Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent different obstacles (financial, knowledge, market, and perception) affect the propensity of Mexican family firms to engage in innovation activity. Second, it examines whether the perception of these obstacles differs between two subgroups of family firms, considering levels of ownership and family management control.

Information was gathered through a CIS methodology-based questionnaire applied to 161 CEOs of Mexican family firms. Binomial logistic regressions were performed identifying obstacles that were truly relevant for the family firm subgroups in the sample.

For subgroup 1, knowledge and market factors were significant and negatively related to the propensity to engage in innovation activities; for subgroup 2, only market factors were relevant. The results also show how the tenure of the CEO, the number of generations involved, and the family involvement in management and non-management positions affect the results obtained.

Implications for family business scholars embrace the assessment criteria of different family business definitions. While the implications for managers and policy makers include the recognition of the factors that affect innovation in Mexican family firms in order to design and implement adequate strategies to overcome them.

This study addresses some of the raised demands in the literature. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first attempt to explore the factors hampering innovation in family firms in Latin America. Second, this study was undertaken in response to the call for exploring variations in innovation behavior across different family business types in regards to ownership and family management control. Moreover, this study responds to the call to analyze financial and non-financial factors separately and to expand the geographical areas, sectors, and sizes of family firms, more specifically in Latin America.

En este trabajo se explora hasta qué punto los diferentes obstáculos (financieros, de conocimiento, de mercado y de percepción) afectan a la propensión de las empresas familiares en México para participar en actividades de innovación. En segundo lugar, se examina si la percepción de estos obstáculos se diferencia entre los dos subgrupos de empresas familiares, considerando los niveles de propiedad y el control de la gestión familiar.

La información se obtuvo a través de un cuestionario basado en la metodología CIS aplicado a 161 CEOs de empresas familiares mexicanas. Se llevaron a cabo regresiones logísticas binomiales para la identificación de los obstáculos verdaderamente relevantes para los subgrupos de empresas familiares en la muestra.

Para el subgrupo 1, los factores de conocimiento y de mercado fueron significativos y negativamente relacionados con la propensión a participar en actividades de innovación; para el subgrupo 2, sólo los factores de mercado fueron relevantes. Los resultados también muestran como la permanencia del director general, el número de generaciones que participan, y la participación de la familia en puestos directivos y no directivos afectan los resultados obtenidos.

Implicaciones para los investigadores en empresas familiares incluyen los criterios de evaluación de diferentes definiciones de empresa familiar. Mientras que las implicaciones para gerentes y responsables políticos incluyen el reconocimiento de los factores que afectan a la innovación en las empresas familiares mexicanas con el fin de diseñar e implementar estrategias adecuadas para superarlas.

Este estudio aborda algunas de las demandas planteadas en la literatura. En primer lugar, en la medida del conocimiento de los autores, se trata del primer intento por explorar los factores que dificultan la innovación en empresas familiares en Latinoamérica. En segundo lugar, este estudio se llevó a cabo en respuesta a la llamada para explorar variaciones en el comportamiento innovador entre diferentes tipos de empresas familiares considerando los niveles propiedad y el control de la gestión familiar. Por otra parte, este estudio responde al llamado para analizar los factores financieros y no financieros por separado y para expandir a otras áreas, sectores geográficos y tamaños de empresas familiares, más específicamente en América Latina.

After World War II, an educational modernization process gained ground worldwide. International organizations such as UNESCO began to play a key role in the creation, development and dissemination of a new educational vision in different countries. This article examines the origin and development of this modernization process under the dictatorship of Franco. More specifically, we will show how the adoption of this conception in Spain must be understood from the perspective of the interaction between UNESCO and Franco's regime, and how the policies of the dictatorship converged with the proposals suggested by this international organization. Our principal argument is that the educational policies carried out in Spain throughout the second half of the 20th century can be better understood when inserted into a transnational perspective in education.

This article uses documents from archives that until now were unpublished or scarcely known. We have also analyzed materials published in the preeminent educational journals of the dictatorship, such as the Revista de Educación, Revista Española de Pedagogía, Bordón and Vida escolar, as well as documents published by the Spanish Ministry of National Education.

Franco's dictatorship built an educational narrative closely aligned with proposals put forward by UNESCO on educational planning after World War II. The educational policies created by the dictatorship were related to the new ideas that strove to link the educational system with economic and social development.

This article is inspired by a transnational history of education perspective. On the one hand, it traces the origins of educational modernization under Franco's regime, which represented a technocratic vision of education that is best understood as a result of the impact that international organizations had in the second half of the 20th century. On the other hand, it follows the intensifying relationship between the dictatorship and the educational ideas launched by UNESCO. Both aspects are little known and studied in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain new knowledge about the accounting measurement of financial sustainability in local governments, by studying the influence of political factors on the evolution of income statements.

