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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the LS-DYNA software using a Lagrangian formulation in the jet formation, flight and penetration of improvised explosively formed projectiles (EFPs). Numerical results dealing with different properties of the EFPs have been validated with a significant number of field tests.

2D and 3D Lagrangian models, using different material definition, are developed to reproduce the field-measured characteristics of copper- and steel-made EFPs: projectile size and velocity. After validation, the model has been extended to analyse the penetration features. Two different plasticity models have been used to describe the steel target, Plastic-Kinematic and Johnson–Cook.

Despite the difficulty in characterizing a non-industrial artefact, the results show that both Lagrangian models (2D and 3D) are able to simulate the projectile size, velocity and penetration capability with errors less than 10 per cent when using the Johnson–Cook material model for both liner and target.

These data can be used to test the penetration ability of improvised EFP’s against different targets, i.e. light armoured vehicles.

There are no references that address the application of the Lagrangian simulation of non-industrial EFPs and its validation with field tests, including penetration assessment.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to analyze the individual influence of different knowledge management practises (KMP) on firm performance. Second, it aims to analyze the mediating role of organizational learning (OL) between each KMP and performance.

A telephone-survey was applied in 2018 to the managers of 400 Spanish firms. The data retrieved was analyzed by using multiple regression analysis.

Knowledge generation (KG) and knowledge flow (KF) promote firm performance, while there is not a direct association between knowledge storage and performance. OL mediates the relationship between KG and performance, as well as between KF and performance.

First, this research confirms that not all the KMP have a direct effect on firm performance, thus, future research would need to differentiate between different KMP. Second, this paper is pioneering in providing empirical evidence that OL mediates the KMP – performance relationship. Third, the empirical study was performed in a context non-researched yet by the literature considering KMP individually: Spain.

First, besides the results managers should focus their efforts in practises related to KG and application. Second, OL mediating suggests that managers should invest in managerial commitment to promote a shared culture, shared vision, open-mind to new ideas and a lot of dialogue.

This is the first study that investigates how KMP contribute to firm performance by incorporating the mediating impact of OL. The results will help organizations to identify the KMP improving the performance.

This paper examines social impact investing (SII), a growing source of investment from the Global North to the Global South celebrated as a new way of doing good in low-income countries, but bearing elements of neoliberalism that can reify post-colonial contexts.

A microfoundational, autoethnographic approach is used based on the author’s experiences and emotional epiphanies while engaged in an activist entrepreneurial enterprise. The author’s goal was to effect positive social change with Indigenous Mexican producers of mezcal liquor.

Despite the best of intentions and following best practices for SII, the expected altruistic outcomes were eclipsed by inadvertent post-colonial behaviours. Neoliberal foundations of financialization gave primacy to the perspectives and egos of the investors rather than meaningful impact for the Indigenous beneficiaries.

Based on the findings, three areas are presented for further research. First, how Global North social impact investors balance the ego of their motivations with the altruism of intended outcomes for beneficiaries. Second, what ownership structures of Global North investments allow for social benefits to flow through to intended beneficiaries. Third, how post-colonial power imbalances can be redressed to give an equal position to Global South beneficiaries as people, rather than financial metrics indicating only that they have become less poor.

By using autoethnographic methods that expose the vulnerability of the researcher, unique insights are generated on what happens when good intentions meet with a post-colonial context. The neoliberal underbelly of SII is revealed, and ways to make improvements are considered.

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors determining collaborative innovation effect of manufacturing firms in emerging economies.

Based on a survey of 1,206 Chinese manufacturing firms and using structural equation modelling, this study explores the factors determining the effect of collaborative innovation among manufacturing firms (namely, internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks) and examines the relationship between collaborative innovation effect and innovation performance.

The study finds that there are significantly positive relationships between firms’ internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks and collaborative innovation effect among firms.

These findings reveal that policymakers should create an effective institutional culture and market environment to facilitate firms’ collaborative innovation.

This paper draws on the resource-based view of firms and contributes to understanding of how the development of factors determining firms’ collaborative innovation effect can improve innovation performance. This study extends established frameworks on collaborative innovation in relation to four dimensions, namely, firms’ internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks, uniquely identifying the limits of specific dimensions. Moreover, this study addresses government policies and “Guanxi culture” specific to China that provide new insights into how firms’ collaborative innovation is improved from the perspectives of business–governmental relations and social networks.

This study investigates the relationships between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) controversies and insolvency risk in the insurance sector. Drawing from legitimacy and stakeholder theories, the authors explore the impact of ESG controversies on insurers’ insolvency risk and the moderating effect of ESG practices on this relationship.

This study utilises a dataset comprising 120 stock insurance firms spanning from 2011 to 2022. The authors employed system-GMM estimations to control for potential endogeneity and conducted several robustness checks.

ESG controversy positively influences insurers’ insolvency risk, with ESG practices mitigating these positive effects. The Governance (G) component of ESG practices plays a key role in counteracting the effects of ESG controversies on insurance companies’ insolvency risk.

This is the first study to investigate the direct relationship between ESG controversies and insolvency risk in the insurance industry. It underscores the critical influence of stakeholders’ perceptions of the company’s legitimacy, which is determined by the number of ESG controversies undertaken by the insurer company, on its insolvency risk. Additionally, by examining the three components of ESG practices individually, the authors offer insights into how managers can gain a competitive edge, particularly by utilising governance practices as safeguards against the adverse effects of ESG controversies on their financial risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways for the formulation of a model for calculating the cost of corruption per country, taking into account the social cost.

