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The way business practice adjusts to the models proposed by financial theory has been under moderate yet constant scrutiny from the academic world. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this line of research by showing CFOs’ perceptions of Spanish companies with regard to their capital structure decisions.

The empirical approach is examined using information gathered through a survey answered by 140 CFOs of Spanish companies during 2011. Results are obtained from mean difference tests and ordered probit estimations.

The results of the paper show that managers attach importance to establishing and monitoring a target debt ratio and the capacity to maintain additional debt in order to provide financial flexibility. In addition, CFOs prefer internal financing to external, using debt when internal funds do not allow investments to be funded.

On the whole, the results of this research show that trade-off and pecking order theories are not alternative views of the same problem, but represent complementary approaches of how companies define their capital structures.

El modo en que la práctica empresarial se ajusta a los modelos propuestos por la teoría financiera ha sido objeto de un tímido pero constante escrutinio por parte del mundo académico. En este trabajo, se contribuye a esta línea de investigación mediante la exploración de las percepciones que los directivos financieros de empresas españolas mantienen sobre sus decisiones de estructura de capital.

El análisis empírico explota las respuestas de 140 directores financieros de empresas españolas a una encuesta realizada en el año 2011. Los principales resultados son obtenidos de los tests de diferencias de medias y la estimación de modelos Probit ordenado.

Nuestros resultados muestran que los directivos financieros consideran importante el establecimiento y persecución de un objetivo de deuda objetivo y la flexibilidad financiera que otorga el mantenimiento de capacidad de endeudamiento adicional. Además los directores financieros prefieren utilizar los recursos generados internamente antes que la financiación externa, utilizando deuda cuando los fondos internos son insuficientes para financiar sus inversiones.

En conjunto, los resultados de nuestra investigación muestran que la teoría del trade-off y del pecking-order no son soluciones alternativas de un mismo problema, sino enfoques complementarios sobre las decisiones de estructura de capital adoptadas en la práctica.

Our aim is to analyze the type of lender and the debt maturity of Chilean firms as a function of their ownership structure and their growth opportunities. We perform the empirical analysis using an unbalanced panel data of 169 firms from 1990 to 2001. Our results show that Chilean firms with growth opportunities, ownership concentration, and a need for external funds issue short‐term bank debt to finance their new investments. This financing source is an efficient mechanism in Chile to alleviate agency and asymmetric information problems. The Chilean institutional environment influences firms’ decisions on banking debt.

As part of a new focus on a better balance of investment in innovation activities in developing countries, this study aims to understand the effects of technological attributes (technological complexity and type of technology) on manufacturing technology sourcing (whether firms choose either internal development or external sources).

Multiple-case studies were conducted in the Peruvian manufacturing sector.

The authors found that, across Peruvian manufacturing firms, they develop a certain manufacturing technology related to their capabilities. However, when the total cost of acquisition is lower than internal costs of developing technologies, they will choose external sources, regardless of their capabilities and complexity of the technology. In addition, analysis of the type of technology indicated that the pursuit of simultaneous exploration and exploitation occurs when firms use external sources rather than internal.

This study has the limitation that data have been collected years after the decision-making process; the results are based solely on the authors’ analysis using the case of Peruvian industry, and they do not track the impact on the performance of manufacturing technology decisions.

The findings have important implications for technology managers of South American manufacturing firms that are decision makers in the sourcing of new manufacturing technologies.

The results of this study provide literature with insights into technology sourcing strategy in developing countries and the importance of progress in transitioning to technological innovation and catchup.

Como parte de um novo foco em um melhor equilíbrio do investimento em atividades de inovação nos países em desenvolvimento, este estudo compreende os efeitos dos atributos tecnológicos (complexidade tecnológica e tipo de tecnologia) no suprimento de tecnologia de fabricação (se as empresas escolhem desenvolvimento interno ou fontes externas).

Estudos de casos múltiplos foram conduzidos no setor manufatureiro peruano.

Descobrimos que, em todas as empresas de fabricação peruanas, elas desenvolvem uma certa tecnologia de fabricação relacionada às suas capacidades. No entanto, quando o custo total de aquisição é menor do que os custos internos de desenvolvimento de tecnologias, eles escolhem fontes externas, independentemente de suas capacidades e complexidade da tecnologia. Além disso, a análise do tipo de tecnologia indicou que a busca da exploração e exploração simultâneas ocorre quando as empresas usam fontes externas em vez de internas.

Este estudo tem a limitação de que os dados foram coletados anos após o processo de tomada de decisão, os resultados são baseados exclusivamente em nossa análise usando o caso da indústria peruana e não acompanhamos o impacto sobre o desempenho das decisões de tecnologia de fabricação.

Os resultados deste estudo fornecem à literatura insights sobre a estratégia de fornecimento de tecnologia nos países em desenvolvimento e a importância do progresso na transição para a inovação tecnológica e o catch-up.