This paper analyses income statements of Spanish municipalities from 2006 to 2014, together with mayor profiles and political-institutional factors, using the generalised method of moments system.

The income statement represents a useful measure to assess financial sustainability, showing the effect of political factors on three dimensions proposed by IFAC (i.e. service, revenue and debt), such as ideological coincidence, political competition, political ideology, and absolute majority or political fragmentation.

The findings can be useful for policymakers and accountants responsible for accountability, supervisory bodies, fiscal authorities, voters, users of public services and other stakeholders interested in governmental income statements.

In the Eurozone, the crisis of government finance has made the citizens and the policymakers question the size and volume of public services. Likewise, in countries such as Spain, politicians remain one of the main problems for citizens. These circumstances make it very interesting and timely to study the accounting measurement of financial sustainability and its political explanations.

The findings provide new empirical evidence about the accounting measurement of financial sustainability in local governments, and they identify political factors that influence the evolution of income statements.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize consumers of traditional foods, taking as case study fresh cheeses produced in a village, in Central Mexico.

Semi-structured interviews were applied to a sample of 150 consumers, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling. A factorial analysis by principal component analysis was performed to the data, followed by a cluster analysis.

Four factors were obtained, named: artisanship, health and well-being, liking, and satisfaction with the purchase. Three consumer groups were identified: practical, in the process of valorization, and with liking and tradition. The socioeconomic characteristics of consumers do not have a relationship in the classification of groups. It is concluded that the consumption of fresh cheeses is due to a number of social and cultural attributes, and in lesser proportion, to economic aspects.

At present, as part of life in a dynamic society, people have the power of choice in the food they consume, a process that involves cultural, social, economic, political, and ideological aspects, established by the consumers themselves, or by a determined social group to which they belong. This has not been researched in Mexico. Being an emerging economy immersed in a rapid process of globalization, studies like this contribute in similar countries of Latin America and other places to find ways to valorize local foods and products that play important roles in the development of rural communities.

The relevance of entrepreneurship in the economic systems of the regions is well documented. Recently, a new concept has emerged in the entrepreneurship literature, entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE), to analyze the dynamics of a given territory and its outputs and impact upon entrepreneurship. Moreover, it is also well documented the close relationship between entrepreneurship and family business (FB). Keeping in mind the multidimensionality of the latter, its scholars are beginning to look into the entrepreneurial elements embedded in the family processes and the influence of context.

After an extensive literature review made, a significant gap was found, given the historical relevance that FB (SMEs the vast majority) have in the global economic systems. A FB entrepreneurial ecosystem (FBEE) model is proposed based on the data collected from two case studies, on Portugal's wine industry, and Mexico's shoe industry, both artisan industries confronted with the urge to reinvent and adapt to face deep market and industry changes.

The results should indicate the feasibility of proposing a second level on the theory of EE, the FBEE, where both the family and business itself ultimately play a vital role in its success and impact the whole system.

This paper analyzes tourism competitiveness in Latin America, providing a country-level ranking of tourism competitiveness. The study also identifies which areas of management to focus on in order to increase competitiveness in each case.

The study is based on the variables used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to measure tourism competitiveness. The DP2 distance method is used to create a synthetic indicator. This method helps identify which areas best explain differences in competitiveness between countries.

In tourism, the most competitive Latin American countries are Costa Rica, Chile, Panama, Mexico and Uruguay. The areas that best explain the differences between countries relate to cultural and natural resources, the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs), international openness and transport infrastructure. These are therefore priority areas for tourism managers.

This paper provides detailed analysis for each country. The situation in each country is presented in terms of the key areas highlighted by the analysis. This approach can aid the individual decisions of companies and public managers, thus enhancing tourism competitiveness. This greater competitiveness can strengthen the tourism sector, which is crucial in uncertain times.

Based on a synthetic indicator, this research offers the first country-level analysis of tourism competitiveness in Latin America. The study is also novel in its ability to detect the areas where action should be taken to improve tourism competitiveness. This analysis offers an alternative to the WEF Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which has certain weaknesses. The results can help enhance tourism competitiveness in Latin American countries through the specific recommendations presented in this paper.

Este documento analiza la competitividad del turismo en América Latina, proporcionando un ranking a nivel país. El estudio también identifica en qué áreas de gestión deben enfocarse los esfuerzos para aumentar la competitividad en cada caso.

La investigación se basa en las variables propuestas por el Foro Económico Mundial (WEF) para medir la competitividad del turismo. El método de distancia DP₂ se utiliza para crear un indicador sintético. Este método ayuda a identificar qué factores explican en mayor medida las diferencias de competitividad entre países.

