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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether sheltered employment centers (CEEs) which have a higher rate of professionalization of their managers have better economic returns than those that have a lower one.

A questionnaire has been drawn up for their managers. After collecting the answers, an index of professionalization classifies the CEEs with managers of high, medium and low levels of professionalism. This index is then correlated with the main financial ratios of companies.

The results show that companies with the highest level of managers’ professionalization, on average, have higher economic returns than companies with medium and low rates, although the difference is not very high. This study is an important contribution to academic literature, as it is the first to examine the professionalization of CEE managers.

Finally, this paper is not short of limitations. The number of responses is small but there are similar studies with similar response rates. Additionally, the scarcity of responses may suggest that there is a lack of interest about the utility of professionalization by some CEEs managers because, perhaps, they do not have the necessary competences to understand its importance in management.

This study has some main implications for stakeholders: first, CEEs must pay more attention to the professionalization of their management team, because professionalization can lead to meeting its goals and guaranteeing the firm’s growth. Second, training programs in skills and attitudes should be designed to strengthen these competencies. Moreover, managers of social firms should know that the establishment of strategic plans will be useful to identify new opportunities in the market.

Given the important role of these social firms for the employment of people with disabilities, training programs should be promoted by government in order to ensure the professionalization of these companies.

This research is an important contribution to the literature on this subject because there are no studies about the level of professionalization of CEEs, companies that represent an important value for the economy of a country.

This study aims to examine style-deviation practices in the socially responsible mutual funds (SMRF) industry i.e. how mutual funds game their stated financial objectives to earn a higher relative performance ranking. In addition, the consequences of such practices on sustainable scores and money flows are studied.

A sample of 454 US equity SRMFs is studied. This paper uses panel regressions controlling for time and style fixed-effects.

This study finds that 17.60% of SRMF managers in the sample are engaged in style deviation practices. These practices positively impact the sustainable performance of SRMFs and negatively impact their financial performance. One effect offsets the other and they consequently do not affect money flows. Another finding is that only investors with lower portfolio sustainability scores do show return-chaser behaviour.

This paper reveals that SRMF managers deviating from their stated financial style face a dilemma that is non-existent for their conventional peers that is style deviation practices affect financial and sustainable performance in opposing ways, whereas SRMF investor utility depends positively on both dimensions. The findings are not conclusive about the effectiveness of style deviation practices in attracting SRMF money flows.

SRMF industry has experienced tremendous growth in the past decade. The increased competition in this industry has led managers to strive to attract investors, sometimes by relying on irregular practices that enhance their portfolio results. Regulators should consider how to avoid such perverse behaviour with a view to improving mutual funds transparency.

This is the first research that analyses style deviation practices and their consequences for the SRMF industry.

This paper aims to find out if different exporter types dominate among matched mature Spanish and Estonian firms and whether these types are associated with specific export growth/decline patterns.

This study is based on firm-level data from the Estonian Business Register’s database of annual financial reports and SEPI Foundation’s survey on Spanish firms’ business strategies. From both countries, 242 firms were included and the period 2009-2013 was chosen.

Committed exporters (with 75 per cent or higher export shares) dominated in Estonia and experimental exporters (with export shares mostly below 10 per cent) in Spain. While in Estonia, the most frequent export growth/decline pattern encompassed four consecutive growth years, in Spain, it had two consecutive growth years and then two decline years. Spanish firms’ export growth/decline patterns were more random: 12 patterns of 16 fell within the range of a random walk assumption, while in Estonia, only 5 patterns were within the range. Contingency existed between exporter types and export growth/decline patterns only for the whole sample.

This paper studies if committed/aggressive/active exporters experience more export fluctuations than passive/experimental exporters, and how random export growth/decline patterns are.

This study analyses the relationship between the use of work–family benefits and job satisfaction (JS). Furthermore, it proposes that work-to-family conflict (WFC) and work-to-family enrichment (WFE) play a mediating role in this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

Data are gathered from 1,051 employees of Colombian organisations. Partial least squares path modelling is used.

The results show that the perception of WFE to a greater extent and the WFC perception, to a lesser extent, are significant mediators in the relationship between the use of benefits and JS.

This study justifies investments and initiatives on the adoption and promotion of work–family benefits. Moreover, it provides practical clues on how to boost JS: WFC and WFE are variables to be considered.

This study proposes a multiple mediation model to analyse the relationship between the actual use of work–family benefits and JS from a family perspective. It contributes to the literature in examining antecedents of JS, highlighting the role of WFE.

This paper is a conversation with Maria José Tonelli, conducted by Santiago Ibarreche, about her career as an Iberoamerican scholar.

Interview.

The interview explores Tonelli's career, her achievements and continued search for excellence in her institution, the IAM, and her country Brazil, as well as the way she has coped with life's demands.

The interview in this special section, A Life in Research, brings out an individual scholar's experience and history, not only as recognition of scholarly impact, but also as recognition of the person.

The purpose of this research is to aim to understand how the dynamic of knowledge creation takes place within a small‐firm network (SFN).

The research, qualitative in nature, was developed through the case study of the Clothing Industries Association, called AGIVEST, formed by 35 small clothing industries located in southern Brazil. This article attempts to offer a more comprehensive approach towards the creation of organizational knowledge, by shifting from an endogenous process of the individual firm to a multidirectional exogenous process within networks.

The research presents evidence that the context of a cooperation network may provide an environment of collective learning, represented above all by the interaction dynamic that occurs between the firms through the creation of several types of ba (specific context in terms of time, space and relationship), which support the process of knowledge creation.

This approach should consider the tacit, complex, interdependent and contextual nature of knowledge, overcoming the eminently IT‐oriented view defended by the Western perspective of knowledge management. It is intended that the evidence presented encourages debate and a critical attitude concerning the concepts of knowledge creation, cooperation and SFN in the academic community.

Nobel laureate Ronald Coase (1937) was one of the first modern economists to focus attention on the ways in which firms reduce transaction costs by supplanting market contracts with hierarchical, internal management decisions. Coase and later Cheung (1983) explain that firms save on the costs of discovering prices and on the costs of measuring and monitoring the contribution of inputs to the production process. Still, however, their explanations of why a firm exists beg the question of where the entrepreneur fits into the firm.

“A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.” Jose Marti, Cuban writer, poet and statesman.