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Gastronomy is currently becoming a predominant factor for understanding and taking part in the cultural heritage of a destination. The enjoyment of culinary pleasures has become a primary motivating factor when choosing a travel destination. Gastronomy is, therefore, a fundamental part of the satisfaction that the traveller experiences when visiting a location.

Data collection for the research was based on the completion of fieldwork with a sample of tourists who visited the Ecuadorian province of Manabí. Based on this understanding and completed fieldwork, the study analyses the gastronomic experiences of tourists visiting the province of Manabí (Ecuador).

study shows the existence of three types of tourists, based on their higher or lower interest in the local gastronomy when travelling: survivors, enjoyers and experiencers. The results also reveal that there are different levels of satisfaction regarding local gastronomy in terms of interest and the previous cultural motivation of the tourist.

The characterisation of the different tourist segments identified and the assessments that these dictate regarding the destination’s gastronomy allow tourist managers to develop and offer tourist products adapted to the wishes and needs of tourists.

Research involves the innovation in the use of segmentation models for culinary tourism widely considered in Europe but applied in this case to developing countries in Latin America.

U.S. military facilities abroad are key sites around which foreign citizens and U.S. officers negotiate questions of sovereignty with a particular intensity. Between 1999 and 2009, Manta, Ecuador, was home to one of the most strategic U.S. Air Force “forward operating locations” (or FOLs) in the Western hemisphere. While rejected by most Ecuadorian legal scholars, anti-FOL activists, and the current Ecuadorian administration as a violation of national sovereignty, the facility was widely embraced by residents of the city itself, who actively rejected this characterization of “violation” by arguing that the FOL was, on the contrary, a strategic means of bolstering their “municipal sovereignty.” Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic research on and around the FOL in 2006–2007, this chapter tracks the efforts of Manta residents, U.S. military personnel, and anti-base activists to both circumscribe and expand the various registers in which they articulated their understandings of “sovereignty.”

This paper aims to show the relationships between corporate social responsibility, job satisfaction (in its different facets or aspects) and employee commitment. In addition, the paper aims to identify the mediating role that facets of job satisfaction in the relationship between CSR and worker commitment.

The authors propose a model of relations between the variables indicated and the use of a variance-based structural equation modelling technique to identify the relations in a sample of 318 workers from Ecuadorian companies who answered a questionnaire. Specifically, the partial least squares (PLS) methodology was employed using the Smart PLS software.

The results and findings of this work confirm the theoretical hypotheses specific to the influence of CSR on the five facets of job satisfaction. On the other hand, it should be stressed that only job satisfaction in itself has positive effects on employee engagement. Furthermore, our study shows that satisfaction with co-workers has a negative effect on commitment. However, this study's most relevant contribution is the consideration of the mediating nature of some aspects of job satisfaction in the relationship between CSR and organisational commitment: positive for job satisfaction itself and negative in the case of satisfaction with co-workers. Therefore, implementing CSR practices can be useful for organisations that wish to foster positive attitudes among their employees.

The work enriches specific knowledge about the relationships between CSR and some employee attitudes and behaviours: commitment and job satisfaction. Of particular relevance is the fact that CSR favourably conditions the commitment of employees through the satisfaction derived from the work itself. The presence of a negative impact of co-worker satisfaction on engagement highlights the need to examine CSR actions that generate adverse impacts on this facet of satisfaction.

Archaeological evidence from the prehistoric Spondylus industry of coastal Ecuador is analyzed here to clarify how craft production was structured and the role that it played in the rise of social complexity. Many models of social development propose that elite cooption of specialized craft production can be a useful avenue through which aspiring elites can gain differential status. Contrary to the expectations of these models, data from coastal Ecuador indicates that craft production of sumptuary goods was an activity primarily carried out by household units for the benefit of the domestic economy. Increased trafficking with northern Peruvian states at ca. 750 seems to have promoted local social stratification by attracting large numbers of households to the restricted locales where they could exploit these resources, which in turn prompted a strengthening of the kinds of political conditions that facilitate orderly interaction and minimize internal social conflict.

