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This paper aims to explore the current state of website environmental communications in Latin American universities through a benchmarking operational tool. The study considers how these universities communicate their environmental policies as an act of corporate social responsibility and to improve their public image.

A sample of 80 top-ranked Latin American universities was considered. Environmental websites were evaluated in terms of information quality, multimodal design and stakeholder engagement. The research method follows the theoretical foundations of critical discourse analysis, multimodal studies and ecolinguistics.

A total of 59% of the universities have opened environmental websites. However, many of them have poor content and interactivity. Latin American universities obtain low scores in several objective criteria which measure the efficiency of website environmental communications.

The findings can help university administrators to improve the quality and effectiveness of online environmental communications. Some practical recommendations are given and examples of good practice can be emulated.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the situation of website environmental communications in a large sample of Latin American universities. The development of an operational benchmarking tool invites further comparative studies, which may contribute to a wider picture of environmental communications.

This paper examines how organic candies are marketed as healthy and ethical choices on commercial websites through the use of visual, rhetorical and promotional strategies.

The study uses social semiotics and multimodal critical discourse analysis to identify the narratives and discursive traits that organic candy manufacturers reproduce on their websites as part of their ethical branding policy. The dataset is formed by 10 websites that commercialize organic confectionery.

The findings indicate that sellers try to associate organic candy to healthiness, simple and traditional lifestyles and social awareness to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Often the ethical claims that organic candy websites reproduce are not justified.

A major limitation of this study is that the investigation does not evaluate the effectiveness of rhetorical and discursive strategies on real consumer decisions. Further research of an ethnographic or empirical nature would be required for this purpose.

This study recognizes the strategies that organic candy sellers reproduce can help consumers make more informed choices. From the point of view of marketers, understanding the multimodal, rhetorical and discursive strategies that organic candy brands employ can be useful to devise their own marketing approaches.

The investigation contributes to a growing body of research about multimodal critical discourse analysis within food marketing studies. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper that analyses organic candy branding from a multimodal perspective.

This study is concerned with the perlocutionary force of emotional strategies in entrepreneurship discourse. The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent, and under what circumstances, emotional appeals may be effective to convince the conversational partner in entrepreneurship discourse.

To examine the interaction between rational and emotional appeals this paper analyses a corpus formed by several examples of the “elevator pitch” genre, which have been taken from a TV programme called Tu Oportunidad (Your Chance), the Spanish counterpart of the British Dragon’s Den and the American Shark Tank. Using the information gathered in the discursive analysis of the corpus, the paper establishes a template that identifies the main rational and emotional aspects that characterize the entrepreneurial pitch. In a second stage of the research, the template is used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the persuasive influence of rational and emotional aspects.

The results of the qualitative and quantitative research show that there is a clear correlation between the propensity to finance entrepreneurial ventures and the presence of rational aspects in the entrepreneurial pitch. The lack of rational arguments determines the failure of the entrepreneur’s efforts to be persuasive, regardless of the emotional appeals that are introduced into the pitch. Emotional appeals prove to be useful to reinforce rational arguments but they are not sufficiently persuasive on their own.

The paper offers insight into the criteria that investors take into account in order to evaluate entrepreneurial projects, as well as on the strategies that entrepreneurs should develop to build a successful business pitch.

The present research seeks to increase the resilience of the employees of a company dedicated to the harvesting of oranges to reduce stress levels and eating disorders in the work environment.

The mindfulness and outdoor training tools are used in order to become aware of personal purpose and role, accept situations and face daily conflicts. After the delivery of a designed mindfulness and outdoor training program of six (6) weeks, the results obtained after the application of the methodology are presented to a sample of 119 employees from the distribution sector and a control group that does not undergo to the program. Through a resilience questionnaire designed by the authors and the external evaluation of the higher command, it is analysed how it acts as a measurement model to obtain a report composed of 30 items. The evaluation questionnaire measures the general tendency to show low or high resilience and tolerance for frustration.

The results show that there are improvements in resilience capacity by 30%, with a higher level of significance in women than in men. In conclusion, resilience greatly influences business success.