The methodology is practical exploration; the model is formulated along with the social cost of specific calculation. Based on two specific acts of corruption, bribery and overpricing of public works, these acts are private and public corruption. From there, the model is formulated along with the social cost of specific calculation, based on two specific acts of corruption, bribery and overpricing of public works.

This paper concludes that the model is applicable to all the countries of the world, based on their tax structure.

Limitations do not exist in the model; the additional implications are the extension of the model. The model can be used for local governments or countries.

Countries can calculate the theoretical cost of corruption in their local, regional or national economies, based on two specific acts of corruption, in political, private and public corruption; bribery and overpricing of public works.

The social implications include knowing the theoretical cost of corruption and their effects.

The model calculates the cost of corruption and its economic and social impact.

The purpose of this study is to formulate the cost of corruption and undue private benefit.

The design is based on cost formulas of the corruption already formulated, and the design of these formulas allows the calculation for Argentina in 2021 of the cost of the corruption.

The corruption cost models for bribes and cost overruns for public works are the theoretical basis for obtaining the undue private benefit. Based on the formulas developed to calculate the costs of corruption for Argentina 2021.

There are no limitations in the model.

In addition to the calculation of the cost of corruption, the formula of private profit undue by corruption is developed.

The social implications are certainty about the cost of corruption for Argentina in 2021.

The present work is original and its value is given by the formulation and practical demonstration of the cost of corruption for Argentina in 2021 and the undue private benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and innovative performance in the Spanish industry. Specifically, the authors will focus on innovativeness, analysing the extent to which this capability is favoured by some human resource management (HRM) practices as investments on training and whether it is also affected by the use of full time and/or temporary workers.

The authors propose the assessment of these relationships by means of the Spanish Survey of Industrial Strategic Behaviour. The authors focus the longitudinal analysis on the period 2001-2008, years of the highest economic growth in Spain during the last decades.

The findings show that the most innovative firms are also the most competitive ones in terms of added value. Moreover, while a significant and positive relationship between the use of full-time workers and innovativeness is demonstrated, the role of temporary workers employees remains unclear. Finally, and surprisingly, training investments on new technologies, languages and data processes do not have any impact on innovativeness. The paper is closed with a discussion about some lessons the authors may learn from these wealthy years and the role played by HRM investments on firms.

This study demonstrates the existence of two objectives that managers should seek to achieve. On one side, they should focus on innovation as a way of increasing firm performance. And, on the other side, managers should invest on specific training, in order to develop more innovative and profitable organizations.

This paper proposes and tests a model where innovation mediates the relationships between HRM practices and performance. Such mediation would be a contribution to the strategic HRM field as very recent research call for the study of new mediators. Also, this paper employs panel data (2001-2008) for assessing these relationships. This is worthy because it is coherent with the idea of internal development of capabilities, instead of cross-sectional analyses and because the authors may infer causality with the study design, as it is demanded by researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on Chinese firms’ innovation processes that are induced by foreign direct investment abroad. The study uses a patent and citation analysis to examine the extent to which investments abroad contribute to enhancing these firms’ innovative capabilities. More specifically, this study focusses on the role of foreign location competitiveness as an asset to provide technological capabilities to Chinese affiliates.

Patents are good indicators of firms’ innovative capabilities. Moreover, patents allow to track the inter-firm knowledge transfer through the citations of patents on which they are based. The authors use an OECD patent database called “OECD REGPAT July 2013” that compiles patents registered with the European Patent Office (EPO) over the period from 1986 to 2013. The authors focus the analysis on patents registered by Chinese multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) based in Europe because the authors assume inter alia that innovations patented by Chinese affiliates in Europe are registered with the EPO. The sample comprises 3,010 patents involving 5,749 citations that the authors have individually examined.

The findings suggest that Chinese MNEs ability to generate innovation based on their own knowledge is low, with a self-citation rate of approximately 4 percent. Patents by Chinese MNEs are largely based on foreign patents, especially from developed economies (at least 90 percent). The citation analysis also suggests that 39.2 percent of citations represent domestic firms in the local recipient country. This subgroup of citations is categorized as follows: 1.04 percent are M&A linkages, 13.8 percent are cluster linkages, and 24.36 percent are localization linkages. The remaining 60.8 percent of the total sample demonstrates that firms do not necessarily need to be collocated in foreign locations with domestic firms to exchange assets.

Patent and citation analysis considers only a part of the inter-firm knowledge diffusion. Some innovations are not patented and tacit knowledge diffusion is not observable. Moreover, the analysis focusses only on Chinese outward foreign direct investment to Europe, but a large part of knowledge is accumulated in China thanks to inward foreign direct investment.

Many scholars have scrutinized emerging markets multinational enterprises’ strategic asset-seeking investments abroad that are designed to upgrade the companies’ technological capabilities (Cui and Jiang, 2009; Zhang and Filippov, 2009; Huang and Wang, 2013; Amighini et al., 2014; De Beule et al., 2014; Nicolas, 2014). However, few studies analyze the results of these strategies in terms of innovation output.