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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the ways clients find out about a sport centre and the factors that lead them to enrol and influence their satisfaction with their membership. A secondary objective was to determine the reasons for continuing to attend a sport centre and how they influenced satisfaction towards achievement. Finally, the authors aimed to identify differences between reasons for enroling and reasons for continuing at a sport centre.

A specially developed 16-item questionnaire was sent to 125,000 clients and 21,043 responses were obtained.

Clients who found out about the centre through a recommendation or the internet were 25 per cent more likely to be satisfied with it than those who knew of the centre due to proximity. Similarly, clients who had a specific motive to continue using the centre, for example, to prepare for a sports competition were twice as likely to be satisfied with their membership as any other group (p<0.001).

It identifies a set of research priorities for the journal and the field.

In conclusion, the option of staying fit is established as the most effective recruitment method for retaining clients at the sport centre.

This paper intends to do is to establish the bases of information and knowledge for the treatment of high motives, as well as for managers of sports centres to remodel their strategies of marketing to attracting customers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of the environment on the financial performance in public sports agencies at the local level.

The influence of the socio-demographic, socio-economic and political environment on the financial condition of municipal sports agencies in Spain from 2003 to 2011 was studied by several regression models.

The results show a negative influence of the size of the population and a positive influence of the municipal taxes per capita. The influence of the political context is not demonstrated. However, the set of variables only explain a small percentage of the variance.

The main limitation of this study is the possible existence of other non-controlled environmental variables. However, this study approaches genuinely the effect of the environment on municipal sports agencies, which has important research implications as it shows additional information to be contrasted with other researches in different countries or regions.

The information provided in this study will be of great importance for managers to select more objectively other entities in benchmarking development.

Finally, this study uses a non-exploited database and redirects performance management studies to other areas of service provision such as sport.

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar la influencia del entorno sobre el rendimiento financiero de las agencias de servicios deportivos municipales.

Se ha analizado la influencia del entorno socio-demográfico, socio-económico y político sobre la condición financiera de las agencias de servicios deportivos municipales en España, del 2003 al 2011, a través de diversos modelos de regresión.

Los resultados muestran una influencia negativa del tamaño de la población y una influencia positiva de los impuestos municipales per cápita. La influencia del contexto político no queda demostrada. Sin embargo, el conjunto de variables utilizadas solo explica un pequeño porcentaje de la varianza.

La principal limitación de este estudio es la posible existencia de otras variables del entorno que no han sido controladas. Sin embargo, este estudio es pionero al analizar la influencia del entorno en agencias deportivas, lo cual conlleva implicaciones de investigación ya que muestra información para ser contrastada con nuevos estudios en otros países.

La información proporcionada en este estudio será de utilidad para los gestores, al poder seleccionar de forma más objetiva otras entidades para el desarrollo de actividades de benchmarking.

Por último, este estudio utiliza una base de datos no explotada, redireccionando los estudios de gestión del rendimiento a otras áreas de servicios concretas como la deportiva.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of political instability on rural credit in Lima between 1835 and 1865. In particular, it explores the effects of wars on interest rates for the agricultural sector.

The paper relies on primary sources for the study of the early credit market of Lima. In particular, the study relies on a sample of more than 800 notarized loans for 1835–1865, collected from the National Archives of Peru, to determine the effect of wars on the cost of credit.

The evidence shows that wars increased interest rates on rural loans and that the impact of wars on the cost of credit was greater when the State lacked fiscal resources. Political instability made funding more costly for landlords and farmers, especially in the late 1830s and early 1840s.

This paper is one of the few historical studies on the role of wars on rural credit in Latin America. It contributes to our understanding of the linkages between political instability and financial development.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of the rural credit market of Lima from 1825 to 1865, paying special attention to the effect of information asymmetries on the access to rural credit.

The article relies on primary sources for the study of the early credit market of Lima. In particular, the study relies on a sample of notarized loans for 1825–1865 and on property tax reports, collected from the National Archives of Peru, to determine the effect of information asymmetries, collateral and regional lending on access to credit. The article also analyzes the legal system of Peru during this period to determine whether property rights were well protected and so collateral could be used in the rural credit market.

