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[EN] The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between quality management, performance appraisal and pay for performance in a sample of 203 manufacturing plants (including firms that do not apply quality management) in Spain employing at least 20 workers. We make a distinction between collaboration with suppliers, customer focus and the use of quality tools. This consideration of quality management as multidimensional will help to disentangle the complex interrelationships with performance appraisal and pay for performance. Our findings point to a positive association of customer focus, collaboration with suppliers and quality tools with performance appraisal evaluating results and behaviours. Regarding pay for performance, closer collaboration with customers is positively related to individual pay for performance. The use of quality tools is positively related to individual and firm pay for performance. The managerial implications point out that there is still room for improving the effectiveness of quality initiatives by incorporating changes in pay for performance and performance appraisal oriented to the adaptation to the principles of quality management. From the theoretical perspective, our paper underlines the importance of not considering quality management as a unidimensional reality when examining its relationship with other management practices., The first author acknowledges the funding received from the Spanish Ministry of Science (project ECO2017-86305-C4-4-R, AEI/FEDER, UE).

This paper addresses a key issue in the development of youth-focused social work: the role of digital skills in the relationship between young people and social workers who work with these native digital users. To this end, we analysed data from the International Digital Economy and Society Index 2019 and Eurostat. Information from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey and a survey conducted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the British Association of Social Workers supported the empirical analysis. The main findings reveal a gap between the level of digital skills required in the labour market and the actual level of digital skills in both young people and social workers, despite efforts by both groups to improve their skills. Initiatives to foster digital skills are therefore recommended to bridge this digital divide. Lastly, it was concluded that both groups could act as mutual drivers of digital transformation.

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal on Media Management, vol. 20, 2018, issue 3 on 8 Nov 2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14241277.2018.1538146 This article analyzes what the audience understands by the concept of quality as applied to television channels. This research also examines the influence of the perceived quality of the different programs broadcasted by a channel on the perceived quality of the whole channel. The empirical part is based on the answers provided by a sample of 405 respondents in Spain. The factors found to be associated with the idea of quality television by the audience are somewhat different depending on the method used to assess it, which points to the existence of social desirability bias when asking directly about it. Notwithstanding these differences, entertainment is the characteristic that the audience most consistently associates with the concept of quality in television channels. The results also show that news programs, movies and magazines, and talk shows are the genres with a greatest influence on the assessment of the quality of a television channel by the audience. This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (CSO2015-64615-R).

This paper analyses the impact of manufacturing technologies (MTs) and workers' qualifications on labour productivity and flexibility, taking into account the product-process (P-P) strategy adopted by the company. This allows for a discussion about the well-known P-P matrix initially proposed by Hayes and Wheelwright (1994) in order to evaluate options of production systems. The empirical analysis is performed by means of a panel of data of 13 years for the Spanish manufacturing industry, which includes a total of 7741 observations. The results indicate a complementary effect between technology and skills to overcome the trade-offs of production systems. This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness research projects ECO2017-86305-C4-4-R and AGL2015-65897-C03-1_R.

El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar en profundidad la transmisión del riesgo de crédito, aproximado por los CDS spreads, en el sector bancario europeo durante el periodo 2006-2012, intentando dar respuesta a diversas cuestiones: (i) ¿existe evidencia de transmisión del riesgo de crédito entre las entidades financieras europeas de la Eurozona y las que no pertenecen a dicha zona?, (ii) ¿es esta transmisión bidireccional o unidireccional?, (iii) concretamente, ¿qué países han liderado dicha transmisión?, y (iv) ¿cómo se ha visto afectada dicha transmisión con las recientes crisis financieras? Los resultados indican un cambio significativo en la transmisión del riesgo de crédito con el estallido de la crisis subprime, con un efecto notable proveniente de los bancos de la Eurozona hacia los que no pertenecen a dicha zona. The aim of this paper is to analyse in depth the transmission of credit risk, approximated by the CDS spreads, in the European banking sector during the period 2006–2012, attempting to respond to several questions: (i) is there any evidence of credit risk transmission between the European financial institutions in the Eurozone and those not belonging to this zone?, (ii) is this transmission bidirectional or unidirectional?, (iii) specifically, what countries have led such transmission? and (iv) how this transmission has been affected by the recent financial crisis? The results indicate a significant change in credit risk transmission with the outbreak of the subprime crisis, with a remarkable effect from the Eurozone banks to those not belonging to this zone. Los autores agradecen la financiación recibida de la Fundación Ramón Areces y A. González-Urteaga de ECO2012-35946-C02-01 y ECO2012-34268.

