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This study aims to address the relevance of the mediating role of the relative absorptive capacity (ACAP-R) in the relation between absorptive capacity and innovation, contributing to a better understanding of innovation in a business network. Participants’ firms in this study are part of the supply network of an automotive cluster.

The study is developed in 225 companies that are part of the supply network of an automotive cluster in Mexico. A survey was applied to key firm informants who had been involved on processes of innovation, quality or continuous improvement. During data analysis, structural equation modeling was implemented with the support of SmartPLS 3.0 to understand the mediation role of relative absorptive capacity as a novel insight of innovation in a Mexican cluster.

The results demonstrate the partial mediator role of the ACAP-R among the absorptive capacities and the level of innovation of the companies that make up the network studied. The findings represent an approach to the understanding of one of the key dynamic capacities in the innovation process and, thus, to the competitiveness of organizations, which has scarcely been studied from the perspective of business networks.

The limitations of the research focus on the fact that the source of information in the surveys comes, in most cases, from the opinion of a key informant per unit surveyed, which is why there is a certain margin of subjectivity that could be reduced if there is more than one source of information in the same organization. It is also considered important that the information offered by the suppliers could be complemented by the opinion of clients. This would provide a more complete view of the circularity of information involved in inter-organizational exchanges.

The findings provide useful insights not only in terms of understanding the link between absorptive capacity and innovation, but also how to improve levels of innovation through knowledge exchanges that occur during the participation of suppliers and customers in a business network. Firms with high levels of ACAP are more likely to recognize the opportunity to benefit from external knowledge and to participate intensely in collaborative efforts. That is, technological similarity or similar knowledge base between source or recipient firms impacts their innovation.

Societal changes and technological development have brought about drastic lifestyle change in the past decades. This drastic change is evident when comparing the lifestyle and general characteristics of generations who have been born immersed in this technological context to those of other generations. The objective of this paper is to analyze brand image (BI) as determinant of brand attitude (AB), and the moderating effect of brand equity (BE), in the use of online information among millennial shoppers from Colombia. In general, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to existing literature related to the importance of generational membership in classifying individuals regarding brand perception (BI, AB and BE) and association with the use of shopping channels between different generations.

A hierarchical regression model is estimated with a sample of university students in Colombia who are considered potential coffee consumers, and who were classified as millennials based on their age.

The results support that BE effect has a greater impact on AB when consumers have a good BI. Millennials also use more online communication sources to create brand perceptions.

Nevertheless, few studies have concurrently analyzed the characteristics of brand building and types of sources of information (online vs offline). This paper attempts to analyze the behavior of millennial consumers and the use of information channels online vs offline to manage brand and analyze BI, AB and BE.

This paper aims to determine the impact of cultural context and socio-demographic characteristics on the users’ deterrents and motivators to co-creation online.

The data from two different cultures the UK (306 users) and Spain (307 users) have been collected and compared by performing multi-group analyzes (MGAs) across cultural context, age, gender and educational level using a structural equation modeling approach.

Cultural context, age, gender and educational level moderate the effect of the deterrents and motivators on the attitude and participation in co-creation online: users from individualistic, masculine, with low uncertainty avoidance cultural contexts are expected to be more motivated and express a stronger positive attitude toward co-creation online; young male users exhibit a higher level of positive attitude and higher effect of the motivators toward attitude; on the contrary, old women are exposed to the negative effect of the deterrents; the individuals with basic educational level exhibit a higher level of the deterrents’ effect.

The generalizability of the results across different cultural contexts requires further examination and cross-validation.

The MGAs of two different cultures (Spain and the UK) and samples of different ages, gender and educational levels provide practitioners with information, which cultures and groups of users are expected to perform better in co-creation activities online.

The first study empirically examines the moderating effect of cultural context and demographic characteristics on both deterrents and motivators and their effect on the attitude toward co-creation online.

determinar el impacto del contexto cultural y de las características sociodemográficas en los factores disuasorios y motivadores de los usuarios para la cocreación en línea.

