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1 – 10 of 10Igor Tomasevic, Vladimir Tomovic, Predrag Ikonic, Jose Manuel Lorenzo Rodriguez, Francisco J. Barba, Ilija Djekic, Ivan Nastasijevic, Slavisa Stajic and Dusan Zivkovic
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of the computer vision system (CVS) to evaluate the colour of poultry meat. The advantages of the CVS over traditional…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of the computer vision system (CVS) to evaluate the colour of poultry meat. The advantages of the CVS over traditional methods were also explored.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was carried out on m. pectoralis major samples of three animals for each of the following four species: chicken, turkey, duck and goose. The total colour difference (ΔE) and the degree of difference of hue, chroma and lightness between the methods were calculated. In addition, a trained panel of 14 people was used to carry out three different similarity tests analysed using χ2 one sample test and one-way ANOVA. The correlation coefficient between CVS and colourimeter measures was evaluated using the Spearman rank correlation test.
Findings
The total colour difference (ΔE) between the methods employed was so large that the generated colour(s) could be considered more opposite than similar. The CVS-generated colour chips were more similar to the sample of the meat products visualised on the monitor compared to colourimeter-generated colour chips in all (100 per cent) individual trials performed. The use of the colourimeter for colour evaluation of lighter coloured poultry meat (chicken and turkey) was unrepresentative.
Practical implications
In this study, a CVS was developed to measure the colour of poultry meat as an alternative to conventional colourimeters.
Originality/value
The research has demonstrated that the use of a CVS should be considered a superior alternative to the traditional method for measuring colour of chicken, turkey, duck and goose meat.
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Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez, José‐Manuel Prado‐Lorenzo, Luis Rodríguez‐Domínguez and Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez
The purpose of this study is to analyse whether CSR practices performed by European companies (both those CSR practices related to marketing‐based strategies and those that are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse whether CSR practices performed by European companies (both those CSR practices related to marketing‐based strategies and those that are not) create value. That value creation will be gauged through two variables: reputation and shareholder value creation.
Design/methodology/approach
To carry out this research, the 120 biggest European companies whose CSR practices have been analysed by Deloitte and Kinchhoff in The Good Company Ranking were taken. European firms have adopted an active stance on CSR and their organisational aspects and responsibilities related to sustainability are better‐founded compared with other companies. Financial data and reputation were obtained from the Forbes and Fortune websites, respectively.
Findings
The findings obtained show that all CSR practices, especially those linked to enhancing a company's image, have a positive effect on shareholder value creation, given that investors are able to detect the level of corporate commitment to sustainable development. On the other hand, none of the typologies of CSR practices undertaken have a relevant influence on corporate reputation.
Originality/value
The results of this study advise managers to design their CSR strategies with an orientation to increasing corporate reputation through large investments in CSR which prevent them from being imitated by direct rivals.
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José‐Manuel Prado‐Lorenzo, Luis Rodríguez‐Domínguez, Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez and Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez
The purpose of this study is to analyse different factors behind the disclosure of corporate information on issues related to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse different factors behind the disclosure of corporate information on issues related to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change world‐wide.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis carried out was performed in two stages: analysis of the data obtained through content analysis and analysis of the factors that influence the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change using a dependency model, a multiple linear regression. Several variables were introduced to represent the size of the companies, leverage, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and Market‐to‐Book ratio. Also, other dummy variables have been incorporated: Kyoto Protocol, activity sector in which the company operates and inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
Findings
The results obtained show a direct relationship between corporate size, its market capitalization and the disclosure of information in addition to proposed Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators on greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, an inverse relationship between ROE and disclosure is detected.
Practical implications
The findings emphasize that the main quoted companies operating in industries related to greenhouse gas emissions typically reveal information on almost all the GRI core indicators as well as the additional items specifically proposed for this issue. Moreover, the results suggest a trend for companies to utilize information on greenhouse gas emissions as a mechanism that enables them to legitimise themselves with those groups that can be of benefit to them.
Originality/value
The paper has analysed the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and other information of importance to climate change in companies from different countries, some of which have ratified, approved, adhered to or accepted the Kyoto Protocol, and some of which have still not accepted it.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of political instability on rural credit in Lima between 1835 and 1865. In particular, it explores the effects of wars on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of political instability on rural credit in Lima between 1835 and 1865. In particular, it explores the effects of wars on interest rates for the agricultural sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper relies on primary sources for the study of the early credit market of Lima. In particular, the study relies on a sample of more than 800 notarized loans for 1835–1865, collected from the National Archives of Peru, to determine the effect of wars on the cost of credit.
Findings
The evidence shows that wars increased interest rates on rural loans and that the impact of wars on the cost of credit was greater when the State lacked fiscal resources. Political instability made funding more costly for landlords and farmers, especially in the late 1830s and early 1840s.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few historical studies on the role of wars on rural credit in Latin America. It contributes to our understanding of the linkages between political instability and financial development.
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José‐Manuel Prado‐Lorenzo, Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez, Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez and Luis Rodríguez‐Domínguez
The purpose of this study is to analyse CSR practices implemented by Spanish companies and the relationship between such practices and corporate financial performance.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse CSR practices implemented by Spanish companies and the relationship between such practices and corporate financial performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis carried out was performed in two phases or stages: analysis of the data obtained through content analysis; and analysis of the motivations behind CSR practices using a dependency model, multiple linear regression, enabling their effect on corporate performance to be explained. Several control variables were introduced to represent the size of the companies, expressed in terms of total assets, and the industry in which the firm operates.