Workers who have learned to take on new challenges and adapt to the new environment are more likely to lead work teams and promote in the organisation. It is detected that their technical training does not matter so much, but that their emotional intelligence (EI) has more impact, gaining greater confidence in themselves to adapt to uncertain environments.

Over the last decades, the development of entrepreneurial activity has allowed greater growth and economic development in Spain. However, within the analysis of Spanish entrepreneurial dynamics, insufficient attention has been paid to a key group: senior entrepreneurs. The fact that the first two decades of the 21st century have been accompanied by the two worst economic crises in remembrance since the Great Depression of the 1930s has had a great impact on the professional careers of the group of senior workers, whose careers have been cut short due to the closure of companies. In this way, the present work delves into the reality of senior entrepreneurs in Spain, analyzing the main characteristics of this group, which is becoming increasingly important in society.

Using microdata from the Spanish National Statistics Institute's Labour Force Survey, the study focuses on reference persons who, being 50 years of age or over and actively working, work as an entrepreneur and have started their activity in the last 12 months. The study covers, in turn, the analysis period of the fourth quarters from 2005 to 2020. In relation to the methodology, the work focuses on the use of binary logistic regression techniques, given that the phenomenon to be studied is binary in nature: entrepreneurship or not.

The main conclusions drawn are the importance of sociodemographic factors such as educational level, age, the profession of the couple as well as the fact of having or not having children. The sector of activity and region are also significant. It is also concluded that senior entrepreneurship in Spain is of a necessary nature, considering the evolution of unemployment and decisions based on pension reform.

The main limitations of the study refer to the lack of socioeconomic information. Thus, it would be interesting to know the link among the sociodemographic characteristics and the economic situation of the professionals, as well as the fact of whether they have started from a previous situation of unemployment or employment.

The obtained conclusions allow progress to be made in the generation of economic policies aimed at the professional reorientation of a group of workers who, due to labor market circumstances, are obliged to end long professional careers and to seek alternatives. In fact, entrepreneurship is a viable professional alternative for these professionals.

Despite the importance of senior professionals in the Spanish economy, more research is needed on their characteristics and needs. Despite important studies such as Socci et al. (2020) or Perez-Encinas et al. (2021), there are not many studies for the Spanish reality. This paper seeks to deepen the understanding of the sociodemographic characteristics of Spanish senior entrepreneurs, based on current public information and considering different stages of the economic cycle.

The authors address the role that income plays in allowing individuals to resist dominant institutional norms and engage in entrepreneurship.

This is a conceptual article that develops propositions about the relationship of institutional logics and income level with opportunity entrepreneurship.

The authors suggest that high-income individuals are less impacted than low-income individuals by institutional logics that do not support opportunity entrepreneurship. More specifically, the positive effects of a national business system that reflects and replicates market logics within a society have a greater impact on the proclivity to pursue opportunity entrepreneurship of low-income individuals than those with high incomes.

Policymakers addressing poverty need to understand that examining the overall societal impact of institutions is not enough. Weak institutions have a disproportionately negative impact on low-income individuals. In addition to critical resources, the accessibility of market logics is key.

This study is the first in the entrepreneurship domain to theorize how and why institutions matter more for low-income individuals. This occurs via two mechanisms: (1) market logic accessibility and (2) the degree to which institutionalized market logics decrease opportunity cost. In so doing, this study contributes to the literature on embedded agency within the institutional logic perspective.

This study aims to outline the influence of various combinations of antecedent conditions for startups being accepted into business incubators in Italy and Romania. The degree to which these conditions affect acceptance is referred to here as the Business Ideas Acceptance Degree (BIAD). The antecedent conditions considered are business idea potential, business plan quality, entrepreneurial team features, business project progress stage, available financial resources, debts of potential incubated companies, commitment to apply for national/EU funds, business area related to incubator mission, proposed technological content level, technological transfer from university/research centres and spin-off of a partner-entity of the incubator.