Se han recogido y comparado los datos de dos culturas diferentes, del Reino Unido (306 usuarios) y de España (307 usuarios), realizando análisis multigrupo a través del contexto cultural, la edad, el género y el nivel educativo, utilizando un enfoque de modelado de ecuaciones estructurales.

El contexto cultural, la edad, el género y el nivel educativo moderan el efecto de los elementos disuasorios y motivadores sobre la actitud y la participación en la cocreación online: se espera que los usuarios de contextos culturales individualistas, masculinos y con baja tolerancia a la incertidumbre estén más motivados y expresen una actitud positiva más fuerte hacia la cocreación en línea; los usuarios masculinos jóvenes muestran un mayor nivel de actitud positiva y un mayor efecto de los motivadores sobre la actitud; por el contrario, las mujeres mayores están expuestas al efecto negativo de los disuasores; los individuos con un nivel educativo básico muestran un mayor nivel de efecto de los disuasores.

La generalización de los resultados en diferentes contextos culturales requiere un examen más profundo y una validación cruzada.

Los análisis multigrupo de dos culturas diferentes (España y Reino Unido) y muestras de diferente edad, género y nivel educativo proporcionan a los profesionales información sobre qué culturas y grupos de usuarios se espera que tengan un mejor rendimiento en las actividades de cocreación en línea.

Es el primer estudio que examina empíricamente el efecto moderador del contexto cultural y las características demográficas tanto en los factores disuasorios como en los motivadores y su efecto en la actitud hacia la co-creación online.

确定文化背景和社会人口特征对用户线上共同创造的阻碍因素和激励因素的影响。

数据收集自英国（306名用户）和西班牙（307名用户）这两种不同的文化背景, 并采用结构方程模型方法, 通过跨文化背景、年龄、性别和教育水平的多组分析对数据进行了比较。

在阻碍因素和激励因素对在线共同创造态度和参与的影响中, 文化背景、年龄、性别和教育水平起到调节作用：来自个人主义、阳刚主义、低不确定性规避文化语境的用户对线上共同创造的动机更强, 表现出更积极的态度; 年轻男性用户的积极态度和动机对态度的影响程度较高;相反, 老年妇女则受到了阻碍因素的负面影响; 具有基础教育水平的个体受阻碍因素影响较高。

研究结果在不同文化背景下的普适性需要进一步检验和交叉验证。

对两种不同文化(西班牙和英国)的多组分析, 以及不同年龄、性别和教育水平的样本, 为实践者提供了哪些文化和用户群体有望在线上共同创造活动中表现更好的信息。

这是第一个检验了文化背景和人口特征对抑制因素和激励因素的调节作用, 以及它们对线上共同创造态度的影响的实证研究。

The purpose of the study is to determine the impact that the crucial determinants have on the behavioural intention (BI) of undergraduates to adopt Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), addressing two perspectives that are students' technical experience and psychosocial factors.

This is a questionnaire study, and all the respondents are undergraduates in Barcelona, Spain. A total of 188 students are selected as survey subjects. Data collection applies the five-point Likert scale, and the collected information refers to demographic information and constructs related to the technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and partial least square (PLS) are used to examine the measurement model's convergent and discriminant validity and test the hypotheses implementing the bootstrapping method.

The results show perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are influential in forming an attitude (ATT), and PU could directly impact BI significantly. Additionally, the mediating role of ATT in the relationships amongst PU, PEOU and BI are investigated. Besides, perceived behavioural control (PBC) is found a critical variable and significantly impacts BI, whereas subjective norms (SN) is not found statistically significant in explaining BI in this study.

This study has confirmed that ATT has a positive mediation effect on PU, PEOU and BI. This study has also confirmed the validity and model fit of the incorporated model of TAM and TPB, which sufficiently accounts for the planned behavioural process of undergraduates to accept a MOOC and contributes to validating literature of the incorporated model of TAM and TPB. Besides, this study provides MOOCs managers with practical suggestions. First, ease-of-use interfaces should be designed and intensified. Second, more channels should be explored to satisfy students' needs. Third, managers should intensify the leverage of the systems and introduce the free trial period to new learners. Fourth, a bonus mechanism could be adopted to motivate students. Last, manager should intensify the construction of oral advertisements amongst students.

