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Miles and Snow’s (1978) model posits that organizational performance is dependent upon the degree of consistency (fit) that managers establish between organizational and environmental elements. However, different interpretations of the concept of fit coexist in the literature. We argue that in this model, consistency can be defined as a pattern of “equivalent covariance”, which is operatively created through the use of confirmatory factor analysis. The form of fit as covariance leads to the view of “configuration as quality”, in that the basic subject is the study of the interrelationships among organizational and environmental elements. The concept of fit as covariance is decidedly different from the traditional concept of fit as difference, which regards configuration as a typology or taxonomy. The covariance perspective of configurational theory is underused; for this reason, we apply this analytical perspective to a sample of 229 companies. The empirical results confirm that consistency positively influences organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to test an augmented technology acceptance model (TAM) in the online financial trading context. This research aims to investigate how e‐investors are influenced by perceived trust, security, and privacy jointly with traditional TAM constructs.

The research examines e‐investors' behavioral intention to use online dealers' and stockbrokers' services. The model suggests that perceived trust jointly with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important antecedents of intentions; the hypotheses are statistically tested using structural modeling.

The results from this study suggest that perceived trust, usefulness and ease of use are important issues in online trading systems. The findings suggest that online financial dealers and stockbrokers must improve the security of the online system since e‐investors form perceptions about its perceived security and when these perceptions are confirmed, their trust is enhanced and consequently they are more likely to use these online services particularly if the financial information is useful for their purposes.

The findings of the present study have various implications for research as well as practice. First, perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are critical to the success of an online trading system. Second, perceived privacy did not influence users' beliefs in trust. Since perceived trust and perceived usefulness are the most important antecedents of behavioral intention, managers can increase e‐investors' usage intention by improving their beliefs in how the online trading system can enhance their performance and effectiveness using a system with enough security mechanisms. The major limitation is that trust is examined as a single‐dimension construct.

This paper is one of the first that has empirically tested the link between trust, security, privacy, usefulness, ease of use and behavioral intention in the online trading context.

The purpose of this study is to explore the paranormal tourist experience on ghost tours, taking into account the participants’ perceptions and their prior knowledge of the paranormal, in order to determine the principal components of the future of paranormal tourist experience.

The study is divided into two phases. The first phase is based on participant observation during a ghost tour. The second phase is based on a previously published framework for paranormal tourism. It introduces a qualitative adaptation of the orchestra model to look in-depth at how experiences with paranormal tours might shape the future of tourism as a major subtype.

Paranormal tourism has external (situational-enchantment, historical, mystical, ghostly and unsolved mysteries) and internal (affective, cognitive, sensory, behavior and relationship) components that are inter-linked. Future paranormal tourist experiences (FPTEs) must be focused on enhancing these aspects in order to offer an immersive experience.

Consequently, this paper proposes the FPTE model.

This work develops a new methodological process that attempts to test the contingent and universalistic arguments regarding the influence of human resources management on firm performance. Using moderator regression analysis, we analyze how economic results associated with a policy of human resources management committed to employees depend on the strategic profile adopted by the company. The results obtained support the contingent proposition, since competitive strategy moderates both the intensity and the direction of this effect. In addition, it is shown that commitment management is especially beneficial when a cost focus strategy is adopted.

The main objective of this study is to identify some of the variables that affect the perception of Brazil country brand, as well as the knowledge of the relationships between them.

The proposed model aims to find out the influence of the affective image, the cognitive image, the identity and the reputation on the country brand. Partial Least Squares (PLS) is the method used to test the proposed model.

According to the results obtained, it seems that both identity and reputation have a positive and significant effect on the country brand. On the other hand, the cognitive image is positively related to identity and the affective image, while it is surprising that the affective image itself shows no significant influence on identity.

The study is of particular interest to the policy makers of territories, explaining the factors they must influence in order to successfully enhance the country brand. It also contributes to theoretical development by proposing a conceptual model that highlights the importance of the cognitive image in the country brand, due to its effect on the affective image and identity.

El principal objetivo de este estudio es identificar algunas de las variables que inciden en la percepción de la marca país Brasil, así como el conocimiento de las relaciones entre ellos.

El modelo propuesto tiene como objetivo conocer la influencia de la imagen afectiva, la imagen cognitiva, la identidad y reputación en la marca país. El PLS (Partial Least Squares) es el método utilizado para probar el modelo propuesto.

Según los resultados obtenidos, parece que tanto la identidad como la reputación tienen un efecto positivo y significativo en la marca país. Por otro lado, la imagen cognitiva se relaciona positivamente con la identidad y la imagen afectiva, mientras que sorprende que la imagen afectiva en sí misma no muestra una influencia significativa sobre la identidad.

