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For Colombia, cocaine is a product that is sold for profit in the United States. Mainstream political economy, let alone the other social sciences, has little to say about the process of extraction of surplus value in the production and distribution of cocaine, in other words, how cocaine is exploited for profit. The paper argues that the conventional framework, which locates profits generated from the cocaine trade in an economic model of crime shields a much deeper reality than simply ‘money laundering’ as a ‘legal problem.’ The central argument is that the cocaine trade in general, and the cocaine economy in particular, are a vital aspect of U.S. imperialism in the Colombian economic system. The paper tackles a critical problem: the place of cocaine in the re-colonization of Colombia – defined as ‘narcocolonialism’ – and the implications of the cocaine trade generally for U.S. imperialism in this context. The paper evaluates selected literature on the Colombian cocaine trade and offers an alternative framework underpinned by a political economy analysis drawn from Marx and Lenin showing that cocaine functions as an ‘imperial commodity’ – a commodity for which there exists a lucrative market and profit-making opportunity. It is also a means of capital accumulation by what could be termed, Colombia's comprador ‘narcobourgeoisie;’ dependent on U.S. imperialism. It is hoped that by analyzing cocaine with a Marxist interpretation and political economy approach, then future developments in understanding drugs in Colombia's complex political economy may be anticipated.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the profile of high-performing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Traditional Manufacturing Sectors (TMSs). The authors main contribution is to provide recommendations and benchmarks for prescribing a more robust model of internationalisation in these industries by specifying the types of internationalisation and innovation that better reinforce competitiveness. Our results, based on a sample of 132 SMEs, show that high-performing SMEs make more intense use of advanced operation modes that imply a closer interaction with the host country to access knowledge diversity, skills and work available in those markets. Moreover, compared to low-performing SMEs, and independently of their size and experience, these firms use a wide set of networking and marketing capabilities and develop innovations based on organisational changes that help to create new business models. After a number of years of forced adjustment and adaptation to a globalised context, the new model of high-performing SME in TMS could help to improve the global positioning of these firms in the long term.

The purpose of this article is to examine the information culture of a medium-sized municipality in Belgium. Public information/records is/are one of the most important instruments of citizens' control of public authorities. The principle of Public Access gives citizens a right to access public records, while the Privacy Act protects the integrity of the citizens. Municipalities are institutions that intensely interact with the citizens. Therefore, the way they handle the information that is generated during this interaction is of crucial importance to the efficient service delivery, safeguarding the rights of the citizens that they serve and for sustaining the open governance structure that promotes the principles of accountability and transparency.

The author employed a case study approach in order to establish the attitudes and norms the organizational employees had towards the management of information/records. She also applied the information culture assessment framework developed by Oliver during the design of the research questions.

Information culture affects the way public information/records are managed. Though investments are being made in information systems to facilitate the capture and management of information/records, the people issues are equally as crucial. E-Government development will require an information culture that promotes effective creation, use and management of information, if its goal of efficient and transparent public administrations is to be achieved.

The originality of this study lies in the application of the information culture assessment framework that was developed by Oliver. The framework facilitates the formulation of questions using its three layers to tease out the information required by a researcher in an attempt to draw conclusions regarding the attitudes, norms and the value the interviewees attach to information/records.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of the cognitive-affect behavior (CAB) model and the theory of reasoned action (TRA) model as well as their extended forms (with product knowledge) in predicting everyday green consumption among non-Hispanic White and Hispanic consumers.

Survey data from a convenience sample of 249 non-Hispanic Whites and 425 Hispanic adults were used to test the two models through structural equation modeling analyses.

While all tested models explained green consumption in both samples adequately, the basic TRA and the TPB (extended TRA) models were superior to the basic and extended CAB models. Including product knowledge further enhanced the predictive power of the two basic models.

Self-reported surveys are subject to social desirability bias in the reporting of intentions and actual purchases of green products. Future research may attempt to collect data on actual green purchases. The selection of a general consumption context is limited in distinguishing between high- and low-involvement products. Future research should test the relative effectiveness of these models among specific green products with different levels of involvement.

Marketing and strategic communication programs should focus on increasing consumers’ positive attitudes about purchasing green products and promote green purchase intentions using intention-generating promotional tactics. This paper also stresses the need to increase consumers’ concrete knowledge about green products to drive actual purchase behavior.

