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Efficiency in retailing companies is mandatory for survival. Literature acknowledges external factors impact on efficiency. However, this impact remains understudied, as previous research typically focuses on managerial decisions. The purpose of this paper is to partially fill this gap by exploring the influence of external factors on retailers’ efficiency.

This research simultaneously measures retail efficiency and evaluates the impact of six potential drivers by applying bootstrap techniques in a sample of 25 European Union countries during the period 2006–2015.

The efficiency of the retail system in the countries under analysis evolves at different paces during the observation period. This evolution can be explained by country population density, average store size within countries, foreign trade ratio, concentration, economic freedom and percentage of urban population.

This research does not account for supply and demand restrictions that might affect retailers’ efficiency, as well as other variables that influence their production process.

This paper might help retail managers to comprehend and manage their companies’ efficiency. Furthermore, it provides clues to evaluate market attractiveness in retailers’ international expansion strategies.

Policy makers can facilitate retailers’ efficiency through regulations on external variables that influence retailers’ performance, namely economic freedom and foreign trade ratio.

For the first time, this study analyses the impact of external factors on retail services efficiency across countries.

One of the main difficulties for wine managers is understanding and interpreting how some strategies and company behaviours could affect firms’ performance. This study aims to contribute to improve these concerns by examining the evolution of the competitive wine industry structure over time using the strategic group membership dynamics approach.

This study empirically analyses a data set spanning the period 2004–2014 to identify the strategic groups in the Spanish wine industry and to model their evolution over time. A time inhomogeneous hidden Markov model (HMM) is used for this purpose.

Three strategic groups are identified: Young Makers, Quality Lovers and Major Players. Young Makers are small wineries that produce low-quality wines. They are not part of a collective brand – Protected Designation of Origin – and do not invest in marketing campaigns. Quality Lovers produce the highest quality wines but offer a narrow assortment. They invest modestly in advertising, and most of them belong to a Protected Designation of Origin. Major Players produce medium-quality wines, offer a wide assortment and invest heavily in advertising. The groups seem stable over time.

The results show that strategic group analysis can be used to identify and compare patterns of strategic activity within the wine industry, providing a better understanding of the competitive environment.

No previous studies have analysed the competitive structure of the Spanish wine industry. This study delineates the structure of this industry using strategic groups, which is supported by a valid econometric model. Therefore, from a theory base perspective, this study adds new evidence to the stream of research on strategic groups by investigating their evolution over time in the wine industry and the effect of strategic group membership on performance.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate advertising efficiency in the Spanish beer industry and to analyse the effects of several environmental variables and brand portfolio scope on advertising efficiency scores.

A two-stage double bootstrap procedure is used. In the first stage, advertising efficiency is estimated using a bootstrapped data envelopment analysis on a multiple input-output model of advertising. In the second stage, a bootstrapped truncated regression model is estimated to identify the determinants of advertising efficiency. Both stages are estimated simultaneously. The empirical application is carried out on a sample of Spanish brewers between 2007 and 2014.

Results show low advertising efficiency scores and highlight the effects that environment and brand portfolio scope have on these estimates.

For the first time, this paper analyses the effect of environmental variables and the brand portfolio scope on advertising efficiency in the beer industry.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the advertising productivity of a collective brand strategy vs a non-collective brand strategy, as well as the moderating role of company characteristics (age of the company, individual brand reputation and degree of competition that the company faces). The main hypothesis is that a collective brand has a positive influence on the advertising productivity of its member companies, as it is a collective reputation indicator in experience goods.

The methodology is based on the application of regression models with panel data of companies in a Spanish experience goods industry between 2004 and 2012. The empirical analysis is made in the Spanish winery sector, given the proliferation in the wine market of public collective brands (i.e. protected designation of origin labels).

The results show that a company associated with a collective brand has greater advertising productivity than a non-associated company. Advertising productivity is also higher for brands with better individual reputations associated with a collective brand. Moreover, the relative effect of a collective brand on advertising productivity is higher when the company competes in a market with a higher level of competition.

The literature has paid little attention to the relationship between collective brand strategy and the advertising productivity of member companies. This study considers that the advertising productivity of companies in collective brands could be explained by the effects derived from the collective brand reputation.

This study aims to examine the relationships between a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and its performance and risk. The authors hypothesize that industry-level effects are highly determinant of the sign and magnitude of these relationships to establish a ranking of industries to identify the position of the most prominent tourism-related industries: hotels and airlines. Based on the cybernetic model of decision making and the heuristics thereof, shareholders base their investment decisions derived from CSR announcements on the idea that the industries behave differently; their fixed costs being a relevant factor.

The authors estimate the industry-specific effects of CSR initiatives on firms' performance and risk using a sample of 583 announcements from the Spanish Stock Market.

