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This paper aims to propose an instrument for measuring social commerce among entrepreneurs from the USA, Mexico and Colombia.

The methodological design was quantitative, explanatory, observational and transversal, where a sample of 1,644 entrepreneurs from the USA (n = 525), Mexico (n = 608) and Colombia (n = 510) was obtained. For the validation and reliability of the instruments, a structural equation model (SEM) was developed for the three studies carried out. Regarding the goodness and adjustment indices of the SEM in the three countries, they turned out to be acceptable.

Through the results obtained in the three studies carried out, it has been verified that the instrument of social commerce in its two factors: Marketing and Market Participation, has sufficient validity and statistical reliability. Likewise, it has been verified that both the manifest variables and the latent variables of the construct show a significant relationship between the three studies carried out in different populations.

The findings obtained in the presented study contribute to entrepreneurs, leaders and managers of the business sector to improve the entrepreneurial project through marketing and market participation of the product and service, as well as the business unit that seeks to position itself in the market. Likewise, it helps entrepreneurs to understand analytically and systematically the constructs that social commerce is made up of, which will help entrepreneurial leaders reduce or control their risk when considering social commerce in their entrepreneurship, achieving the success of the entrepreneurial project through its positioning in the market considering marketing and market participation as main factors of social commerce.

The findings are relevant and of great value to the literature because at present there is not enough research that is focused on the variables analysed related to social commerce in the contexts of the USA, Mexico and Colombia. The relevance of the present scale in comparison to others proposed by the literature is that the proposed scale is focused on entrepreneurs who seek to be more successful through the positioning of their business unit, product or service in the market through the market participation. It is achieved through marketing strategies. Another contribution provided by the present study lies in the methodological robustness of the scale and its analysis, comparing it with studies in three leading entrepreneurship countries in Latin America, comparing the validity and reliability as well as the goodness of fit indices of the proposed model in each of the studies. They were significant and very similar, so the proposed scale is of great value and usefulness in the literature.

On the basis of labor economics theories, this study examines how adjustment in human capital accounts for labor cost stickiness.

This study makes use of employee education level as a measure of the quality of human capital and relies on data from Chinese public firms to conduct the empirical test. This study focuses on two important components of labor cost changes: one corresponding to the adjustment in the number of employees (capacity adjustment) and another corresponding to the adjustment in the mix of employee education levels (quality adjustment).

This study reveals that labor cost changes driven by the adjustment of employee education level are sticky. This stickiness cannot be explained by the standard adjustment cost theory. This further shows that firms that actively adjust their employee quality during downturns experience improved future performance. The findings are robust to alternative measures and specifications.

This study provides new evidence for and insights into the cost behavior literature. Previous studies treat input resources in a homogenous way and focus on the effect of capacity adjustment. This study considers the heterogeneity of resources and examines three dimensions of salary cost adjustment: capacity, structure, and unit cost. In line with the economic theory of sticky costs proposed by Banker et al. (2013a), the study’s evidence sheds light on the additional underlying economic mechanisms driving cost stickiness behavior. Specifically, managers asymmetrically adjust both employee structure and average salaries, in addition to employee number. This study also adds to the existing knowledge of the consequences of managers' actions regarding cost behavior.