Extending existing research in a football context, this study explores how image and service quality influence spectator tribe satisfaction and loyalty and variations in behaviors depending on age, gender and emotional involvement.

Spectators aged 18 years and older who attended Barcelona Football Club home La Liga matches were sampled. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the model, and hybrid multigroup PLS-SEM was used to explore observed heterogeneity.

Image and service quality both influence spectator satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfaction and loyalty are associated differently with three tribes: a nonpassionate tribe characterized by low emotional involvement and younger and older passionate tribes composed of emotionally involved spectators aged <30 and >30 years old, respectively.

This study’s results contribute to strengthening the suitability of PLS-SEM and multigroup in sport management, in particular for analyzing the behavior of specific groups of football spectators.

The findings of this study underline image and service quality as crucial to football spectator satisfaction and loyalty, with emotional involvement and age defining different consumer tribes as potential targets for marketing purposes.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which social media competence (SMC) determines exporting companies’ actual adoption of social media applications, which eventually might impact these firms’ performance. Quantitative study where data were collected through a web-based survey addressed to Spanish exporters. SEM is employed for testing the hypotheses. SMC has an influence on the firm’s actual use of these social media applications, which in turn has an impact on the firm’s performance. However, the intention to use social media applications mediates the relationship between the firm’s SMC and its social media usage.

Value co-creation is an important topic of interest in marketing domain for the past decade. Co-creation via the internet has received a particular attention in the literature (O’Hern and Rindfleisch, 2010). Although there have been substantive number of studies of what motivates customers to participate in value co-creation in the internet-based platforms, there is a lack of research of what the deterrents are that may prevent customers from contributing their ideas online. This research was undertaken to define the deterrents from the customers and companies’ point of view. Furthermore, the difference, if exists, between the users’ and marketing professionals’ ranking of the inhibitors to co-creation online is also studied.

This exploratory qualitative research is based on 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with customers and 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with marketing specialists from different companies. Spearman’s rank correlation is applied to explore the relationship between the internet users’ and marketers’ responses.

There are nine constraining factors. The results show that although there is a repetition of the mentioned constraining factors indicated by the both groups of the interviewees, the ranking of the barriers is distinctive.

New conceptual information is received on what restrains customers from co-creation from both customers’ and companies’ point of view.

This paper explains the potential problems to be confronted when launching a co-creation project in the internet-based platforms and offers managers a preliminary guide to comprehension of the users’ deterrents rating.

The paper that defines deterrents to co-creation online.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the validity and utility of two theoretical approaches to understanding the relationship between strategic orientations, innovation and firm performance and to examine the role of innovation in the relationship while avoiding circular arguments. The universalistic approach suggests that strategic orientations have independent and parallel effects on firms’ performance, and that innovation does not influence this relationship. The holistic approach proposes that strategic orientations in a complementary and interrelated view have both direct and indirect effects on firms’ performance through innovation.

A meta-analytic path analysis applying two-stage structural equation modeling (TSSEM) was conducted on data from 132 primary studies and 33,063 observations.

The holistic approach was demonstrated to be superior due to its more explanatory power in linking more complex relationships through simultaneous direct and indirect effects and its capacity for including the interrelatedness and complementarity of strategic orientations. It was found that innovation has a full mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance, and a partial mediating role in the relationship between market orientation (MO) and learning orientation (LO) and firm performance.

The study used observed variables instead of latent variables for meta-analytic path analysis, which may reduce some sources of endogeneity. However, causal inference is not possible due to the nature of meta-analysis. The scope of the final sample was limited by some studies not reporting the estimates of correlations between constructs.

Managers can improve an organization's chances of success in the marketplace by adopting a holistic view of strategic orientations focusing on customer satisfaction, learning from the external environment and pursuing new market opportunities. Furthermore, an organization can gain a competitive advantage through innovation by creating products and services that are different from what is currently available in the market. To be successful, an organization must not only create innovative products and services but also market them effectively to consumers.

This study is the first to meta-analytically assess the explanatory value of two theorized models linking strategic orientations, innovation and firm performance. It also clarifies the role of innovation in the relationship between strategic orientations and firm performance.