Consumer confidence indices (CCIs) are a closely monitored barometer of countries' economic health, and an informative forecasting tool. Using European and US data, we provide a case study of the two recent stock market meltdowns (the post-dotcom bubble correction of 2000-2002 and the 2007-2009 decline at the beginning of the financial crisis) to contribute to the discussion on their appropriateness as proxies for stock markets' investor sentiment. Investor sentiment should positively covary with stock market movements (DeLong et al., 1990), however, we find that the CCI-stock market relationship is not universally positive. We also do not find support for the information effect documented in previous literature, but identify a more subtle relationship between consumer expectations about future household finances and stock market fluctuations. Elena Ferrer acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ECO2012–35946-C02-01).

We extend the Tauer (2001) and Fare et al. (2004) analyses of aggregation bias in technical efficiency measurement to multiple criteria decision analysis. We show input aggregation conditions consistent with multiple criteria evaluation of overall efficiency in conjunction with the variation in aggregation bias.

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Behavioral Finance on July 2013, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15427560.2013.819805 This paper studies the effect of investor sentiment on analysts' consensus recommendations. Our results show that the optimistic bias of analysts in the issuing of recommendations is affected by investor sentiment: the greater the investor sentiment, the more optimistically biased the analysts’ consensus recommendations. This bias is larger in stocks whose characteristics make them hard to value or to arbitrage. We also show that investor sentiment can help in the design of profitable strategies, particularly when taking the short position in portfolios with high sentiment sensitivity stocks. This paper has received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ECO2009-12819).

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Martín Martín, O. and Drogendijk, R. (2014), Country Distance (COD): Development and Validation of a New Objective Measure. Journal of Small Business Management, 52: 102–125, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jsbm.12035. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. We propose a multidimensional and objective measure, Country Distance (COD), as a comprehensive measure of distance between countries. Although the literature has called for a measure like this, in particular to support international decision-making by SMEs, the research carried out so far has relied on measures of limited focus. We use Partial Least Squares (PLS) to develop the COD index and investigate the relative importance of its three dimensions: socio-economic development, physical, and cultural and historical distance. We externally validate the measure in an analysis of the international market selection decisions of a sample of SMEs and country-level export flows. This research was partially financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under the José Castillejo Program and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, project ECO2011-28991.

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The International Journal of Human Resource Management on February 2013, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2012.694110 This article studies the influence of national context and collective bargaining on the factors taken into account when adjusting wages. Using data from Spanish and British manufacturing establishments, we examine the relative importance of the cost of living, the ability to recruit or retain employees, the financial performance of the organisation and the industrial relations climate on wage adjustments of manual workers at the establishment level. Our findings show that there are significant differences on the importance given to these factors in both countries. In part, these are related to differences in the incidence of collective bargaining.

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Quantitative Finance on February 2012, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14697688.2010.516766 According to rational expectation models, uninformed or liquidity trading make market price volatility rise. This paper sets out to analyze the impact of herding, which may be interpreted as one of the components of uninformed trading, on the volatility of the Spanish stock market. Herding is examined at the intraday level, considered the most reliable sampling frequency for detecting this type of investor behavior, and measured using the Patterson and Sharma (2006) herding intensity measure. Different volatility measures (historical, realized and implied) are employed. The results confirm that herding has a direct linear impact on volatility for all of the volatility measures considered although the corresponding intensity is not always the same. In fact, herding variables seem to be useful in volatility forecasting and therefore in decision making when volatility is considered a key factor. Natividad Blasco and Sandra Ferreruela wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ2006-14809-C03-03/ECON), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ECO2009-12819-C03-02), ERDF funds, the Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada (Europe XXI Programme) and the Government of Aragon. Pilar Corredor is grateful for the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ2006-14809-C03-01), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ECO2009-12819-C03-01), ERDF funds and the Government of Navarra.

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Production Research on January 2011, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2010.508953 This paper deals with quality management practices in the global supply chain. More specifically, the association between the geographical location of suppliers (within a country or in low labour cost countries) and quality assurance practices is analyzed. Three hypotheses are proposed and tested using a sample of 401 Spanish manufacturing establishments with at least fifty workers in all industries. The results indicate that plants purchasing a higher proportion of their inputs in low-cost countries are more likely to be certified according to a quality standard. However, no associations have been found between the localization of suppliers and the establishment of close relationships with suppliers in order to assure quality. The authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science project SEJ2007-66511.

Retailers who wish to make decisions for a single store and have access to the scanner data of all purchases and to the scanner data of customer card-holders may worry about erroneous inferences when using one of the two databases and when using the same models to estimate the effects of their main marketing variables. The questions are: 'do the transactions reflected by the customer cards necessarily reflect the usual purchase behavior of all customers?'; and 'do the same customer response models apply equally to regular customers and for the rest of individuals shopping at the store?'. To answer these questions, a brand choice multinomial logit model choice is applied for the product category chosen (ground coffee). The major findings are that regular price elasticity of all brands in the customer segment is twice what was estimated when studying the total purchases. The effects on brand and type of coffee are greater in the customer card-holders segment than in the total purchases.