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In this paper an analysis is made of significant accounting and budgetary reforms that have recently been introduced within the framework of a broader reform called New Public Management. These reforms have led to the adoption of the accrual basis in accounting in many developed countries (i.e. the effects of transactions or events are recognized when they take place, irrespective of the moment when cash is paid or received). However, in 2003 it has only been adopted in budgeting by three of them: New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. In this paper the international situation is analyzed with a view to the future adoption of the accrual basis in budgeting.

This study aims to examine the development of dynamic capabilities and their effect on the competitive advantage of restaurants in 2009, one year after the beginning of the global financial crisis.

The restaurants were personally surveyed to discern the importance of proactive and reactive strategies for the organization. The resulting two organizational effects – cost cutting and the development of dynamic capabilities – were tested for their influence on competitive advantage.

The findings show that both proactive and reactive strategies reduce costs; however, only proactive strategies develop dynamic capabilities that improve competitive advantage.

The conclusions are drawn from a small sample of restaurants in Madrid, the capital of Spain. Given that Madrid enjoys a higher standard of living and greater business expenditures than other cities, the results may not be generalizable to the rest of the country or to other southern European capitals.

Managers must use proactive strategies for companies to survive during times of crisis. A focus on proactive strategies will improve a company’s competitive position.

Policy makers should support the development of proactive strategies and provide an adequate infrastructure of counseling and network creation.

To the best of our knowledge, no previous research specifically analyzes both the type of strategy deployed and its subsequent effect on dynamic capabilities and the consequences of the strategy on competitive advantage during a financial crisis.

As part of the recent global financial crisis, Europe has experienced a double crisis (financial crisis and Euro crisis) leading to a double dip recession, meaning that the effects of the crisis have been longer and more severe. Tourism, specifically the hospitality industry, is important for the economy of Southern European countries, where the crisis has been the worst. Spain especially depends on tourism as important source of GDP. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the contributing factors to better manage the crisis impacts and anticipate future impacts.

The authors examine the performance of a sample of 7,293 Spanish hospitality companies based on data from 2008 to 2011. With the aim of testing the hypotheses, a multivariate regression analysis was performed.

Results show the importance of a direct effect over both internal (workforce as well as hotel characteristics) and external factors (destination-related GDP spending) for growth, with varying influence across factors. Nevertheless, the most influenced are the moderated effects among the workforce and external variables.

This study contributes to the literature by providing a firm-level analysis (rather than an industry-level analysis) and offers an almost complete picture of a specific geographical area. Future research should address the performance of other tourism industries in times of crisis, such as restaurants and travel agencies, and the relationships between performances in different tourism industries. Regarding the limitations of the paper, the main limitation is associated with the use of panel data from an official database. These include problems in the design, data collection and data management of panel surveys.

These findings help the hospitality industry to understand the relevant drivers and coping strategies associated with the hospitality industry during a financial crisis.

This study is focused on the firm-level analysis instead of an industry-level analysis and can thus give advice to the strategic behaviour of companies.

This research assesses the predictive capacity of key factors in the development of family competences: parent-children relationship, family involvement, family resilience and positive parenting. It also aims to establish which are the most discriminating factors between the groups showing the most and the least prosocial behaviours.

The study involves a longitudinal study of one child from 181 families; 155 families in the experimental group and 26 in the control group. Both boys and girls are included and their ages range from 8 to 14 years. The instruments employed are all validated for use with a Spanish population and include Karol Kumpfer’s questionnaires on family competence and the BASC questionnaire.

All of the factors analysed, with the exception of family involvement, proved to be predictive for prosocial behaviour, and the most discriminating among these were: parent-children relationship, family resilience and positive parenting.

One key issue in family prevention programmes is the development of prosocial behaviour. In this sense, the research developed here aims at highlighting protective factors as key to developing a prosocial behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to test the role of the managerial team’s commitment to quality deployment, quality performance and firm performance; second, to shed light on the effects of a certified quality management system on this chain; and third, to analyze the effects of changes in this chain on different management team attitudes, namely, innovativeness.

Based on a survey conducted in a sample of 370 hotels from the region of Madrid (Spain), the model and hypotheses were validated using structural equation modeling analysis.

The results reveal the importance of a commitment to quality for quality deployment. In addition, quality deployment has a strong impact on operations and employee and customer performance. However, only impacts derived from customers’ perceptions of service quality affect firm performance. In addition, a contextual analysis was performed to verify whether various contextual factors (certification in a quality management standard and the innovative attitude of the management team) could modify the previously obtained results for the full sample.

The management team should understand that its attitude toward quality management could affect the company’s overall performance. On the one hand, the team should be aware that the cost of implementing quality practices could be a burden for employees in the performance of their daily activities. On the other hand, there is a positive relationship between involvement in addressing customers’ requirements and financial performance. Therefore, a balance between the efforts to maintain a certain level of quality by the firm’s employees and the service quality offered to the customers is crucial to achieving better financial performance.

The impact of the implementation of quality management practices on performance has been widely studied; however, the role of intangible factors has not been commonly discussed in service industries in general and even less so in the hospitality sector. This paper analyses the influence of the quality management team’s attitudes toward innovativeness and the implementation of a quality management standard.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the decision to adopt environmental practices in small service companies given that most of the studies on environmental practices focus on the industrial sector and on larger companies.

This work is based on 448 personal surveys involving the managers of small travel agencies, using structural equation modeling to study the links between the dimensions studied.

The results of this paper suggest that being proactive on environmental issues can bring small service companies a great number of benefits that improve their competitiveness and firm performance.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of the adoption of environmental practices on a single service industry. It therefore provides useful empirical evidence for managerial practice in the industry concerned.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test an e-quality model for leisure products purchased online. Two dimensions are considered in order to configure the scale: functional quality and hedonic quality.

Based on a survey conducted on a sample of 1,109 online customers who had bought travel leisure products, the model and hypotheses were validated using structural equation modeling analysis.

The results reveal that both quality dimensions, through an e-quality second order dimension, are critical to obtaining loyalty through perceived value. In terms of functional quality, however, privacy is not significant for consumers because security programs have improved. Moreover, the e-quality – perceived value – loyalty service chain has been confirmed. In addition, a partial mediating effect of perceived value between e-quality and loyalty has been detected.

e-Service managers must be aware of the importance of hedonic quality in seeking to attract and retain customers on their web sites. On the other hand, it has to be considered not only direct effects for evaluating customer loyalty, but also the mediator effect of perceived value is needed.

From now on, the paper forecasts that “hedonics” will be present in future scales designed to assess e-quality, although what is really valued as important is still functional quality.