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Public business incubators are services placed at the disposal of original, generally newly-created projects, to which physical accompaniment, supervision and location are offered at prices below market value. They have as their aim to help set in motion and consolidate these firms during the stages in which they are weaker. The ultimate goal consists in favouring the generation of innovative firms, inducers of high-quality jobs, which can diversify the local business fabric, thus becoming a key tool in local development. The present paper provides a methodology to study the economic – but above all social – impact of business incubators, based on the examination of 40 from the 42 incubators existing in the Valencian Community (a Spanish autonomous region with five million inhabitants). Data analysis allows us to state that, although business incubators are not economically profitable since they need financial aids and public investment to start operating, they do have social profitability, insofar as the activity developed by entrepreneurs permits to provide public administrations – via taxes – with returns exceeding what was invested in these incubators. It has been determined that 2.8 euros (which can be applied to a variety of social areas) are collected via taxes for each euro spent to start them up. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Copyright of Sociología del Trabajo is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The reason most frequently adduced by SMEs to avoid the implementation of CSR programs is their shortage of material resources. In this paper we propose the possibility that biotech SMEs supply the RSC with something they've got in abundance, that is, knowledge. Popular science thus becomes the focus of these programs, an affordable resource that can benefit them, and not only in reputation. Our study focuses on 32 SMEs settled in four Technology Parks in Andalusia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a growing number of social enterprises in Spain. Like any other organization, they must be managed efficiently. However, few studies have analyzed the direction of this type of business and, to a lesser extent, how they manage their human resources. This paper focuses on how Spanish social enterprises manage their human resources by using a case study methodology. The results confirm that social companies do follow human resources practices but, due to the strong social component that moves and attracts workers to contribute to their missions, these practices differ from those made by non social enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the escape of talent from social companies by applying ethical and social responsible human resources practices, and by managing volunteers in accordance with their social characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study corporate volunteering through both theoretical and practical analysis of the situation in Spain. It outlines the conceptual framework and classification employed, the positive effects and synergies that flow from corporate volunteering and models and strategies for its development, then presents the main data on the extent and the reality of corporate volunteering in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to provide a better understanding of the effect of social networks on innovation through the analysis of territorial agglomerations of firms. Critical voices argue that the same mechanisms that form the basis of efficient, continuous improvements of clustered firms can also be considered as limitations. We suggest that the impact of social capital decreases beyond a certain point of development. In fact, the effect of social interactions and trust on firm value creation can be described as an inverted U-shaped curve. The study is based on a sample of 154 firms in the Valencia region of Spain. Implications of the study have relevant prescriptions for regional planners and individual entrepreneurs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has tended to treat economic benefits to the firm as unintentional spillovers that result from laudable CSR behavior. Empirical studies of the relationship between CSR and corporate financial performance (CFP) have reported mixed findings. This article shifts the conceptual and empirical focus to investigate the conditions under which intentional profit-seeking through corporate social action projects can create economic value for the firm. The article uses resource-dependency theory and the resource-based view to define the firm’s external and internal environments respectively. From that perspective, the article looks at how corporate social action creates economic value through strategic social planning and strategic social positioning. A survey instrument was developed and applied to 110 large Spanish firms. In that sample, munificence and continuous innovation positively affect social positioning, while nongovernmental organization salience and social responsibility orientation positively affect social planning. Both social positioning and social planning in turn contribute to corporate ability to create value. The article concludes with a discussion of the research and managerial implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Firms may find competitive adjustment difficult because they are hamstrung by rigid labor market rules. However, such difficulties may also be caused by conflicts between strategic choices in the management of human capital and the opportunities and limitations created by a given regulatory framework. This latter possibility has been almost totally ignored in the debate regarding the urgency and content of labor market reforms in countries whose labor market institutions have been labeled as “rigid” by international experts. This article uses the results of qualitative interviews with Spanish employers to suggest that strategic choices may be far more important in determining the consequences of labor market institutions than is generally recognized. I show that these choices are often the result of beliefs about how labor market institutions should work. These findings suggest that supposedly “neutral” calls for greater efficiency in labor market institutions are really arguments about the relative appropriateness of different expectations regarding how firms should pursue adjustment, expectations that are directly related both to the relative balance of power between employers and workers and to the structure of their relationship. In other words, the phrase “politics of labor market reform” should be understood to refer not only to the political consequences of reforms but also to the inherently political nature of the reforms themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Businesses play an important social role in society that goes beyond their traditional economic role. The way in which these roles are carried out and communicated to the stakeholders can influence the company's corporate reputation. The first step in constructing a corporate reputation is corporate visibility. The mass media plays an important role in developing corporate visibility. Media visibility has a significant influence on public opinion and contributes strongly to forming companies' corporate reputation. The main aim of this article is to test the level of visibility of companies in the media as well as the attributes (economic and/or social) assigned to the companies. The author presents the results of the research done on the media visibility of companies belonging to the Spanish Stock Exchange in the four most important newspapers in Spain. Two basic results were obtained: Larger companies, with good reputations and oriented to mass consumption, have more visibility in newspapers, and companies are basically presented as economic and not social actors in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banking firms are becoming increasingly aware that their clients’ management of environmental and social risks may in term threaten their own business as lenders and investors. In addition, stakeholders are requiring banks to improve their social performance. As a result, some banks are developing corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and management systems to reduce potential risks and improve their performance. In the Spanish financial system, half of the banking firms are savings banks, most of which have always used some Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) criteria in their management. Private Banks have only recently started to integrate social aspects in their performance. However, no formal analysis has been carried out on the impact of CSR strategies. Various initiatives have been launched nationally and internationally to include the social dimension in management systems. The purpose of this research is to analyse the social performance of the main Spanish financial companies through public data such as social or sustainability reports and media sources. In order to do this, we need to determine which CSR criteria most greatly affect banking firms and to choose the most accurate quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure social performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Spanish biotechnology sector, including its scientific, business, policy and social aspects. The study differentiates two sub-sectors, considered to be the most representative: Biopharma and Agro-food. The results show that biotechnology development in Spain has entered a new phase. Traditionally, research and development in Spain followed an unstructured path built around regional spaces and driven by factors and influences external to Spain. However, the emergence of a fast-growing sector of spin-off companies from the public research system, specifically in the Biopharma sector, points to a change of model of development of the industry, on the national as well as the regional level. The data also show the key role which public policy plays in creating a suitable framework for innovation and point to the need of analyzing the influence of social and cultural factors on the development of the biotechnology sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In all industrial and technological agglomerations several types of public and semi-public actors coexist. The same happens with the levels of government. Consequently, the daily reality of agglomerations is characterized by a wide diversity of innovation-support institutions more or less actively engaged in enhancing the technological capabilities and knowledge flow of the territory. Taking this consideration as a starting point, the article presents the dynamics of the technological agglomeration of the Vall`s Occidental County, located within Catalonia, Spain. It has supplied information on the major efforts of different public actors in the territory since the 1980s, mainly through the establishment and enhancement of innovation-support institutions, and analyses succinctly their effects through selected successful and failed cases. Two normative statements are suggested from the analysis. The first is that policy strategies should not try to be hegemonic. Instead, they should be elaborated seeking complementarity and coexistence. A second normative conclusion is the necessity of fostering the learning processes within and across institutions, by mobilizing collectively the assets of the area into an open explicit option for the economic performance of the territory. The conclusions include a final plea for further research about the industrial dynamics and knowledge flows in the Vallès Occidental County, an important growth pole of Catalonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]