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The environmental management literature has focussed on the analysis of the variety of strategic options with regards to environment protection, without providing an interesting detail of the transformation and change process between the different alternatives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study pro-environmental change processes in firms, focussing on the width and the intensity of environmental measures implemented in a three-year period in different areas (productive process, product, management and supply chains).

Performing a cluster analysis based on a sample of 303 Spanish firms, the study finds four categories of pro-environmental change.

The comparative analysis of these categories leads the authors to describe the pro-environmental change process as one with four stages that firms can go through. The first pro-environmental stage focusses on process measures. The second stage focusses on the adoption of management measures together with process measures. In the third stage, the firm moves after including measures in the product and in the supply chains. Companies that wish to advance further in this process, reaching the fourth stage of pro-environmental change, do so by increasing the intensity of the different measures adopted in previous stages, and through eco-innovation.

The main contribution of this paper relative to the previous literature is a more detailed vision of the strategic possibilities in environmental protection, providing information about the process of change and about how firms evolve to more advanced environmental strategy stages. Knowledge of this evolution process, little studied in the previous literature, helps us to understand the complexity and strategic significance of adopting environmental protection measures. This knowledge is useful for academics and for public and private managers responsible for designing and developing environmental strategy.

One of the most original findings of this paper points out that it is possible to identify a pattern of environmental change through which firms can evolve. In this change process, firms start by adopting process measures, while they adopt eco-innovation behaviour only in the most advanced stage of environmental proactivity.

The purpose of this study is to examine consumer attitude toward a new type of co-branded products, which encompass attributes of high-technology and luxury. The authors named these kinds of co-branded products as “high-tech luxury co-branded products” (HLCPs). Current theoretical approaches used to study co-branding strategies cannot completely explain consumer attitude toward HLCPs. In this study, the authors apply the ABC (affect-behavior-cognition) model of attitudes (as opposed to attitude as a whole) to explore how affect and cognition drive consumer behavior toward HLCPs.

Questionnaires were used and the respondents totaled 483 in period 1 and 331 in period 2. Respondents were collected using convenience sampling technique in one university in Spain and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The authors finding revealed that consumers use both affect and cognition simultaneously when forming an attitude toward HLCPs. Also, consumers’ perception of product fit represents a more relevant driver of consumer behavior with respect to brand fit. Appropriate theoretical and managerial implications are derived from these results.

This study contributes to the understanding of consumers’ preferences toward high-tech luxury co-branded products.

Social economy organizations (SEOs) are a hybrid model where relations with stakeholders are managed using transparency mechanisms. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role that online accessibility (which is understood to be a tool to implement transparency) has in raising financial resources and to assess its impact on economic and social achievements. Moreover, the authors study the interaction between online accessibility and external verification.

This study analyzes the behavior of 1,400 SEOs between 2009 and 2012 using a structural equation model and the MPLUS 7.4 software, which is based on covariance analysis.

The results show that transparency, which is understood as online accessibility, assists in raising financial resources and enhances SEO economic and social achievements. The authors also note that external verifications favor the economic achievements of SEOs but do not improve their social achievements.

This research has two limitations: this study refers only to Spanish SEOs and no consensus exists on how to measure economic and social performance. Therefore, the conclusions should be considered with caution in other regulatory and cultural fields. The main implications of this work are the criteria the authors provide to help decision makers decide on the transparency model that SEOs should develop according to their management needs.

This study bridges a gap in the current research by increasing understanding of the role of accessibility as being the most important tool for an organization that strives to embody transparent behavior.

This study aims to learn more about the relationship between managers' perception of stakeholder pressure related to environmental matters and the degree of proactivity of firms' environmental strategies. It seeks to analyse the moderating effect that managers' perception of environmental issues as competitive advantage opportunities can have on this relationship.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to verify the research framework.

The results indicate that, only in the least polluting firms, managers' competitive advantage expectations derived from environmental management moderate the relationship between the degree of environmental proactivity and stakeholder pressure. However, it is not effective in high polluting firms, perhaps as a consequence of the high degree of stakeholders' environmental pressure perceived by managers.

The results highlight the relevance of managers' subjective perceptions of the potential of environmental protection measures to generate competitive advantages. They suggest that the consideration of this variable is fundamental in order to better understand the degree of proactivity of firms' environmental strategies, as well as the influence of stakeholder pressure on environmental proactivity. The main limitation is the low response rate of the survey.

This is an original contribution because, although there are studies analysing how stakeholder pressure and managers' perceptions and values affect choice of environmental strategy, none of them analyse the combined impact of both issues.

Human resources management directed at improving job satisfaction has become a subject of growing interest in both the professional world and the academic world, and is justified by the impact that satisfaction has on business performance. The main objective of this work is to determine empirically the factors that have an impact on the satisfaction of Spanish workers, as well as to compare the existence of differences in the key dimensions of satisfaction according to workers' gender.

Of the study sample, only information pertaining to Spain was selected. Of 413 specific cases, 668 per cent were male and 33.2 per cent female. A factor analysis was conducted on those variables which could impact on an individual's job satisfaction. These aspects were considered through an 11‐item questionnaire.

The results obtained in this research show that the job satisfaction of Spanish workers is an element that is susceptible to improvement. Moreover, it is observed that the level of job satisfaction is determined by four factors: “economic aspects”, “interpersonal relations”, “working conditions”, and “personal fulfilment”. A subsequent analysis according to workers' gender shows that although men and women take into account the same dimensions, the degree to which each dimension has an impact is different for each sub‐sample.