The methodological toolkit used was mixed: correlation-based analysis (CBA), machine learning (ML) techniques and fsQCA. Principal component analysis enabled the selection of the most representative antecedent conditions from both business incubator samples in Italy and Romania, further used in fsQCA analyses. XGBoost algorithm has been also used. K-Means clustering, an unsupervised learning algorithm that groups unlabeled dataset into different clusters, led to the configuration of two clusters associated to each of the countries involved in this study (Romania and Italy).

The findings reveal the differences between the different antecedent conditions that can contribute to startups being accepted into business incubators in Italy and Romania. The validation of the fsQCA equifinality principle in both samples shows that the selected antecedent conditions, mixed in combinations of “causal recipes”, lead to a high BIAD by business incubators from both countries.

This study reveals the differences between different antecedent conditions, capable to contribute to the start-up acceptance within business incubators from Italy and Romania. Furthermore, the validation of fsQCA equifinality principle in both samples highlight that the selected antecedent conditions, mixed in combinations of causal recipes, lead to a high degree of business ideas' acceptance in business incubators.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have found their development obstructed and in some cases paralysed. Young professionals have had to learn to adapt to this new environment, and they have also lost opportunities to enter the labour market. The main objective of this study is to measure the effectiveness of tools based on experiential learning, such as outdoor training accompanied by mindfulness, in improving the emotional skills of young Asian professionals and, potentially, help them break down the barriers of their environment. It also compares the findings with the young Asian professionals with young European professionals.

This study replicates the one used in the first study, in which the data were first compiled using a closed-ended questionnaire during an outdoor training and mindfulness. A sample of 46 Asian and 49 young European professionals completed a series of outdoor training sessions. The participants provided their self-assessments of their own emotional competencies. Pre- and post-sessions questionnaires were used to measure competencies of emotional intelligence among young professionals who have just finished their studies, as the current educational system was found to require young people to develop professional skills that they will need in employment in the near future.

The results show that outdoor training had a greater effect on the young Asian professionals than on their European counterparts, overall, and particularly in Teamwork competence. Finally, this tool was positively received in both segments.

One limitation of this study is that the Asian participants felt reserved when participating. Their cultural model includes a vision, education and politics that differ so much from European culture that it could have led to difficulties. They are not used to close contact with others or working as a team, and their character is more individualistic and independent (Hu, 2002). A second limitation is that (apart from the pre-activity questionnaire) the degree of cultural difference is not measured quantitatively but is based on a review of the literature and previous findings.

The research provides an underlying finding that addresses how the emotional competencies in demand could be developed at a more globalised level after a post-pandemic environment.

Very few studies have quantitatively confirmed its effectiveness, which is difficult, given the subjective nature of evaluation (Padilla-Melé ndez et al., 2014). Authors such as Barner (1989), Huszczo (1990), Lusher (1990), Bailey (1990), Fulmer (1992), Irvine and Wilson (1994) and Wagner and Campbell (1994) mention studies which implemented an outdoor training programme, but few studies attempt an objective evaluation. This study uses these tools in the Asian environment, after their application and confirmation of their measurability in Europe.

Green entrepreneurship is a topic of transcendental importance for today's societies. Studies on why entrepreneurs engage in green business have primarily focused on external influences, paying little attention to internal factors such as cognitive mechanisms. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the characteristics of the perceived (psychological) time of entrepreneurs who choose green businesses.

Using a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, this study conducts a series of 20 in-depth interviews with green entrepreneurs in Russia, an emerging economy, and then formulates the hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested in the quantitative phase by surveying 389 green and non-green entrepreneurs.

The data obtained in the survey phase support several hypotheses. Specifically, green entrepreneurs think more critically about their past than their non-green colleagues. Similarly, green entrepreneurs have a longer time perspective and are more focused on possible future events. Finally, green entrepreneurs are farsighted and perceive the future more negatively than non-green entrepreneurs.

The data obtained in the survey phase support several hypotheses. Compared with non-green entrepreneurs, green entrepreneurs think more critically about their past, have a longer time perspective and are more focused on possible future events. In addition, green entrepreneurs are farsighted and perceive the future more negatively than their non-green counterparts.

This study contributes to the least examined area in the relevant literature by identifying internal factors that explain green entrepreneurship. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is one of the first to provide an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of the perceived (psychological) time of green entrepreneurs.