Sourcing de tecnologia, Tecnologia de fabricação, Peru

Como parte de un nuevo enfoque en un mejor equilibrio de la inversión en actividades de innovación en los países en desarrollo, este estudio comprende los efectos de los atributos tecnológicos (complejidad tecnológica y tipo de tecnología) en la fuente de tecnología de manufactura (ya sea que las empresas elijan desarrollo interno o fuentes externas).

Se realizaron estudios de casos múltiples en el sector manufacturero peruano.

Los resultados muestran que, en todas las empresas manufactureras peruanas, desarrollan una cierta tecnología de manufactura relacionada con sus capacidades. Sin embargo, cuando el costo total de adquisición es menor que el costo interno de desarrollar tecnologías, elegirán fuentes externas, independientemente de sus capacidades y la complejidad de la tecnología. Además, el análisis del tipo de tecnología indicó que la búsqueda simultánea de exploración y explotación ocurre cuando las empresas utilizan fuentes externas en lugar de internas.

Este estudio tiene la limitante de que los datos fueron recopilados luego del proceso de toma de decisiones, los resultados se basan únicamente en la industria peruana y no analizamos el impacto que tuvieron las decisiones recolectadas.

Los resultados de este estudio proporcionan información sobre la estrategia de abastecimiento de tecnología en los países en desarrollo y la importancia del progreso en la transición a la innovación tecnológica y la puesta al día.

Fuente de tecnología, Tecnología de fabricación, Perú

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether bank debt‐maturity decisions are conditioned by growth opportunities, the firms’ ownership structure, or the institutional environment.

The empirical analysis is undertaken using an unbalanced panel data of Chilean and Spanish firms.

The results indicate that when banks are not allowed to become stockholders, managers use bank debt‐maturity as a corporate governance mechanism. When banks can participate in the ownership of the firms that they finance, short‐term bank debt can serve as a substitute for a governance mechanism.

The main contribution of this paper is the analysis of how differences in financial development among countries modify financial decisions by firms.

The Roses Citadel is a bastioned fortification that has archaeological remains from the Greek, Roman and medieval periods in its interior. Currently, the area inside the Citadel is used for a wide range of activities; some directly related with the heritage item, others associated with its use as a public space for the town. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the economic interest of charging an entrance fee vs the alternative of free access and offers a framework to address this issue.

The proposal is to consider the marginal cost of increasing the number of users and to carry out a travel cost analysis. It is vital to take into account the results of specifically economic analyses, but the evaluations of social policies should also be considered, and should have a considerable weight in decision making.

It is proposed that free entry would bring about an increase in the number of visitors and users of Roses Citadel. In turn, this increase would lead to a greater social use of this heritage asset, and a chance for the least privileged sectors of society to use the site more. Financial resources for the maintenance of the asset would not be raised through entry fees, but through contributions relating to the increase in the social consideration of the site.

In the context of a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of paying an entry fee for heritage assets, the example of Roses Citadel provides several factors for consideration. It shows that payment of an entry fee affects use of the site by society, and particularly by the local community, whereas free access leads to a wide range of opportunities for use.

This paper aims to explore how parasocial relationships with Korean celebrity endorsers on social media result in brand credibility and loyalty.

The participants were identified through a purposive sampling approach, and they were composed of consumers who purchased Korean-celebrity-endorsed products and services of a telecommunications company. The hypothesized relationships were gauged using a predictive approach as a research design via partial least squares (PLS) path modeling.

The findings show that all hypothesized relationships are supported. In particular, social media interaction was found to have a substantial, positive and significant effect on self-disclosure. Moreover, self-disclosure has a considerably significant and direct effect on parasocial relationships and was found to indirectly affect the link between social media interactions and parasocial relationships. The results further reveal that social media interactions and parasocial relationships predict source trustworthiness, leading to brand credibility and loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present undertaking is the only study that examined how parasocial relationships on social media are built when foreign celebrities, in this case, the well-known Korean popular group BTS, endorse telecommunications products and services.

La presente investigación explora cómo las relaciones parasociales con celebridades coreanas en las redes sociales generan credibilidad de marca y lealtad.

Los participantes se identificaron mediante un muestreo intencional y estaban compuestos por consumidores que compraban productos y servicios de una empresa de telecomunicaciones avalados por famosos coreanos. Las relaciones hipotetizadas se midieron utilizando un enfoque predictivo como diseño de investigación mediante un modelo de mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS).

Los resultados muestran que todas las relaciones hipotetizadas se confirman. En particular, la interacción con los medios sociales tiene un efecto sustancial, positivo y significativo en la autodivulgación. Además, la autodivulgación tiene un efecto considerablemente significativo y directo en las relaciones parasociales y se descubrió que afecta indirectamente al vínculo entre las interacciones en los medios sociales y las relaciones parasociales. Los resultados revelan además que las interacciones en los medios sociales y las relaciones parasociales predicen la fiabilidad de la fuente, lo que conduce a la credibilidad de la marca y a la lealtad.

