From Entrepreneurial Orientation and Learning Orientation to Business Performance: Analysing the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning and the Moderating Effects of Organizational Size

Following the organizational learning theory and the knowledge‐based view approach, this contribution aims to study the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation on organizational learning, considering the latter as a mediating variable in the relationships between both antecedent cultural values and business performance. We also analyse the moderating role of organizational size on these previous relationships. The hypotheses proposed in our research model are tested on a sample of 140 Spanish industrial companies, applying variance‐based structural equation modelling: partial least squares. In order to assess the moderating effects of organizational size, we adopt a multi‐group approach using two subsamples with large firms and small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Our findings indicate that organizational learning partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance and fully mediates the link between learning orientation and performance. Likewise, the results reveal that the relationship established between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning is more intense for the group of large firms than for the group of SMEs. Moreover, the influence of learning orientation on organizational learning is greater in SMEs than in large firms.     

Family firms and high technology Mergers & Acquisitions

We examine whether family firms undertake value creating high technology M&A. We also examine whether level of ownership, diversification, agency issues and CEO type matter. Our sample consists of high-technology M&A undertaken by Canadian firms over the period 1997–2006. Canada offers a setting with many family firms and the use of control enhancing mechanisms such as dual class shares and pyramid structures. We find a positive relationship between family ownership and announcement period abnormal returns. This relationship, however, starts to decrease at higher levels of ownership but remains overall positive. We also show that the agency conflict between shareholders and professional managers has a detrimental impact on announcement period abnormal returns whereas the conflict between controlling and minority shareholders via control enhancing mechanisms does not. Finally, we document that founder CEO undertake better high tech M&A than descendant or hired CEO.     

A model-driven DSS architecture for delivery management in collaborative supply chains with lack of homogeneity in products

Uniform product deliveries are required in the ceramic, horticulture and leather sectors because customers require product homogeneity to use, present or consume them together. Some industries cannot prevent the lack of homogeneity in products in their manufacturing processes; hence, they cannot avoid non-uniform finished products arriving at their warehouses and, consequently, fragmentation of their stocks. Therefore, final uniform product amounts do not match planned production ones, which frequently makes serving previous committed orders with homogeneous quantities impossible. This paper proposes a model-driven decision support system (DSS) to help the person in charge of delivery management to reallocate the available real inventory to orders to satisfy homogenous customer requirements in a collaborative supply chain (SC). The DSS has been validated in a ceramic tile collaborative SC.     

Current Challenges of North/South Relations in Gay-Lesbian and Queer Studies

ABSTRACT

The article assesses and analyzes different dimensions of the current configuration of North/South dialogues within gay-lesbian and queer studies, with particular attention to the interrelations between the United States and South America. It looks into how gay-lesbian and queer studies relate to the global division and hierarchy of intellectual labor traditionally embedded in academic practices, and it asks whether the scope of its radical program includes a revision of unequal academic dynamics. Its concerns are both ethical and epistemological, as they speak not only to the moral and political dimensions of academic practice, but also to how these modes affect the knowledge produced in the United States and in South America today. By offering a view from the South conversant with South American as well as Northern production, we hope to contribute to both local and international debates regarding the present and future of the field.     

The Evolution of Well-Being in Spain (1980–2001): A Regional Analysis

Evaluations of regional welfare conventionally rely on Gross Value Added (GVA) per capita as an indicator of well-being. This paper attempts to re-address the regional welfare issue using alternative indicators to per capita income. With this aim, a database for the Spanish regions (NUTS II) has been constructed for the period 1980–2001 and an augmented version of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) has been estimated incorporating indicators of health, education and per capita income. The results show that, whereas regional income per capita disparities have remained constant, regional convergence in the Augmented Human Development Index (AHDI) was achieved between 1980 and 2001. None the less, there is no evidence of intra-distributional mobility (leap-frogging) across regions in the AHDI     

Media Exposure and Health in Europe: Mediators and Moderators of Media Systems

This study examined media exposure as an explanatory factor for individual and cross-national differences in self-assessed general health. In studying media exposure, traditional media (television, radio, and newspapers) and contemporary media (internet) were separately considered. Aside from hypotheses about the relation between media exposure and general health, we also tested hypotheses regarding the mediating role of social isolation and mean world syndrome as well as the moderating role of different media systems across countries. Therefore, we used European Social Survey 2010, covering 25 European countries (n = 36,692). The results of our multilevel regression analyses indicated that exposure to television was negatively related to general health, whereas exposure to radio and newspapers were positively related to health. For contemporary media, findings indicated consistent positive relations between internet exposure and health across. Furthermore, limited support was found for the mediating role of social isolation and the mean world syndrome in the link between media exposure and health. Across media systems, findings for the relations between exposure to the various types of media and health proved to be robust.     

The Interrelations Between Cohabitation,Marriage and First Birth in Germany and Sweden

We study the interrelationships between union-formation forms and fertility in Swedish and West German female cohorts born in 1949–1971. We apply simultaneous hazard models, permitting the presence of correlated unobserved heterogeneity. This method allows us to control for country-specific composition of the population with respect to several socio-economic variables, as well as with respect to unobserved factors jointly affecting childbearing and union formation behavior. Our results confirm that partnership formation and the transition to parenthood are partially interchangeable. Net of those selection effects, we find that the impact of being in a union on first birth is higher in Sweden than in Germany, in particular for cohabitation.     

Perceived Quality of Life and Self-Rated Health among First-Year University Students

This study compares health status and qualityof life assessments of first-year universitystudents with those of their same-age workingcounterparts. Subjects and materials for eachgroup were gathered in 1999 from twocross-sectional data sets from the Swedishregion of Östergötland, covering malesand females aged 20–34 years. Subjects'perceived quality of life (QoL) and self-ratedhealth (SRH) were assessed on a 10-point scale(Ladder scale) and a five-point scale,respectively. Gender-based comparison revealedthat, for both males and females, first-yearuniversity students' average perceived QoL waslower than that of their working counterparts(p < 0.0001 in all instances). A higherproportion of students than expected ratedtheir health as ``average' or as ``low'(p < 0.0001). Perceived QoL was significantlycorrelated with SRH in both groups. Differencesin perceived QoL and SRH exist between studentsand their full-time working peers, and thedeterminants of these differences deservesgreater attention. Knowledge of thedeterminants of SRH and perceived QoL amonguniversity students might then be translatedinto sound and effective public-health practiceand intervention programs.