José Antonio Gómez Hernández and Cristóbal Pasadas Ureña
The adoption of the information literacy (IL) agenda in Spain has been comparatively slow and fragmented due to cultural setbacks during the twentieth century. Since the late…
Abstract
The adoption of the information literacy (IL) agenda in Spain has been comparatively slow and fragmented due to cultural setbacks during the twentieth century. Since the late 1980s, however, developments in library services and staffing policies, reforms in education, and wide availability of ICTs, among other factors, have led to a brighter picture, with academic and public librarians all over the country engaged in IL activities for all types of users – though school libraries still lag far behind. The main problems still to be addressed seem to be much the same as in most comparable countries: IL as a responsibility for all learning facilitators, social awareness of lifelong learning needs, training of IL trainers, assessing the individual achievements and the institutional outcomes of IL training programmes, and a clear understanding of the remit and rationale for different literacies within the information society.
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Alexander Aguirre, Antonio Zayas, Diego Gómez-Carmona and José Antonio López Sánchez
Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first…
Abstract
Purpose
Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first world destination to be certified under the UNE 178501 standard as smart tourism destination (STD).
Design/methodology/approach
The methodological component has been divided into developing a framework for measuring sustainability through economic, social and environmental open data. Moreover, studying the plan's contribution “Benidorm, Destino Turístico Inteligente y Sostenible” to the city's sustainability through a time series analysis.
Findings
The main contribution shows that Benidorm's transformation into an STD leads to more sustainable cities. Thus, the conversion of Benidorm into an STD has a sustained effect in the medium and long term, contributing to the sustainability of the city.
Research limitations/implications
An open question as a limitation is the subjectivity of the distribution of the relative weight of each indicator. However, statistical analyses are developed to explore the relationship between indicators and global sustainability.
Practical implications
The debate to contextualise this paper is bridging the gap between sustainability and tourism intelligence, giving an original framework for measuring destination sustainability that provides a reasonable starting point for comparing tourism sustainability in different destinations.
Social implications
Tourists in the 21st century prefer environmentally friendly tourism. Marketing campaigns based on destination sustainability must be based on data rather than mere slogans.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper provides a flexible framework for measuring sustainability from open data sources, being one of the first empirical analyses to study the effects on the sustainability of converting a mature destination into an STD.
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Marina Estrada-Cruz, Antonio José Verdú-Jover, José Maria Gómez-Gras and Jose Manuel Guaita Martinez
Entrepreneurial identity involves identifying and exploiting opportunities to create value and wealth. Entrepreneurship contributes mainly to a firm’s efforts be exploited in a…
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurial identity involves identifying and exploiting opportunities to create value and wealth. Entrepreneurship contributes mainly to a firm’s efforts be exploited in a marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the entrepreneurial social identities identified by Fauchart and Gruber (2011) and three primary stakeholders: investors, customers and employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through online questionnaires from entrepreneurs who had created their own new venture in Spain. The results were analysed using partial least squares technique (PLS-SEM) (Fornell and Cha, 1994) with Smart PLS 3.0 (Ringle et al., 2015).
Findings
The results show that the identities defined as Darwinian and Communitarian have a positive effect on profits and growth in sales, which serve to create value for investors and customers. The effect is not significant, however, when these identities are connected to job creation to create value for employees. Further, the multi-group analysis performed shows that this relationship differs significantly based on gender.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is that this research does not include relevant stakeholders like sponsors or project managers. The next step is to expand this research to this kind of stakeholders.
Practical implications
The research assists gender entrepreneurial social identity and business performance under the impact on primary stakeholders.
Social implications
This research has the potential to analyse the entrepreneurial social identities for their contribution to create value and wealth.
Originality/value
The authors’ main contributions are to have based the study on the relationship between entrepreneurial social identity and business performance and their impact on primary stakeholders and to have analysed the differences on gender entrepreneurial social identity and business performance and their impact on primary stakeholders.
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José Aguado-Romero, Antonio M. López-Hernández and Simón Vera-Ríos
In Spain contract auditing has been applied since 1988 to determine the final cost of defense procurement contracts. In this respect, the Spanish Department of Defense takes the…
Abstract
In Spain contract auditing has been applied since 1988 to determine the final cost of defense procurement contracts. In this respect, the Spanish Department of Defense takes the US methodology as a reference model, and therefore it may be useful to study the degree of convergence between the two models. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the degree to which the US contract auditing model for the procurement of defense materiel has influenced the system applied in Spain. Accordingly, the comparative method is used to highlight the main features of the contract auditing models used by the Spanish and the US Departments of Defense. The results obtained show that the methodology used by Spain is not an original approach, but that there is only a low degree of convergence with the US model.
Beatriz Picazo Rodríguez, Antonio Jose Verdú-Jover, Marina Estrada-Cruz and Jose Maria Gomez-Gras
To understand how organizations, public or private, must increase their productivity perception (PP), independently of the sector. This article aims to analyze PP in the digital…
Abstract
Purpose
To understand how organizations, public or private, must increase their productivity perception (PP), independently of the sector. This article aims to analyze PP in the digital transformation (DT) process to determine how it is affected by technostress (TS) and work engagement (WE), two concepts that seem to be forces opposing PP.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use data from a questionnaire addressed to personnel in two organizations (public and private). The analysis applies partial least squares technique to the 505 valid responses obtained from these organizations. This analysis is based not on representativeness but on uniqueness.
Findings
The results suggest a positive, significant relationship between DT and PP. This article integrates DT and its effects on aspects of people's health, PP and WE. The model thus includes interactions of technology with human elements. In both business and administrative environments, PP is key to optimizing resources and survival of organizations.