The sample used refers to a Spanish case. In the future it would be interesting to extend this and include other countries.

The main results of this study are a knowledge of the variables that affect the level of employee satisfaction, which should be useful to the management of companies, and those that should be considered in order to take better advantage of the competitive opportunities that can provide a company with motivated to committed staff.

This study analyzes factors that determine job satisfaction according to the worker's gender.

The curricular profile that businesses demand from their workers is undergoing considerable change, especially in regard to university graduates. Considering the functions that are associated with universities, they should respond to these business demands. As a result, they should educate their students following curricula that fit the needs of the labour market. This fit would allow improving the employability of university graduates. The objectives of this work consist of determining the competencies that firms demand from university graduates and determining the curricula that universities follow to educate their students.

Through a comparison of these objectives, the paper analyses the mismatches that exist between these competencies and the curricula, and action lines are proposed to correct them.

The results show the various competencies that universities must improve upon in the education of their students. This improvement would mean a better fit between university curricula and business demands.

The research was applied in one region of Spain, and it would be appropriate to expand it to the entire country.

University managers can use the information obtained from this study as the basis for designing and subsequently implementing action lines that allow improving the curricular profile of university graduates.

There are few papers that analyse the competencies that firms demand from university graduates and that determine the curricula that universities follow to educate their students.

The recent changes that have occurred in the Spanish university teaching environment, such as growing competition, have caused these courses to become an important differentiating element of what is offered by each university. Therefore, the authors propose to delve deeper into the relationship existing between satisfaction and the intent to recommend the courses taken by the attendees.

The research developed in the paper endeavours to be a first approximation of the factors that determine the satisfaction of the people who attend the summer courses offered by a Spanish public university. Furthermore, this article analyses whether or not the satisfaction levels of the students translate into one of the positive behaviours that are set forth in specialised literature: recommendation. The information is based on the analysis of a self‐administered survey given to the students of the 2003 summer session after completing the course.

The results obtained show that the teaching staff, enrolment and course organisation are the elements that have an impact on student satisfaction, and they show that this satisfaction is what, to a large extent, explains the intent to recommend the courses. In addition to these three elements, and in order to increase the satisfaction levels of students, it is necessary to know the objectives that the students have.

This paper determines the elements that are potentially capable of generating satisfaction and the subsequent effect of the satisfaction on recommendations for the university (summer courses) have been analysed. Other papers analyse all universities, but this work analyses a university's summer courses.

The university environment is experiencing important changes that have to be managed in order to ensure the university's survival. One of the most notable changes is the appearance of a new kind of student who wants to update and/or expand his/her knowledge. This has caused universities to expand their educational offer through seminars, Master's programmes, special courses. This work endeavours a dual objective: to analyse the elements that determine the attendees' satisfaction with the stated courses; and to analyse the relationship between the satisfaction experienced by the course attendees and their loyalty to the institution that offers the courses.

The information from a survey of the attendees of these kinds of courses at a Spanish university has been used.

The work herein developed shows how the teaching staff, the teaching methods and course administration are key elements to achieving student satisfaction and their subsequent loyalty.

This research has been applied to a specific university, and it would be appropriate to expand the research to other institutions of higher education.

The appropriate management of the determinants of satisfaction is vital to the strategic decisions of universities.

The work centres on the analysis framework, on a new kind of student and on these students' specific demands, specifically on the demands satisfied through short courses aimed at updating previously acquired knowledge. Most prior works focus on analysing the satisfaction with university degrees and on the educational offer that these organisations can provide, such as continuing education and/or complementary courses.

Globalization, competition and market saturation have caused a growing interest by firms in developing strategies directed at creating brand loyalty among their customers, especially in markets with low growth rates. In order to reach this objective, relationship marketing must be applied, which considers the mutual benefits derived from the creation of stable relationships between buyers and sellers. The study herein developed analyses the existence of groups of customers from the service sector who value the offer of relational benefits by the organisation, in which benefits are centred basically on the relationship with the contact personnel. As a result, the customers state greater levels of satisfaction with and loyalty to the organisation.

This work has two main objectives: to obtain a set of scales for measuring the patterns, attitudes and practices of integration that can be extrapolated to different scopes (both internal and external) and participants (supplier and customer) within the supply chain; and to evaluate the relations between the different components of integration.

Based on previous literature on the content, measurement and scope of the concept of integration, a model is presented and tested using structural equation modelling. Data were collected from 450 enterprises from the Spanish construction materials sector.

The authors' results suggest that integration is a multidimensional concept that covers the different organisational levels of the company: corporate through attitudes; strategic through patterns; and operative through practices. These components have a different structure and, although attitudes and patterns behave similarly, practices do not, and so there is no single dimension of integration that includes the three levels. With regard to scope, internal and external integration are related but do not constitute one single concept of integration. It therefore cannot be measured as a single dimension in order to relate the integration of the firm with its (corporate, logistic or marketing) performance.

From a methodological point of view, data were collected from a single sector, in a single moment in time and with a single respondent in each company.

Patterns and attitudes have a complete, corporative and strategic content, whereas practices are independent from each other and have a more operational vision.

Unlike studies that analyse integration and its relationship with outcomes, this work focuses on the concept of integration itself by analysing its three components. Thus, it extends the study of internal and external integration and focuses on the behaviour of the enterprise with two different members of the supply chain (suppliers and customers), thereby extending the analysis beyond the dyad.