Search results

This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.

We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.

Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

Gastronomy can be a key destination choice factor. As tourists, people will be able to learn more about the culture of the place through its culinary assets. This paper aims to analyse the interest and the gastronomic motivations of tourists to the city of Granada (Spain), where two important UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are included.

To achieve the aim of this study, fieldwork was carried out on a representative sample of tourists in Granada (Spain). Specifically, a total of 1,612 valid surveys were filled out in culinary establishments and historical sites. In these surveys, the opinion of tourists regarding gastronomy and their motivations when travelling was assessed.

The results of this research allow to make a segmentation of tourists into three groups according to their position and their interest in gastronomy based on their destination choice, distinguishing among survivors, enjoyers and experiencers’ tourists. Additionally, it is confirmed that gastronomy is shaped as a motivation that influences the level of tourist satisfaction, performing as a differentiating element that can help increase the competitiveness of the destination.

This research contributes to the scarce academic literature on tourism experiences in a city with WHS recognitions. This study confirms the existence of a relationship between gastronomic motivations and the level of satisfaction achieved by tourists who visit the city of Granada, where no similar studies were found. In addition, this work confirms the connection between gastronomy and culture.

This study aims to examine the co-creation of customer experiences at different levels in service ecosystems, analyzing the case of a tourist destination.

A questionnaire was designed based on previously validated scales. The questionnaire was distributed through the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. The survey yielded 1,476 valid responses for three types of destinations. Structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis were performed to test the hypotheses.

Aggregate service experience and memorable customer experience (MCE) in service ecosystems are determined by customer experiences at a dyadic level. Service experience at the ecosystem level is formed from ordinary experiences at the actor level, while MCE is formed from extraordinary experiences at the dyadic level. The type of ecosystem moderates the relationships between the variables but does not alter the importance of each of them.

The relationship between the co-creation of customer experiences at different levels of service ecosystems (dyadic vs aggregate) is addressed. A relationship is established between the ordinary and extraordinary character of experiences and their memorability at the ecosystem level.

This paper aims to define the efficiency achieved by urban transport companies in Spain concerning the resources they use, considering the type of management used for implementation, public-private, and size.

This study consisted of an analysis of the efficiency of 229 public-private urban transport operators during the period 2012–2021 using Data Envelopment Analysis, the Malmquist Index and inference estimators to determine productivity, efficiency change into Pure Technical Efficiency Change (PTECH), and scale efficiency change.

Based on the efficiency analysis, the authors concluded that of the 229 companies studied, more than 35 were inefficient in all analysed periods. Considering the sample used, direct management is considered significantly more efficient. It cannot be concluded that the size of these companies influences their efficiency, as the data show unequal development behaviours in the studied years.

This study provides arguments on whether there is a significant difference between the two types of management in the urban transport sector. It also includes firm size as a study variable, which has not been previously considered in other studies related to urban transport efficiency. Efficiency should be a crucial factor in determining funding allocation in this sector, as it encourages operators to optimize and improve their services.

This paper aims to shed light on the perception of the consequences of implementing home teleworking (TW) for employers and employees amid the pandemic. By doing so, the research analyzes the factors that explain employers' and employees' perceptions of home TW and the symmetry of their impact on its acceptance and rejection.

The analysis is done over the survey “Trends in the digital society during SARS-COV-2 crisis in Spain” by the Spanish “Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.” The explanatory variables were selected and classified using the well-known taxonomy of Baruch and Nicholson (i.e. individual factors, family/home, organizational and job-related).

The global judgment of HTW is positive, but factors such as gender, age, children in care or being an employer nuance that perception. While some factors, such as the attitude of employees toward information communication technologies (ICTs), perceived productivity or the distance from home to work, have a significant link with both positive and negative perceptions of HTW, other factors can only explain either positive or negative perceptions. Likewise, the authors observed that being female and having children on care had a detrimental influence on opinions about HTW.

A clearer regulation of TW is needed to prevent imbalances in rights and obligations between companies and employees. The authors also highlight the potentially favorable effects of telecommuting on mitigating depopulation in rural areas.

The authors have also measured not only the significance of assessed factors on the overall judgment of HTW for firms and workers but also whether these factors impact acceptance and resistance attitudes toward TW symmetrically.

Crowdfunding (CF) has become an increasingly popular means of financing for entrepreneurs and has attracted significant attention from both researchers and practitioners in recent years. The purpose of this study is to investigate the core content and knowledge diffusion paths in the CF field. Specifically, we aim to identify the main topics and themes that have emerged in this field and to trace the evolution of CF knowledge over time.

This study employs co-word clustering and main path analysis (MPA) to examine the historical development of CF research based on 1,528 journal articles retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database.

The results of the analysis reveal that CF research focuses on seven themes: sustainability, entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurship, fintech, social entrepreneurship, social capital, and microcredits. The analysis of the four main paths reveals that equity CF has been the dominant topic in the past years. Recently, CF research has tended to focus on topics such as fintech, the COVID-19 pandemic, competition, Brexit, and policy response.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first attempt to explore knowledge diffusion dynamics in the CF field. Overall, the study offers a structure for analyzing the paths through which knowledge is diffused, enabling scholars to effectively manage a large volume of research papers and gain a deeper understanding of the historical, current, and future trends in the development of CF.