Research limitations/implications
DT processes are different and complex because every organization is different. The authors recommend expanding this study to other sectors in both spheres, public and private. Aligning the objectives of the institutions for aid with DT is also quite complicated.
Practical implications
This study contributes to improving participating organizations. It also provides government institutions with a clear foundation from which to encourage actions that promote the health and WE of their workforce without reducing productivity. In addition, this study adds novelty to the research line.
Originality/value
The authors have deepened this line of research by developing fuller knowledge of the relationships among novel and necessary variables in organizations. The authors provide complementary, different and inspiring value in addressing this line of research.
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Lirios Alos-Simo, Antonio J. Verdu-Jover and Jose-Maria Gomez-Gras
The purpose of this paper is to examine theoretically and empirically what type of leadership facilitates e-business adoption in large manufacturing firms. The digital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine theoretically and empirically what type of leadership facilitates e-business adoption in large manufacturing firms. The digital transformation of firms requires leadership that can promote the adaptive quality of organizational culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an empirical study using two key informants from a sample of 181 incumbent firms.
Findings
The authors find significant evidence that adaptive culture is the vehicle by which transformational leaders positively influence e-business adoption.
Originality/value
Given the digital economy’s external pressures, many e-business adoption processes fail due to organizational factors originating in leadership and its capability to change followers’ values, norms, and motivations. To solve this problem, the authors propose a model that explains how transformational leadership first plays a key role in changing characteristics of culture and then facilitates e-business adoption.
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Judith Licea de Arenas, José Vicente Rodríguez, José Antonio Gómez and Miguel Arenas
A growing concern for universities is developing a new educational model in which the student is educated both for future social responsibilities, and where information literacy…
Abstract
A growing concern for universities is developing a new educational model in which the student is educated both for future social responsibilities, and where information literacy is viewed as a lifelong learning requirement. Thus, there is a pressing need for empirical analyses to identify the extent to which university students are information‐literate. Therefore, an investigation of university students from two institutions in the USA and Europe was carried out in order to determine how they use their libraries, information and computers. It was found that there were similarities and differences between the two groups of students from the University of Murcia, Spain, and the National University of Mexico.
José Luis Zafra‐Gómez, Antonio M. López‐Hernández, Ana María Plata Díaz and Gemma Pérez López
Financial stress features frequently as an explanatory factor in research into decisions concerning the contracting out, or decentralisation, of local public services, though…
Abstract
Purpose
Financial stress features frequently as an explanatory factor in research into decisions concerning the contracting out, or decentralisation, of local public services, though existing empirical studies are not unanimous in their conclusions. The understanding of how financial crises influence these processes could be enhanced by the use of a dynamic methodology that takes into account the following three aspects: the duration of the financial stress, the effectiveness of the action taken and the time‐lag between the crisis and the response. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study introduces three important innovations in the methodology employed to study financial stress: the consideration of the duration of a financial stress episode as a key factor in promoting changes in the provision of public services; the effectiveness of the measures taken; and time‐lag, which takes into account the extended time horizon over which the local authority may implement business‐like and organisational changes.
Findings
To date, the techniques used to measure the effects of changes in service delivery methods implemented to alleviate financial stress, have not reflected the true nature of the phenomenon. The results obtained when the new approach proposed in this paper was used to examine Spanish local government responses to financial stress during the period 1999‐2007 confirm that the methodology is well‐judged and effective.
Originality/value
This study reveals that local authorities facing financial stress of two, three or four years’ duration present percentages of decentralisation and contracting‐out that are significantly higher than is the case for local authorities that implement the same processes in response to crises of one year. These findings confirm the need to carry out studies that include the duration of financial crises as a determinant factor in change processes.
Resumen
El estrés financiero como factor explicativo es una característica recurrente en la investigación sobre la privatización/descentralización de los servicios públicos locales, aunque los estudios empíricos previos no son unánimes en sus conclusiones. Nuestro conocimiento de la influencia de las crisis financieras en estos procesos se podría mejorar mediante el uso de una metodología dinámica que tenga en cuenta los tres aspectos siguientes: la duración de la tensión financiera, el tiempo que transcurre entre la crisis y la respuesta hecha, y la eficacia de esta acción. Al aplicar esta nueva metodología, se demuestra que, hasta la fecha, los métodos utilizados para medir los efectos de los cambios en las formas de prestación de servicios, como un medio de aliviar la tensión financiera, no han reflejado la verdadera naturaleza del fenómeno. Los resultados obtenidos con esta nueva propuesta confirman que la metodología aplicada es la correcta y efectiva en los gobiernos locales españoles para el período 1999‐2007.
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Antonio Huerta-Estévez and José Satsumi López-Morales
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Mexican companies is an incipient concept that, in recent years, has had greater participation in the planning of companies'…
Abstract
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Mexican companies is an incipient concept that, in recent years, has had greater participation in the planning of companies' organisational strategies. Similarly, Mexico, as an emerging economy, has managed to remain one of the main economies in Latin America and, together with companies and organised society, has developed public policies that allow compliance with the commitment of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The objective of this work is to analyse the presence of CSR in Mexican companies and its relationship with the SDGs related to economic development, for which a content analysis of the websites of the hundred most important companies in Mexico, according to the 2019 ranking of Expansión magazine, was performed. Finally, we establish that more than half of Mexican companies do not consider aspects related to CSR in their organisational development, contributing to the increase in the percentage of the population lagging behind in education, health and quality food and resulting in an increase in the levels of poverty and extreme poverty among the population of Mexico.