This paper can help communicators to further promote green consumption for routinely purchased consumer goods, which will ultimately enhance a healthier and more sustainable environment.

This paper extends the literature about green consumption, providing insights about the relative effectiveness of two widely accepted consumer behavior models. It implies that some models excel over others in terms of their explanatory power across consumer populations regardless of socio-demographic differences. It also stresses the importance of specifying explicitly behavioral control variables in green consumption research and provides a viable basis for the development of strategic marketing.

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog to be operated upon would probably prefer a gala day at his Tyburn Tree to being executed in an obscure back yard.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand complementarities-in-performance of three forms of innovations: product innovation, process innovation and organizational innovation. Additionally, complementarities-in-use for product innovation are examined, considering an additional condition: manufacturing flexibility.

Using data from 223 unlisted Portuguese industrial firms, and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, different combinations of different forms of innovations were examined to identify complementarities-in-performance and complementarities-in-use.

Through the configurational analysis, a path to achieve high performance was uncovered, which includes the presence of both product and organizational innovations. The study also reveals that the joint absence of two conditions (from the three that were considered in the analysis) can lead to low performance. This result indicates that the relationships among the antecedent conditions are non-linear. The configurational analysis also shows that the combination of manufacturing flexibility with either process innovation or organizational innovation can lead to high product innovation. This result confirms that manufacturing flexibility is an important condition for product innovation.

The empirical evidence reported in this paper may be influenced by the definitions that were considered. Further conceptual and empirical research is encouraged to corroborate (or refute) or consolidate the findings presented herein. Moreover, although the obtained results present a high empirical coverage, other antecedent conditions beyond the scope of this study can also play an important role; for instance, marketing could influence innovation performance. Furthermore, radical innovation was not distinguished from incremental innovation when analyzing firm performance.

This study provides some clues for policy makers who aim to enhance firm performance through innovation. Managers should focus on both organizational and technological innovations, in particular product innovation, to improve firm performance. Moreover, they should be aware of the complementarities-in-use for product innovation. Considering the importance of developing product innovation to enhance performance, firms should promote high levels of product innovation. To achieve this outcome, manufacturing flexibility should be present.

Focusing on a very complex and still under-researched topic, this study contributes to the complementarities literature in several ways. This study employs a configurational approach to better understand complementarities and to integrate technological and organizational innovations. By taking this approach, this study acknowledges the existence of non-linearity and identifies not only the strategies to achieve high performance, but also the configurations that lead to low performance.

This paper aims to analyse the impact of different knowledge sources used by firms to adopt organizational innovation, in relation to organization of responsibilities and decision-making in the workplace.

To fulfil the proposed objective, quantitative research, based on a sample of 2,591 Portuguese firms, has been undertaken. Data have been obtained from the Community Innovation Survey 2012.

The results show the importance of external knowledge from suppliers, clients, consultants and commercial laboratories in new innovation practices in firm workplace. Knowledge from competitors, universities, the State and research institutes does not present a significant effect.

Knowledge sources can stimulate the introduction of new management practices in the workplace, consistent with the external search literature on technological innovation, which argues that many of the ideas and implementation skills for organizational innovation come from outside sources.

Within the innovation management literature, very few studies tried to explore organizational innovation in firm workplaces. This paper is innovative and makes a novel contribution mainly to the knowledge management field by highlighting the importance of external knowledge sources in organizational innovation in firm workplaces from a knowledge-based perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to evaluate the factors that influence soccer attendance at stadiums and arenas.

The quantitative method based on a structural equation modeling using partial least squares.

The results validated the proposed model. The results also showed that the greater the identification of the sports consumer with his team, the greater the impact on his satisfaction, increasing his loyalty to the team and his intention to buy tickets for a soccer match. It was also detected that the higher the risk perception, the lower the purchase intention of tickets. In addition, the study showed that the greater the involvement of sports consumers with soccer, the greater their intention to buy tickets.

One of the academic implications was to prove that team identification can be a predictor of satisfaction, and that the interrelationship between identification with the team, satisfaction at attending soccer matches at the stadium and loyalty to the team constructs has a high impact on the purchase decision of the sports consumer. In addition, the study tests a model that aggregates several constructs with empirical data for other researchers to better understand the phenomenon of attendance in stadiums and arenas.