Venture Capital for University Spin-Outs Companies in the context of University-based Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: an International Comparison

The objectives are, firstly, to identify the role of the university-focused intermediaries, specifically University-focused Venture Capital Firms (UVCs), in order to explain how they interact at the early stage of University Spin-out Companies (USOs) creation, particularly regarding knowledge sharing. Secondly, to analyse whether they change their position once the USO is developed, in the context of the dynamics of a university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Elastic limit: The role of university-focused venture capital firms in extending knowledge and technology transfer

This paper has two main objectives. Firstly, to identify the role of the university-focused intermediaries, specifically UVCs, in order to explain how they interact at the early stage of USO creation, particularly regarding knowledge sharing. Secondly, to analyse whether they change their position once the USO is developed. This gives rise to two Research Questions: How does knowledge sharing occur in the dynamics of a university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem? And Do particular participants, such as UTTOs or UVCs, always occupy the same role and position within the university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem?Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

IDENTIFICATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL DISTRICTS: THE CASE OF SPAIN

In recent years, several contributions have been focused on a new sort of productive systems that share some characteristics with Marshallian industrial districts. These contributions have analysed the competitiveness of these new areas and how have been promoted by policy makers. In this line, the Marshallian concept of industrial district has been increasingly related to high technology and innovation in order to analysis technological districts or clusters. The aim of this research is to show how these new areas have characteristics are not similar to those shown by traditional industrial districts. Therefore, framework and techniques for analysis that have been traditionally used for industrial districts must be adapted for identifying technological districts. Specifically, some reflections about the framework analysis of sector and spatial units are introduced in the first part of this research as well as those techniques that can be useful to identify and analyse technological districts. Next, the analysis is focused on the identification of technological districts in Spain. A multivariate analysis will be applied to calculate a synthetic index that will be used to identify those areas with a high degree of specialization in high and medium technology activities. This synthetic index will collect data about those technological activities that are involved not only in manufacturing but also in activities of innovation and R&D. Until now, there have been not many attempts to identify technological clusters through the application of quantitative methodologies; therefore, the purpose of this research is to contribute to the enhancement of knowledge about these areas in Spain. Keywords: technological districts, clusters, location, spatial agglomerations.

Els accidents laborals: nova proposta per la seva gestió integrada entre els agents socials implicats

A principis del mes de juliol de 2011, i en el moment d’iniciar el nostre projecte final de Grau, ens motivà molt trobar un tema que fos d’interès al mercat actual, així com de satisfacció personal i cloenda d’un període d’aprenentatge i millora dels nostres coneixements, a L’EPSEB.. Aquest projecte va començar la seva etapa de consulta amb el Sr. Abad (endavant director), proposant un sistema d’actuació i classificació de l’accident laboral, en funció de la activitat i branca d’execució. Avaluar els riscos per àrea i definir un sistema alternatiu en cada cas del tractament de l’accident. Es evident, que aquest fet provoca una dualitat no permesa, ni moral ni tècnicament, en el procediment i interpretació de l’Accident Laboral al sector de la construcció. En aquell moment assessorat per al director (setembre 2011), varem coincidir que la notificació es un element bàsic per garantir de forma efectiva la protecció dels treballadors. Els agents que intervenen en la notificació i investigació de l’Accident Laboral al sector de la construcció, tenen un paper clau per proporcionar a la societat un procés fàcil per tots els participants. En aquest darrer apartat detectem, mitjançant una primera recerca d’informació, que en el procés de notificació-comunicació i investigació intervenen setze agents diferents amb funcions i atribucions, que poden donar a confusió (veure cap. 4). A més trobem necessaria la implicació de tos els agents socials, administratius, científics i/o tècnics en un canvi de model que, segons les fonts d’informació consultades (cap. 8. Bibliografia i fonts d’informació), aquests canvis ja han estat detectades per personalitats, agents i professionals en la prevenció de riscos laborals. Vinculant l’aportació dels professionals amb la nostre experiència, detectem que és freqüent imputar a la empresa per manca de mesures així com difícil de comprovar la seva culpabilitat. D’altre banda, comprovem un especial interès en l’ inspecció dels accidents greus i molt greus, sent aquests un 1% del total dels accidents laborals al sector de la construcció. També ens resulta difícil comprovar quin tractament es fan de les dades generades per el CAT365 i/o DELT@. L’accident no pot ser gestionat com un succés aïllat i independent, sinó com un succés relacionat amb la millora continua del processos productius i dels llocs de treball. De fet la seva correcció ha de permetre prevenir situacions similars que puguin originar-se per les mateixes causes. Tot aixó i molt mes ens fa pensar, que les empreses, sobretot, però també la societat, tenen una necessitat molt gran de canviar el sistema de notificació i investigació. Així com la gestió integrada entre els agents socials implicats. La unió d’esforços de tots els agents que participen en la notificació - comunicació i investigació de l’accident laboral al sector de la construcció, han de estar dirigits principalment cap a la penalització de la vulneració “picaresca” i engany que es vulgui fer d’un sistema uniforme. D’altre banda, beneficiar el interès per la implantació d’un sistema de planificació de la activitat preventiva. Per últim, la Investigació de l’accident a de disposar d’un document únic i relacionat amb la notificació – comunicació de l’accident laboral. Creiem, que la facilitat que provoca aquest fet és principalment de unificació de criteris, sense permetre cap interpretació mes enllà de les que fan referència amb el EL QUÉ? EL COM? EL QUAN? i EL PER QUÉ? El no tenir en compte la realització d'una adequada anàlisi de causes, pensant que ja s'han trobat solucions per a l'accident després de la recollida d'informació, pot portar a adoptar mesures preventives equivocades, o a no adoptar les mesures més eficaces. L'anàlisi d'un accident Laboral, exigeix que disposem d'un mètode d’avaluació que ens porti a un diagnosi objectiu de les causes que han provocat l'accident. Disposant, a més, d’un recull de mesures per millorar l’eficàcia i eficiència dels processos productius de les empreses vinculades al sector de la construcció. Actualment l'anàlisi de les causes (arbre de causes), dels accidents comporta certes dificultats per poder realitzar-ho en profunditat. Observant que predominen les causes immediates vers les causes bàsiques. I d’altra banda, els factors que conclouen son principalment factors tècnics i humans vers les possibles fallides del sistema actual. La consideració de l'accident com una disfunció del sistema de gestió obre el camí per aprofundir en les causes que intervenen en els accidents fins a trobar els punts febles en el sistema, la correcció dels quals, possibilita evitar i prevenir el major nombre d'accidents que estan en dependència de la línia causal analitzada. Per dur a terme una bona gestió dels agents que intervenen, i relació entre la notificació- comunicació i investigació de l’accident laboral al sector de la construcció, és fonamental que les etapes i processos que es generen amb la desagradable noticia de l’accident, sigui el més precisa i àmplia possible, així com constructiva i sense pors per la penalitzaci