This study aims to ask whether the funding behaviour of companies is different during a recession. Specifically, the authors study whether firms fund marketing resources and capabilities with internal or external financing during a recession and under which conditions of strategic financial flexibility debt might be used to fund marketing resources and capabilities in recessions.

This study estimates empirical models using a newly merged data set covering 17 years, from 2000 to 2016. The authors merge firms’ marketing and financial information from Advertising Age, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Compustat and the Centre for Research in Security Prices. The sample includes a panel of 653 firm-years of 67 top corporate advertisers.

The results indicate that firms take recessions as opportunities to be proactive and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities, companies with higher strategic financial flexibility relative to their industry peers tend to rely more on debt to fund short- and long-term marketing capabilities during recessions, firms use internal financing to fund their marketing budgets and short-term marketing capabilities in recessionary and non-recessionary periods and firms use internal financing and signals from past stock returns as mechanisms to fund long-term marketing capabilities.

The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on the antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities. The results extend the pecking order theory to include recessions and provide nuances of the financing drivers of resources and capabilities.

Companies should be proactive during recessions and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities. When negotiating marketing budgets with chief financial officers, marketing practitioners could suggest the sources to finance specific marketing resources and capabilities. Based on the results of top corporate advertisers, the authors recommend companies to fund marketing capabilities with internal resources (e.g. cash flows, retained earnings), and if cash is not available, companies need to rely on their superior strategic financial flexibility to access long-term debt and fund investments in marketing capabilities. The authors also recommend companies to fund long-term marketing capabilities by re-allocating investments. As well, signals from past performance are an important source to gain access to capital and fund investments in long-term marketing capabilities.

This study provides a more complete picture of the financial antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities in general and during a recession. The authors provide light on the moderating role of strategic financial flexibility during recessions. This study also clarifies the potential signalling of past performance for funding marketing resources and capabilities.

This paper fills a gap in the literature on branding, as local and glocal brands have not received as much attention as global brands from academics and practitioners and the scarce amount of relevant research done on glocal branding strategies is mainly theoretical or conceptual.

This paper therefore defines a model relating brand beliefs (brand quality, brand image, brand familiarity and brand as a social signalling value), brand attitudes and brand purchase intentions. The model is then tested with a sample of different categories/types of consumer brands (local, global and glocal). The influence of the type of brand on these relationships is then analysed.

The findings suggest that brand quality is the most important driver of brand attitude for any type of brand, and that the relationship between brand quality and brand attitude, as well as between brand attitude and brand purchase intention, is weaker for a glocal brand than for a local or global brand.

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the influence of brand type on brand associations and attitude configurations and the effects these attitudes have on buying intentions. This work is also relevant for the managers’ efforts to develop more effective global, glocal and local marketing strategies for brand positioning.

El presente trabajo persigue contribuir a la literatura sobre marcas al tratar sobre las marcas locales y las marcas glocales, puesto que éstas han estado menos estudiadas que las marcas globales.

Definimos un modelo que relaciona las creencias de marca (la calidad de marca, la imagen de marca, la familiaridad de marca y la marca como señal de valor social), las actitudes de marca y las intenciones de compra de la marca, probamos el modelo con una muestra de diferentes categorías de marcas de consumo (local, global y glocal) y analizamos la influencia del tipo de marca en estas relaciones.

Nuestros resultados sugieren que la calidad es el impulsor más importante de la actitud hacia la marca, para cualquier tipo de marca, y que la relación entre la calidad y la actitud hacia la marca, así como entre la actitud hacia la marca y la intención de compra es más débil para una marca glocal que para una local o global.

La investigación proporciona nuevas evidencias empíricas en relación a la influencia del tipo de marca (local, global o glocal) en las asociaciones de marca y en la configuración de las actitudes hacia dichas marcas y en su intención de compra. Nuestro trabajo es de interés también para los directivos de marketing ya que les puede permitir desarrollar mejores estrategias de posicionamiento para marcas locales, globales o glocales.

Marca global, Marca local, Marca glocal, Teoría de las señales, Actitud hacia la marca, Intención de compra

Trabajo de investigación