In this paper, the authors adopt the theory of the circular economy to study the transitions that take place in three case studies in Mexico and Ecuador. The work is aimed to systematize a circular economy assessment tool that fosters opportunities for improvement in business practices.

The methodology is based on a descriptive quantitative analysis, where a checklist is made with 91 items and nine study variables. This is from the study of the bibliography and business practice. Furthermore, the neural network method is used in a case study to predict the level of circular economy and the importance of each variable according to the sensitivity by the Lek’s profile method.

It is based on a descriptive quantitative analysis, where a checklist with 91 items and nine study variables is made, defined from a bibliographic study and business practice. Furthermore, the neural network method is used in a case study to predict the level of circular economy and the importance of each variable based on sensitivity.

The application of the tool requires prior knowledge of the circular economy approach, which is why specialized personnel are needed for its application. This makes research more expensive in time and human resources.

The practical and methodological contribution of this work lies in the feasibility of the tool that favors the definition of improvement actions for the implementation contribution to the circular economy in business practices.

The social contribution is framed in the gradual transition to circular economy approaches in underdeveloped countries.

The use of the neural network method to predict the level of circular economy in a case study allows making decisions in a predictive way. This encourages the development of the circular economy according to the context needs.

En este trabajo adoptamos la teoría de la economía circular para estudiar las transiciones que ocurren en tres casos de estudio en México y Ecuador. El trabajo tiene como objetivo sistematizar una herramienta de evaluación de la economía circular que fomente oportunidades de mejora en las prácticas empresariales.

La metodología se basa en un análisis cuantitativo descriptivo, donde se elabora un checklist con 91 ítems y nueve variables de estudio. Esto a partir del estudio de la bibliografía y la práctica empresarial. Además, el método de la red neuronal se utiliza en un estudio de caso para predecir el nivel de economía circular y la importancia de cada variable según la sensibilidad utilizando el método Lekprofile.

Los resultados muestran que la herramienta es aplicable a diferentes contextos y simultáneamente permite la evaluación de la economía circular de forma holística. Además, la herramienta se puede vincular a técnicas predictivas, como el método de red neuronal. Esto se demostró en un estudio de caso.

en el uso del método de redes neuronales para predecir el nivel de economía circular en un caso de estudio. Esto permite la capacidad de tomar decisiones de forma predictiva y esto incentiva el desarrollo de la economía circular según la necesidad del contexto.

Las limitaciones se centran en la necesidad de conocer el tema de la economía circular para la aplicación de la herramienta. Por lo tanto, se necesita capacitación antes de comenzar un nuevo estudio. Esto encarece la investigación en tiempo y recursos humanos.

El aporte práctico y metodológico de este trabajo radica en la viabilidad de la herramienta que favorece la definición de acciones de mejora para la contribución de la implementación a la economía circular en las prácticas empresariales.

La contribución social es parte de la transición gradual a enfoques de economía circular en países subdesarrollados.

The objective of this research is to analyse the affective organizational commitment in cooperatives in Ecuador. This was done by adapting and testing a measurement scale based on the one-dimensional model proposed by Porter.

Field work was carried out, with a structured questionnaire being given to a significant sample of workers in Ecuadorian cooperatives (2,499 employees and heads of department). The scale was adapted through a structural equation model.

The results show that the adaptation of the measuring scale for affective organizational commitment using a one-dimensional vision is consistent for the cooperative sector. In addition, the analysis of the socio-demographic variables and the work position show that some of them have a statistically significant relationship with organizational commitment.

The proposed scale can contribute to the management of human capital in cooperatives in Ecuador. It can also be used as a tool to support the national agency in charge of the cooperative sector in this country (Superintendencia de Economía Popular y Solidaria, “Superintendency of Popular and Solidarity Economy”). By applying this tool, social economy organizations in Ecuador can measure the level of their employees' affective commitment with the institution they work in. Using the results, the people in charge and the leaders of the organization shall be able to introduce strategies to develop this organizational variable that is crucial for the proper management of human resources and, therefore, to help to obtain the institutional purposes.