The new economy in Spain: a regional analysis

There is no enough evidence about the effects of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) in Spain and how these ICT cause differences between regions. So, the aim of this work is to analyze the regional disparities relative to the new economy in Spain. In the first part of this work, we will review the literature about the concept and measure of the new economy and the problems derived from the high number of definitions about it that difficult an homogeneous analysis. Despite of the several definitions, new economy refers, basically, to an economic development based in Internet and the technologic knowledge as the main inputs. Secondly, we review the empirical evidence about the location factors associated with the new economy. As we highlight in this section, the main conclusion is the complexity of the location dynamic related with the new economy because the results of the empirical studies range from the spatial concentration to the spatial dispersion. In the third section, we analyze the methodology and the empirical results. We collect regional indicators of the new economy in Spain trying to establish if the growth of the new economy in Spain has generated a high spatial concentration. But measuring the new economy at the regional level is even more difficult than it is at the national level because many of the most useful data tend to be nationally oriented. Therefore, it will be used a statistical database with the 28 regional indicators. The 28 indicators in this database are divided into 4 categories about the new economy: ICT industry, ICT services, the knowledge society and the information society. Firstly, we analyse the spatial concentration of the new economy variables in the Spanish territory with the aim of comparing the spatial concentration of the new economy with the spatial concentration of the economic activity. Next, we will construct a composite indicator that will give us the information about the relative position of a region in the new economy in order to find a variable that reflects the regional development of the new economy. Also, to compare the new economy indicator with the conventional economy it will be used the GDP per capita. As a preliminary result we find that the regional disparities in economic growth are more reduced than the regional disparities in the development of the new economy. So, the spatial concentration of the new economy is higher than the spatial concentration of the conventional economic activity. Also, a second preliminary conclusion is the relationship between a high economic development and a high level of the new economy. Finally, we conclude with an exposition of the main conclusions highlighting that the Internet and the ICT are an important progress instruments but can generate a growing of the regional disparities. Therefore, the role of the public sector promoting the introduction and development of the information and knowledge society, specially, in the regions with a low position in the new economy characteristics is essential.

El comercio de Rusia con España durante la etapa Putin

Con la construcción de una economía de mercado en Rusia, el papel de este país en el sistema de comercio internacional ha cambiado sustancialmente. A partir del año 2000, la situación en Rusia se ha ido estabilizando y es posible atisbar cuáles son sus tendencias económicas más relevantes. Un aspecto de gran importancia es cuál es la situación y qué composición tiene el comercio exterior de Rusia y, en especial, con España. El objetivo de este trabajo es aclarar este último tipo de aspectos. En un primer momento se analizará la importancia que significan las relaciones comerciales para ambos países y posteriormente se estudiará de manera pormenorizada la composición de tales flujos econó[email protected]