El presente trabajo es el único estudio que examina cómo se construyen las relaciones parasociales en los medios sociales cuando celebridades extranjeras, en este caso, el conocido grupo popular coreano BTS, promocionan productos y servicios de telecomunicaciones.

本研究探讨了在社交媒体上与韩国名人的寄生关系如何建立品牌可信度和忠诚度。

通过目的性抽样确定参与者, 包括购买韩国名人代言的电信公司产品和服务的消费者。研究设计使用偏最小二乘法（PLS）模型对假设关系进行预测测量。

研究结果表明, 所有假设关系都得到了证实。特别是, 社交媒体互动对自我披露具有实质性的、积极的和显著的影响。此外, 自我披露对寄生关系也有明显的直接影响, 并被发现间接影响社交媒体互动与寄生关系之间的联系。研究结果进一步揭示了社会化媒体互动和寄生关系能够预测来源的可信度, 从而提高品牌可信度和忠诚度。

研究结果表明, 所有假设的关系都得到了证实。特别是, 社交媒体互动对自我披露具有实质性的、积极的和显著的影响。此外, 自我披露对寄生关系也有明显的直接影响, 并被发现间接影响社交媒体互动和寄生关系之间的联系。研究结果进一步揭示了社会化媒体互动和寄生关系能够预测来源的可信度, 从而提高品牌可信度和忠诚度。

本文是唯一一篇研究外国名人在社交媒体上推广电信产品和服务时如何建立寄生社会关系的研究。

The environments provided by classrooms to facilitate learning among students can be seen as useful vehicles for making meaning out of gossip, lies, exaggeration and partial truths (i.e. counter-knowledge). This paper aims to focus on professional learning communities as a process to counteract the problem of counter-knowledge.

This paper has analysed the relationships between professional-learning communities and counter-knowledge using an empirical study of 210 undergraduate students to identify whether there is a significant impact on student achievement by professional learning communities. This study uses PLS-Graph software version 3.0 to conduct an analysis of the data collected.

Outcome findings support that professional learning communities provide a way of counteracting counter-knowledge and the noise heard through gossip, lies, exaggeration and partial truths.

Results also confirm that counter-knowledge is a variable that, when controlled, has the effect of strengthening the relationship between learning and student achievement.

Food fraud as intentional deception for economic gain relies on a low-tech food value chain, that applies a ‘paper-and-pencil approach’, unable to provide reliable and trusted data about food products, accompanied processes/activities and actors involved. Such approach has created the information asymmetry that leads to erosion of stakeholders and consumers trust, which in turn discourages cooperation within the food chain by damaging its ability to decrease uncertainty and capability to provide authentic, nutritional, accessible and affordable food for all. Lack of holistic approach, focus on stand-alone measures, lack of proactive measures and undermined role of customers have been major factors behind weaknesses of current anti-fraud measures system. Thus, the process of strong and fast digitalisation enabled by the new emerging technology called Industry 4.0 is a way to provide a shift from food fraud detection to efficient prevention. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to shed light on current challenges and opportunities associated with Industry 4.0 technology enablers' guardian role in food fraud prevention with the hope to inform future researchers, experts and decision-makers about opportunities opened up by transforming to new cyber-physical-social ecosystem, or better to say ‘self-thinking’ food value chain whose foundations are already under development. The systematic literature network analysis is applied to fulfil the stated objective. Digitalisation and Industry 4.0 can be used to develop a system that is cost effective and ensures data integrity and prevents tampering and single point failure through offering fault tolerance, immutability, trust, transparency and full traceability of the stored transaction records to all agri-food value chain partners. In addition, such approach lays a foundation for adopting new business models, strengthening food chain resilience, sustainability and innovation capacity.

Based on the approach of Timljonavich and Vogelsang, the purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence of the role of the federal transfers on the β‐convergence process in Canadian provinces.

The paper uses information on annual personal income for the period 1926‐1999 to present empirical evidence about the notion of β‐convergence for the ten Canadian provinces.

The principal conclusion is that the inter‐provincial transfers were not determinant or decisive to the attainment of deterministic convergence in the Canadian provinces.

While the issue of convergence has been analyzed especially using cross‐sectional data or panel data, this paper uses a time‐series methodology with statistics recently proposed by Vogelsang and Bunzel, which are robust to the presence of I(0) or I(1) disturbances.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the shareholder governance on environmental sustainability by the moderating effect of some cultural factors.

The authors have studied the extent of sustainability by continent. On the other hand, the authors have conducted three empirical models that deal with the effect of shareholder governance on environmental sustainability and also with the moderating effect of cultural factors.

Using a sample of 140 countries during the year 2018, the authors find a notable and positive effect of the shareholder governance on environmental sustainability. Regarding the role of cultural factors, the authors found that the factor gender parity is more important than other factors.

The findings have policy implications for governments aiming to combat environmental sustainability and shareholder governance.

This research has approached cultural factors in a different context, which is an eastern country, which are completely different from those of western countries. On the other hand, the subject of sustainability is not sufficiently threated in this country (Saudi Arabia).