The results show that while CSR announcements have a positive effect on performance when the authors do not account for industry-specific factors, once the authors incorporate these factors into the analysis, the authors find that firm performance and risk vary quite substantially as a function of the industry to which the firm belongs. Interestingly, while the hotel industry presents an average behavior (standing at 9th position in returns, 15th in terms of risk, and 8th according to the ratio returns/volatility), the airline industry presents the worst situation of all industries: last in performance and last in risk.

The results help managers assess their decisions and allocate CSR resources optimally.

This article is the first attempt to empirically test and comprehensively detect the different relationships between CSR and firm performance across industries.

The aim of the paper is to estimate the cost efficiency of supermarket chains in the Spanish retailing industry.

The methodology applied is based on a random stochastic frontier model that enables separation of the covariates in the cost function into homogeneous and heterogeneous variables. The methodology is applied to panel data on a sample of 78 supermarket chains between 2001 and 2004.

The results reveal high levels of cost inefficiency in the Spanish retail sector. The results also reveal that the random frontier models better describe Spanish retailers than homogeneous frontier models.

The generalisation of the conclusions of the study to the whole sector should be made with caution, given the fact that only one of the players in the distribution channel has been analysed.

Managers should be aware of the importance that cost efficiency has for their own firms. Further, a common government retailing policy will be unable to reach all retailing companies, since heterogeneity exists.

For the first time, the cost efficiency of the intermediaries in the Spanish retailing sector is studied.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate total productivity change in the winery sector, decomposing it into efficiency change and technical change.

The methodology is based on the estimation of the Malmquist productivity index for a sample of Spanish and Italian wineries between 2005 and 2013.

The results show very low efficiency levels for the wineries under study. Further, Spanish and Italian wineries show a decrease in their average annual productivity for the period of time analysed.

The analysis of the efficiency and the productivity of the wineries is crucial to improve their competitiveness and guarantee their survival.

For the first time, a comparative analysis is carried out with data from two major wine-producing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to compare different approaches to the evaluation of the economic performance of wineries.

This paper simultaneously applies traditional profitability and productivity measures and a non‐parametric technique to estimate efficiency, and compares the results obtained. A cluster analysis has been applied to identify different groups of firms. The empirical application is carried out on a sample of 1,222 Spanish wineries in 2007.

The results reveal important differences depending on the methodology employed. Overall, none of the methodologies can be said to be better than the rest.

This paper has only considered the economic performance of wineries and its findings are not substitutes for other subjective measures directed at the assessment of aspects such as the quality of the wines produced.

Managers should be aware of their own performance in order to guarantee the competitiveness and future investments of their wineries.

For the first time, this paper analyses the economic performance of Spanish wineries, simultaneously using different approaches widely employed in the management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the influence of inventory investment, wage levels, and age of the firm on retailer technical efficiency.

The methodology is based on the estimation of a stochastic parametric function. To estimate technical efficiency the output supermarket chain sales volume is used, calculated by isolating the retailer price effect on sales revenue.

The empirical analyses applied to panel data show that inventory investment and wage level have a positive impact on technical efficiency.

The limitations of the study include the generalisation of the conclusions to the entire sector, which must be done with due care, since only one of the players in the distribution channel (supermarket chains) has been analysed.

First, the estimation of the efficiency of the different supermarket chains helps the management of producers, since they can identify efficient supermarket chains, which is important for vertical relationships in the distribution channel. Second, the analysis of the determinant factors of efficiency for different chains may be used as external benchmarking.

The focus of the paper is on developing a useful methodology for managers, determining some of the sources of retail efficiency gains. The paper develops and tests a composite set of hypotheses, analysing the influence of some managerially controlled factors on technical efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of third‐party complaints on firm performance. It aims to use a financial measurement of performance, the variation in firm share returns in the stock market following the publication of the Annual Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain. Building on modern theory of financial markets and resource‐based theory, it aims to propose that the release of information about third‐party complaints negatively influences firms' stock returns.

The empirical research is conducted on a sample of Spanish banks to which complaints were made and which were quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2002. It employs the event study methodology.

The results of the study indicate that the release of the annual report of the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain negatively affects the market's assessment of future cash flows.

Banks of a large size were selected, which restricts generalisation of the conclusions. Future research is needed to validate the findings across a wider sample base (e.g. cross‐nationally). The study described is conducted in the banking industry. Therefore, more research is needed to examine the effects of third‐party complaints on performance in different industry contexts (e.g. airlines, mobile phone industry).

Firms should invest in improving complaint management systems in order to prevent future complaints reaching the third‐party level. The study results show that this information damages corporate reputation and it is negatively received by investors.

The study meets the demands for greater attention to be given to third‐party complaints made by various authors. It is also an attempt to better understand the chain from service and marketing effort to financial outcome and to link customer assets such as complaints to the value of the firm.