This research project presents a measuring tool that can discover the unique features of the cooperative sector in a developing country such as Ecuador as it provides a special framework for managing human resources in this sector. Additionally, in a cooperative organization many employees have different roles in the same company. This tool can be adapted for other kinds of cooperatives with different activities (financial and non-financial activities) in different sectors.

The aim of this study is to estimate the technical efficiency of the massive and economically important crop of rice in Ecuador, and then conduct a comparison between groups of farmers with and without insurance.

The authors use an input-oriented data envelopment analysis approach (DEA) to estimate technical efficiency scores. The DEA is combined with the double bootstrap approach in Simar and Wilson (2007) to study factors that may affect technical efficiency. This method overcomes the traditional two-stage DEA approach frequently used in the efficiency literature. The authors thus research the role of insurance on rice efficiency production using this technique and sizeable field-level survey data from 376 rice farmers distributed in five provinces during the 2019 winter cycle in Ecuador.

Most uninsured rice farmers operate with increasing returns to scale, which means that farms improve their resource use efficiency by increasing their size. However, since scale efficiencies are relatively high, it appears that inefficiencies are explained by inadequate input use. Also, the authors find evidence that insured farmers have a negative relationship with technical efficiency in rice production. In other results, when exploring the influence of additional variables on efficiency, the authors find that parameters related to transplanting, high education, farm size and some locations are positive and statistically significant.

The results of this work are relevant for policymakers interested in evaluating technology performance, risk management instruments and farm efficiency in an industry in a developing country such as rice production in Ecuador.

This paper is the first attempt to estimate farm-level technical efficiency employing the double bootstrap approach to assess the efficiency and its determinants of Ecuadorian rice producers.

This research seeks to discover how the organisational form (franchising vs vertical integration) of 384 fashion stores belonging to a Spanish franchise chain influences unit-level performance measured through three key indicators commonly used in the retail literature: sales per square metre, sales per employee and service quality scores.

The authors have analysed this research question using bivariate and multivariate analyses, with a panel dataset that includes quarterly establishment-level data covering the period from January 2018 to December 2019.

The aggregated data initially reveal weaker outcomes among franchised establishments. However, after controlling for other variables related to the fashion stores and their local markets, the authors have found that franchised establishments record higher sales both per square metre and per employee than vertically integrated stores. The findings also reveal that franchised establishments record lower service quality scores than their company-owned counterparts.

Nothing has been published on the differences between franchising and company ownership in terms of establishment-level performance in fashion retailing.

Purpose – This chapter examines the expectation that because the developmental trajectories of cultural frontiers are often seen as being tied to that of their more complexly developed neighbors, increases in interregional interaction provide frontier communities with previously unavailable political-economic opportunities that promote social change.

Design/methodology/approach – This expectation is examined using data from archaeological excavations at the site of El Dornajo in southwestern Ecuador. Models based on external conditions like interregional interaction are considered alongside those based on internal conditions like environmental perturbations.

Findings – The results suggest that increased interregional interaction promoted the emergence of a regional prestige economy that symbolically legitimated (and perhaps made possible) the co-option of traditional risk buffering strategies during a time when the availability of subsistence resources had changed due to local conditions.

Practical implications – This chapter supports the notion that the emergence of institutionalized inequality requires control over both internal and external relationships. Furthermore, it suggests that examining models based on both internal and external conditions of change may help to explain the timing and pace of that change.

Originality/value – Much of the archaeological literature is dichotomized between models based on internal conditions and those based on external conditions. Few archaeologists would take exception to the notion that both conditions matter, but equally few archaeologists are looking at both kinds of conditions in the same case study.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between some management features (management capability, management entrenchment, agency costs and overconfidence) and the innovation of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The study carried out during 2009–2015. A total of 125 companies were selected from eight industries as the sample of study using the method of systematic elimination. A descriptive-correlational design was used in this study and panel data regression models were employed for developing the relationship between research variables.

The obtained results indicated that managerial ability could foster innovation, while managerial entrenchment could stifle innovation and agency costs and overconfidence have no effect on innovation.

The current study is almost the first project which focuses on the management characteristics and firm innovation in developing countries.