Findings
The paper underpins the fact that in Spain there has been a significant increase in practices favouring the reduction of environmental impact, as well as the creation of comfortable workplaces, especially promoting workers' rights. Several of these corporate practices associated with social responsibility in Spanish firms show a positive and significant impact on the rate of sales growth but there is a lack of impact on productivity or market value. Moreover, other responsible practices are not related to short‐run improvements in companies' performance.
Practical implications
The findings allow the authors to conclude that CSR practices in Spanish firms are geared towards social welfare, and that they are mainly associated with differentiation with regard to competitors and improving the company image, which lead to performance‐linked economic advantages (such as sales increases).
Originality/value
The paper has analysed corporate practices in a specific country separately (Spain) and has determined the relationship between CSR and firm performance.
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Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez and José‐Manuel Prado‐Lorenzo
The ambiguous effect of sustainable business practices on business financial performance is explained empirically as the result of the disparity of the practices analyzed, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The ambiguous effect of sustainable business practices on business financial performance is explained empirically as the result of the disparity of the practices analyzed, the inadequate relation proposed and the misspecification of the moderating variables. The purpose of the present study is to determine the effect that each of these factors can have as justification for the divergence of outcomes in previous studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Several dependence models have been estimated in order to observe the type of effect of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) practices on FP, attempting to establish whether this relationship is linear, positive or negative, or a curve. Additionally, the authors interacted these GHGE practices with the level of firms' innovation in relation to their competitors.
Findings
The results show that greenhouse gas emission controls have an inverse‐linear effect on firm performance, independently of their level of innovation. This relationship is justified in that in contrast to previous articles, the authors have evidence of a null relationship between particular corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and research and development expenses.
Originality/value
It is shown that it is the type of CSR practice observed and the business motives underlying it that is the determining factor of these divergences.
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– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Design/methodology/approach
Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue.
Findings
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations.
Originality/value
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.
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Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez, José Manuel Prado‐Lorenzo and Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the bidirectional relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and innovation according to the resource‐based…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the bidirectional relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and innovation according to the resource‐based theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a sample formed by companies with investments in R&D for the 2003‐2007 period worldwide, a bidirectional model is defined, one model in which the innovation realized by companies is a function of CSR practices, activity sector, firm size and risk, and another model in which CSR practices are a function of innovation, activity sector, firm size and risk.
Findings
The results of both models show that the bidirectional relationship between the two strategic decisions is negative. However, the effect of the sustainable practices undertaken by those companies listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index on innovative efforts is statistically less significant. It was also found that this type of investment takes three years to show its value added in CSR practices and that the relationship between innovation and corporate social responsibility practices is not the same in different sectors.
Practical implications
The empirical evidence suggests that, in general, companies do not implement innovations linked to topics of sustainability; at the same time, an incompatibility exists between investment in R&D and the encouragement of corporate sustainable behavior.
Originality/value
Previous studies have focused more on analyzing the influence of CSR practices on innovation and in this paper the influence of innovation on CSR practices is also analyzed.
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María Muñoz Sanz-Agero and Carl Antonius Lemke Duque
This study provides a new look at the late 19th-century university issue in Spain. Loss of self-government among universities and the state’s centralization brought a conflict…
Abstract
Purpose
This study provides a new look at the late 19th-century university issue in Spain. Loss of self-government among universities and the state’s centralization brought a conflict between science and religion to the fore in the process of the secularization of knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
We first delve into the anti-Darwinian framework associated with the scientific professionalization process, focusing on the case of the jurist Antonio Hernández Fajarnés (1851–1909). Secondly, we study the idea of the university that emerged from the Ateneo de Madrid, analyzing key speeches from the jurist Francisco Fernández de Henestrosa (1855–s.d.) given in 1887/88 and from the pharmacist José Rodríguez Carracido (1856–1928).
Findings
The study concludes that the Restoration Era in Spain was characterized by a generalized desire – shared by neo-Scholastics, conservatives and liberal rationalists – to improve the public university system. In this context, French influence was no doubt decisive; however, the Humboldtian university idea had already begun to have notable influence.
Originality/value
This article analyzes sources yet unknown to international research, such as the Ateneo de Madrid debates and Spanish university rectors’ inaugural speeches. It opens up a critical examination of the so-called displacement of educational principles in Spain toward a state-centered system of doctrinal moderantismo as opposed to the nation-centered system of the Cádiz liberalism. At the same time, it identifies key pockets of resistance relative to Spanish university transformation toward increased methodological secularization.
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This article focuses on the study of the shaping of pedagogy as a discipline in Spain prior to the Civil War. Its aim is to identify those elements that helped pedagogy become…
Abstract
Purpose
This article focuses on the study of the shaping of pedagogy as a discipline in Spain prior to the Civil War. Its aim is to identify those elements that helped pedagogy become constituted as a distinct field of knowledge that could offer rigorous insight into the world of education.
Design/methodology/approach
The article uses the framework proposed by Rita Hofstetter and Bernard Schneuwly for the shaping of a disciplinary field. Finally, it briefly examines the process of professionalization, using the approach advocated by the sociologist Elliott Freidson.
Findings
The analysis carried out concludes that at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936 the process of professionalization and consolidation of pedagogy as a discipline had been completed in Spain.
Originality/value
The article presents the originality of reinterpreting the elements offered by Spanish history of education in the light of an international theoretical framework. This allows a new understanding of the process of constitution of pedagogy as a disciplinary field while offering the international public a case study according to international standards.
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