Los países latinoamericanos más competitivos en cuanto a la actividad turística son Costa Rica, Chile, Panamá, México y Uruguay. Los factores que mejor explican las diferencias entre países se relacionan con los recursos culturales y naturales, la implementación de tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC), la apertura internacional y las infraestructuras de transporte. Por tanto, estas serían las áreas prioritarias de trabajo para los gestores turísticos.

Este documento proporciona un análisis detallado de cada país. La situación individual se presenta mediante un análisis de las áreas clave destacadas como responsables en mayor medida de la competitividad. Este enfoque puede ayudar a las decisiones tomadas por los gestores de las empresas y los administradores públicos, mejorando así la competitividad del turismo. Esta mayor competitividad puede fortalecer el sector turístico, que es crucial en tiempos de incertidumbre.

Basado en un indicador sintético, esta investigación ofrece el primer análisis a nivel país de la competitividad turística en América Latina. El estudio también es novedoso por su capacidad para detectar los ámbitos en los que se debe actuar para mejorar la competitividad turística. Este análisis ofrece una alternativa al Índice de Competitividad de Viajes y Turismo (TTCI) del Foro Económico Mundial (WEF), que tiene ciertas debilidades. Los resultados pueden ayudar a mejorar la competitividad del turismo en los países de América Latina a través de las recomendaciones específicas presentadas en este documento.

There is a range around reference prices, the so-called latitude of price acceptance, where consumers seem insensitive to changes into prices, with these ranges being wider for buyers of private brands. This paper analyses objective price gap between two product alternatives as a main driver of consumer behaviour. Therefore, the authors shed light on whether the price gap conditions consumer-switching behaviour and at what point the price gap triggers a switching pattern.

Shopping data on two product alternatives of olive oil were obtained from a household scanner panel of Spanish consumers (607 households) with weekly price tracking, and multilevel regression models were performed.

The results suggest that the price gap has a fundamental effect on the consumers' choice. In this case, up to 1 euro/litre the demand seems almost inelastic; beyond that price gap, the demand for the finer product plummets.

This study focussed on olive oil products. The research needs to be extended other food products.

The authors contribute to the literature by documenting how the price context measured in terms of a price gap is a relevant stimulus in consumer choices, with a focus on the change in price sensitivity between product alternatives when competing brands are not involved but private brands are.

While bilinguals frequently mix languages in everyday conversation, these hybrid language practices have often been viewed from a deficit perspective, particularly in classroom contexts. However, an emerging literature documents the complexity of hybrid language practices and their usefulness as an academic and social resource for bilingual students. This chapter examines hybrid language practices among English- and Spanish-speaking high school students in an astronomy/oceanography classroom in southern Arizona. Microethnography, or fine-grained analysis of video recordings from long-term ethnographic observation, is used to reveal what bilingual students accomplished with hybrid language practices in the classroom and to outline implications for teachers who want to engage their students’ hybrid repertoires. Specifically, the analyses reveal that careful attention to hybrid language practices can provide teachers with insights into students’ academic learning across linguistic codes, their use of language mixing for particular functions, and their beliefs about language and identity. The research is necessarily limited in scope because such in-depth analysis can only be done with a very small amount of data. Nevertheless, the findings affirm that hybrid language practices can enrich classroom discourse, academic learning, and social interaction for emergent bilinguals. The chapter highlights a teacher’s story in order to offer practical guidance to other teachers who seek to capitalize on the promise of hybrid language practices in their own classrooms.

This paper aims to study, by means of an empirical approach, how monetary policy might affect the distribution of individual income.

After describing the channels through which monetary policy could impinge on income distribution, the authors carry out a panel analysis of 62 countries that control their monetary policy for the period 1996–2015.

Using two possible proxy variables for monetary policy (the monetary aggregate M3 and the real interest rates), the results reveal a significant positive relationship between real interest rates and income inequality measured through the market Gini coefficient and polarization ratios. The findings suggest that central bankers should be more aware of the redistributive effects of monetary policy.

It should be mentioned the major challenge of data limitation in the empirical investigation on the relationship between monetary policies and inequalities.

The empirical evidence presented in this paper supports the premise that central bankers should not ignore the unintended redistributive consequences of their actions. In this regard, it is worth noting that if, in addition to price stability, central banks are also responsible for financial stability; the rationale behind central bank independence needs to be reconsidered.

An outstanding feature of the paper is its sample size and the variety of countries included in the sample, which includes countries from all continents and with very different levels of economic development. Also, unlike papers based on forecasting modeling – e.g. Vector autoregression (VAR) or Structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models, the study follows an explanatory approach, including not only monetary variables, but also a series of regressors that may have a meaningful and significant impact on inequality, according to a wide literature.