afterwards, they are conveniently encrypted using a combination of up‐to‐date symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms.

First the main issues related to public‐key and private‐key cryptography, including well‐known algorithms, such as data encryption standard and Rijndael methods are reviewed. After that, a proposal for the implementation of a client/server architecture to authenticate users by means of fingerprint features is proposed.

The results of the experiments show that such architecture is optimal for being applied in real authentication systems, provides high‐security standards and can be applied to any practical biometric system.

Biometrics has become an attractive alternative to password‐based systems: using a password is insecure, as they can easily be forgotten or stolen. Fingerprints are the most widely used biometric feature. This paper uses recent fingerprint identification algorithms together with the most advanced cryptographic methods recommended nowadays. This way, the system utilizes state‐of‐the‐art techniques that are also introduced in many practical systems; that is the reason why it will be flexible enough to integrate, any forthcoming needs of cryptographic systems.

This chapter analyses how corporate governance codes in Europe approach CSR, devoting specific guidelines or recommendations or specifying the responsibility of implementing and disclosing CSR in the company.

Content analysis have been used in a sample of 27 corporate governance codes of 27 European countries, issued in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK), issued by governments (seven codes), national stock exchange (eight codes), industrial associations (six codes) and composites (six codes).

Only five out of 27 codes make and explicit reference to the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Two of them reflect the importance of a CSR Report (Slovenia and Spain), whereas the Spanish Code was the only code which devoted a section to the implementation of a CSR policy.

Although corporate governance codes could represent an opportunity to shift the focus from an implicit CSR approach to an explicit CSR approach in Europe, the truth is that content related to the issue and its level of specificity does not reflect that change yet.

Previous literature has not focused on the analysis of corporate governance codes from a CSR perspective, so the chapter is relevant for policy makers when it comes to updating corporate governance codes.

The purpose of this study is to provide more knowledge about the model to generate reputation and its relationship in the long term with companies’ strategy of social responsibility. Particularly, research is done to test whether there is a positive effect of firms’ social behaviour (corporate social responsibility [CSR]), analysing differences of intensity and consistency, on their corporate reputation (CR) and whether the current financial crisis is a factor that has changed the relationship between both variables (moderator factor).

This study uses a sample of 26 Spanish large firms of the Ibex35 index and covers an eight-year period from 2004 to 2011. To test the hypotheses of this research, a fixed-effects model was estimated using moderating regression analysis.

The results obtained show that, for the Spanish Ibex35 companies, CSR practices according to their consistency have a significant positive effect on CR and in turbulent environments, as in the current financial crisis, it has had a significant positive influence on the CSR-CR relationship.

Although a substantial number of empirical studies have examined the relationship between firms’ strategy and their performance, only a few of them have analysed the impact of the external environment on this relationship, whereby there is a need for longitudinal studies with different economic scenarios to achieve better knowledge of the CSR–CR relationship.