A revision of the legislation shows that the legal system had some deficiencies, but allowed landlords and tenants to use their assets as collateral. Tax reports show that landlords and tenants owned valuable capital that could be used as collateral. Evidence from notarized loans shows that information asymmetries severely restricted inter-regional lending. In Lima, however, notaries played a role as financial intermediaries, providing the information about potential borrowers and allowing landlords and tenants to access credit. As a result, access to credit was significant for landlords and tenants.

This paper is one of the few historical studies on the role of information asymmetries in the allocation of rural credit in Latin America. It contributes to our understanding of credit markets prior to the creation of banks.

This case presents the history and recent governance challenges of Carvajal, S.A., a Colombia-based, family-owned, billion-dollar-plus holding company that had offered printing-related (e.g., Yellow Pages, notebooks) and other products and services across and beyond South America for more than a century. Specifically, the case details the company’s state of affairs in early 2011, a time by which Carvajal’s flagship businesses had matured rapidly with the emergence of digital technology and diminished demand for paper/print-based products. Though profits and growth remained positive, Carvajal’s leaders knew that upholding the business’s legacy of returns, dividends for all family members, and extensive philanthropy would take significant strategy and execution.

Compounding the strategy issues, Carvajal faced these market challenges with new leadership: the first non-family CEO since the company’s inception. Well-established Colombian executive Ricardo Obregon had been hired in 2008 over two family candidates to lead the business. Obregon was to oversee a complex governance network that included a holding company with seven operating companies, their management and respective boards, a family council, and 280 members (including spouses) of a shareholding family in its sixth generation. Carvajal’s business and family leaders had to face market issues and decisions that included the possibility of taking public the operating companies and/or the holding company while maintaining the business’s long traditions of unity, respect, strong ethics, and philanthropy. That meant optimizing several crucial relationships: between the family and the new CEO; between the family and the board; between the operating companies and the holding company; and between members of the large Carvajal family, many of whom now resided outside of Colombia and Latin America.

Understand general and specific challenges associated with carrying on a longstanding family business facing multiple market challenges; explore the process of engaging a complex family-business governance network to handle business challenges while maintaining family values; consider the effects of culture on a multi-generation family business.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the CSR practices developed by Mexican family and non-family MSMEs. The study also aims to compare the CSR practices carried out by family and non-family businesses in a country with an emergent economy.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using a sample of 384 businesses was selected in the southern state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, distributed in 245 family and 139 non-family businesses and a questionnaire was applied directly to the managers/owners.

The results show that family MSMEs develop CSR practices to a higher extent than non-family ones, mainly on environment and societal dimensions. In addition, CSR practices in family-owned enterprises develop to a higher extent when the manager/owner has more years of experience in the business, has a higher university education and the size of the business is larger.

The study was developed exclusively with a MSMEs sample with a scope only on the southern part of Quintana Roo, Mexico; the shortage of business databases and the stratification of businesses based exclusively on the number of employees. This work presents information that contributes to the state of the art, broadening the existing literature related to CSR in businesses of a country with an emergent economy and an environment where the tourism and commercial sectors predominate.

This paper provides information to government institutions for the establishment of public policies targeted for an increase of CSR activities by businesses in the area. Manager and/or owners can understand the importance of implementing CSR activities within the business as a competitive strategy. It is also important for universities, professors/researchers and for all interested parties.

This paper provides theoretical and empirical evidence about CSR practices carried out among family and non-family MSMEs in an emergent economy.

Ci‐après, nous publions — le programme du 21e Congrès de l'AIEST — Association internationale d'experts scientifiques du tourisme,

This chapter presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of politicians' positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists' risk perception and destination image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reflection is based on the collection of remarks or comments made by international politicians collected using Google as the search engine and subsequent manual textual content analysis. The results show five recurring themes in the politicians' pWOM: general praise, pandemic numbers, politician positioning, health care and population attitude. The discussion includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the dissemination of the messages and the importance of the politicians' countries of origin to a market strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism destination.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.