El estudio es de especial interés para los responsables políticos, ya que explica los factores que debe influir para potenciar con éxito la marca país. También contribuye al desarrollo teórico proponiendo un modelo conceptual que resalte la importancia de la imagen cognitiva en la marca país, por su efecto sobre la imagen e identidad afectiva.

Buying online has become a widespread and common activity for consumers, and, for many organizations, e-commerce has become a very profitable alternative to sell their products and services, also allowing them to leverage their strategy in new geographical markets immediately. Although the literature on the subject is comprehensive, there is a gap in identifying the holistic constructs that are the determinants of consumers' choice of an online store. This research resorts to an exploratory study, based on a nonsystematic literature review, seeking to identify these constructs. The results obtained allowed us to identify the following constructs: consumer behavior, customer experience, web content, catalog, terms and conditions, customer support, perceived value, trust, security and privacy, satisfaction, and loyalty. Customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty constructs stand out from a strategic perspective.

This chapter aims to contribute to the study of social protests around the world and particularly in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, with a focus on an Argentinean case. Throughout these years, Argentina like many other Latin American societies witnessed the growth and development of intense social and political struggles in concert with the armed insurgency. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrilla organizations in Argentina? What was the interconnection between working-class and armed insurgent struggle? This chapter examines these liaisons by studying the case of an industrial city that has been identified to be a paradigm of labor radicalization and political violence in Argentina—Villa Constitución. Through the reanalysis of documents and sources as well as interviews, we discuss established interpretations on armed and labor struggles that reveal a broader heterogeneity in the forms of social support to revolutionary violence. Solidarity among workers and armed militants appears in (1) the actions of militant workers at their workplaces, and (2) the armed actions organized by militants in support of worker’s fights.” These two groups reinforced each other's activism. But, by no means can we directly deduct from this that rank and file workers immediately identified their strikes with ideologically revolutionary objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to bring new insights into the underexplored mediating role of psychological empowerment (PE) in the link between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employees’ affective commitment. Furthermore, given the distinct behaviour that the different dimensions of PE have shown in previous studies, we have followed the call for more empirical research in this field by considering such specific dimensions. Thus, the present paper examines, from a multilevel perspective, the extent to which Spreitzer’s (1995) employee PE dimensions (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) mediate the relationship between HPWS and employee affective commitment.

A multilevel approach, with matched data from HR managers and a sample of 504 core employees in 142 Spanish firms, is used to test the hypotheses through structural equation modelling methodology.

We corroborate that three of the dimensions of employee PE (meaning, self-determination and impact) mediate the relationship between HPWS and employee AC.

The study contributes to the existing literature by elucidating the importance of generating motivating feelings in employees as a way of promoting affective reactions in organisations. More specifically, it highlights the usefulness of examining and boosting different segments of the psychological empowerment construct when seeking committed employees.

We aim to analyze the early trajectory of Argentine industry from the perspective of uneven and combined development. Argentine integration into the world market based on the export of agricultural goods had not neglected industrial development. At first, Argentine industry benefited from its late emergence and rapidly followed the path of leading countries’ manufactures. But initial advantage soon turned into a liability. The emergence of large-scale industry required expanded markets that were already occupied by older and stronger competitors. The 1930 crisis and the impact of the Second World War aggravated this problem. Attempts to remedy the situation – an export-led industrialization scheme and an internal-market-oriented economy – failed successively. We study this process through the analysis of Argentine industrial chambers’ journals, reports from the United States Department of Foreign Trade and Argentine official government documents. We find that the export-led industrialization project failed because of the weakness of Argentine industries and not because of economic nationalism. That was the outcome of the previous failure of liberal projects and of the international constraints imposed by the Second World War and its aftermath. During this later period of internal-market-oriented economy, the gap between Argentine and international productivity widened. This paper presents an innovative interpretation that transcends liberal and nationalistic explanations and serves as a case study of the implications of uneven and combined development.

This chapter will look at the development, types and effectiveness of new forms of advertising in television (NFAs) and report on the current state of research in the field.

The most relevant contributions from the literature describing the practice and assessing the effectiveness of NFAs are presented and reviewed.

NFAs have emerged in response to the decreased effectiveness of conventional television advertising (spots) due to audience fragmentation, zapping, saturation and increased competition. Currently, NFAs are widely used around the world. Although the available empirical evidence indicates that NFAs are more effective than traditional spots in terms of recall, this chapter points to a need for better scientific understanding of key aspects of these new formats. Given the important role that NFAs play in how today’s television advertising market is managed, further research is needed on their effectiveness.

The literature on the practice and analysis of the effectiveness of NFAs is unfocused and varied, making it difficult to adequately determine whether the growing use of these formats can be justified on the grounds of proven arguments regarding the qualities that set them apart from traditional spots. In this regard, the summary provided in this chapter of both the state of knowledge about different types of new advertising formats on TV and their effectiveness is an important reflection of the state of the art in research on these formats.