THE INDUSTRY LOCATION IN SPAIN - NEW METHODS FOR MEASURING INDUSTRIAL AGGLOMERATION

A range of quantitative techniques have been employed by researchers in economic geography and other social science disciplines to measure and, spatially, define agglomerations of industrial activity. However, the application of these techniques in the literature results in a low consistency level. Because of this, new quantitative techniques have introduced solutions to solve the problems founded in the location’s analysis. One of these problems is the discrimination between geographic concentration arising from individual plants locating near to each other and that due to the concentration in an industrial structure. A relevant limitation of traditional location indexes is the absence of data about the differences in the size distribution of firms between geographic units. Recent papers by Ellison and Glaeser (1997) and Maurel and Sédillot (1999) have proposed indexes designed to measure agglomerations or geographic concentrations in excess of that which would be expected given industrial concentrations. These measures are all based on the distribution of activity over discrete geographic units. Another problem is the use of arbitrary cut-off values for determining what level of industrial specialization defines an agglomeration. O’Donoghue and Gleave (2004) have proposed a new measure, the ‘standardized location quotient (SLQ)’, which recognizes agglomerations as being comprised of locations with statistically significant location quotient values for the industry/activity under analysis. Other questions that appear when constructing these measures are the specification of the regional division’s level and the suitable use of administrative territorial units. New quantitative techniques of spatial econometrics solve this question. The use of a spatial autocorrelation indexes will allow us to know if the location of a concrete economic activity in a municipality is influenced by the location of the same activity in other neighbouring municipalities. We use global spatial autocorrelation statistics as I Moran Index (Moran, 1948) and Local Measures of Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA). The cluster map (LISA map) shows the significant locations by type of association. With LISA map, we measure geographic concentration of employment in industry clusters by detecting spatial association patterns in administrative areas (in this case, municipalities). In the empirical analysis the municipality, the micro level of administrative regions (NUTS5) in Spain, will be used as territorial unit. The data will be provided by the Industrial Register (Ministry of Industry, 2000) that contains information about the population of production plants in Spain at two and/or three-digit industry level. This includes the location of the plant (given by municipality), the plant’s three-digit industrial classification and the number of employees. So, the objective of this work will be to identify spatial agglomerations within the Spanish industrial sectors using all these new contributions to the spatial analysis and, as a secondary objective, to compare the difference of the results obtained with each quantitative technique. The results will offer a wide view of the geographic concentration and agglomeration of industrial activity in Spain.

Identification of the local productive systems in Spain: a new approach

In the last two decades there have been significant spatial changes influenced by the industrial re-organization processes. And the studies made about these changes have defined new forms of territorial distribution. One of these new forms appears because of territorial diffusion of the economic activity due to a flexible decentralization process and, simultaneously, the endogenous development in a geographical area. This industrial organization model has promoted the development of local geographic areas composed by a high number of small enterprises of the same industrial sector. These areas receive the denomination of local productive systems (LPS). However, these local areas can’t be identified with the administrative areas in which is divided a province or a region. In fact, a LPS can be defined as a certain number of towns, near geographically, with a high concentration of the same industrial activity, but not necessary located in the same municipality. The aim of this work is to identify and locate the LPS in the Spanish territory. So, the first phase will be to identify the industrial sectors which are highly concentrated in certain areas using the municipality which is the basic administrative unit in Spain. For that purpose it will be used indicators of the geographical concentration of the economic activity as the Gini index and the location coefficient. Also, the use of a spatial autocorrelation index will allow us to know if the location of a concrete economic activity in a municipality is influenced by the location of the same activity in other neighbouring municipalities. With this index it will be possible to identify the industrial sectors which are highly concentrated in one territorial area that could be different from the administrative division of the territory, being an agglomeration of municipalities with a high specialization in one industrial sector. In a second phase, the objective will be to establish the geographic areas with a high concentration level in one industrial sector. Next, we will try to delimitate the territorial boundaries in order to identify the LPS using the methodology developed by Frederic Lainé for the French case. In this methodology the characterization of the municipalities is based in four basic requirements for a concrete sector: number of establishments, employment, industrial density and specialization degree. The results, that is, the number of municipalities that fulfil these requirements, will be aggregated in order to search for the municipalities which are specialized in one industrial sector and are geographically nearby from other municipalities with the same industrial specialization. Finally, we will obtain a new spatial unit different from the administrative units traditionally used. These new units will represent a local production systems composed of several nearby municipalities specialized in the same industrial sector. In our opinion, this new spatial unit would represent better the idea of economic unit, more accurate than the administrative-political division. Industrial specialization.

Innovar con criterios de calidad sobre metodologías docentes: una aplicación a asignaturas de Economía

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las metodologías docentes aplicadas durante el curso académico 2012-13 por los profesores que integran la red “Metodologías docentes en asignaturas de Economía” y que imparten todos ellos docencia en los grados de ADE, DADE y Economía de la Universidad de Alicante. Estas metodologías son el resultado de la experiencia adquirida en los años precedentes en los que han estado investigando sobre metodologías docentes en el seno de la red. La principal conclusión a la que se llega es que la implantación de la evaluación continua en los grados en el marco del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES) se refleja en tres aspectos fundamentales que contrastan con lo que ocurría en las licenciaturas: un elevado grado de asistencia a clase por parte de los alumnos; un elevado porcentaje de alumnos que se presentan al examen final; y un efecto positivo sobre la calificación final del alumnado