Search results

Family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent a substantial part of many economies. In these organizations, close and informal relationships between employers and employees often foster a mutual understanding of each other’s needs, facilitating the negotiation of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), special employment conditions tailored for individual employees. However, research on how i-deals are negotiated in family SMEs, especially regarding power dynamics and influence, remains limited. This study aims to identify the types of i-deals negotiated in family SMEs and explore the role of power and influence in these negotiations.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 employees and 15 employers from Spanish family SMEs. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti 8, and thematic analysis was performed.

The study concludes that task, flexibility, financial and development i-deals are particularly negotiated in family SMEs. It identifies that referent and expert power play an important role in initiating these negotiations. Furthermore, rational tactics are generally employed for negotiating work performance, soft tactics for employment-related aspects and hard tactics for work flexibility. Additionally, the study identified gender differences in the negotiation of i-deals.

This study enhances i-deal literature by highlighting the distinct characteristics of family SMEs and their impact on i-deal negotiations. The findings suggest that power dynamics and influence tactics in family SMEs differ from those in larger firms. Moreover, certain i-deals may encounter resistance due to concerns about organizational performance and economic implications. Understanding these factors is essential for developing effective negotiation strategies in family SMEs.

This study offers a dual perspective, analyzing the power and influence tactics used by both employees and employers in family SME i-deal negotiations and highlighting gendered dynamics in these processes.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

The paper sets out to analyse consumer preferences relating to a typical product, soppressata (a traditional Calabrian salted meat with PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) certification).

A multivariate analysis technique (factor analysis) was used on a sample of consumers, identified by a specific market research survey. Identification of groups of homogenous purchasers, according to one or two variables, is the objective of the segmentation approach which breaks up the reference market into homogeneous subgroups as regards their expectations and purchasing behaviour. Factor analysis lends itself to this use, allowing the weight of each component extracted from the interviewee to be graded.

Soppressata is a well‐known product. The main reason for purchase is that it is very tasty. Consumers appreciated the traditional culture it represents.

The possible strategies for quality and development offer new opportunities for producers as they relate to changes in consumer tastes and preferences. The variety of reasons that lead consumers to purchase the typical product oblige the researcher to abandon market analysis based on a “mass marketing” logic in favour of specific strategies.

This research aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the prospective advantages of implementing accrual accounting in countries where such a transition is underway, with a focus on Italian municipalities. The research seeks to ascertain the requisite conditions, in public sector accounting mangers’ perception, for a useful transition from modified cash accounting to full accrual accounting within the Italian context.

The methodology adopted is Qualitative Comparative Analysis, which involves conducting a survey through semi-structured interviews with accounting managers in municipal accounting departments. The sample is drawn from municipalities in the Emilia-Romagna region with populations exceeding 15,000 inhabitants.

The study shows that some stakeholders have a tangible demand for financial statement information. They believe that accrual accounting statements provide accurate insights into municipal financial health and that these statements are comparable across municipalities. All these factors together constitute sufficient conditions for considering useful the implementation of accrual accounting in local governments, in the opinion of public sector accounting managers.

This paper contextualises the broader international debate on transitioning to full accrual accounting in the New Institutional Sociology framework. The Qualitative Comparative Analysis is an underutilised methodology within the field of public sector accounting, and the public sector accounting managers’ point of view is scarcely investigated in literature.

This study investigates drivers of local governments’ digitalization, focusing on contextual factors that can help explain the level of e-government development. Concretely, it examines financial, socioeconomic, and political factors that represent the local context where e-government initiatives are implemented.

A composite e-government index was used, adopting a holistic perspective to capture various features of e-government initiatives. The OLS estimator for linear regressions was used for the analysis based on a sample of Italian municipalities in 2023. The Tobit estimator was additionally implemented to check for the robustness of the results.

Empirical findings suggest that municipalities with higher indebtedness tend to show lower digitalization levels. Economic and social variables are also relevant factors, while the political orientation of the governing party is not significant. This indirectly documents that e-government initiatives play a strategic role despite the political ideology.

This study avoids referring to a technological determinism perspective and examines the role of the institutional and operational context, highlighting the need to unveil and explain differences among local governments rather than focusing on similarities.

Fieldwork in architectural conservation education is a proven practice to develop skills in documenting current conditions and start methodological engagements with a site's architectural and historical values. It is a vehicle to generate intensive learning experiences in comprehensive degrees or short courses. Review of the practice within conservation education is not extensive and the purpose of this paper is to reflect on enhancing pedagogy further.

This reflection was triggered by a major case study, a workshop to generate UG teaching capacity for an Architecture school in Colombia. This led to mapping the fieldwork spectrum, reviewing the authors' experiences (PG courses and external workshops) and activities planned in other MSc programmes. Fieldwork is often seen as skills training, so enhancement is explored through the affiliate geography and architecture UG curricula.

The Colombia workshop provoked strong engagement among students and tutors, and their commitment to make heritage meaningful to their projects is a measure of this pedagogy's success. Fieldwork around a site's essence, beyond skills development can induce conservation students into critical enquiries by motivating them to develop personalised contexts and enhance engagement with the unexpected through inversion of linear learning processes. Setting up site exercises early on PG programmes can encourage curiosity in exploring historic environments and contextualise surveying methods.

Student reaction to these ideas has still to be tested by designing new activities. The educational methods of this implementation need deeper analysis, beyond the paper's scope.

The paper maps the academic value of fieldwork in conservation education, investigating enhancement and cross-fertilisation from architecture and geography.