Behavior and Organizational Change

Advanced societies produce open and international economies where competitiveness is a necessary requirement, although this in itself is not enough to guarantee sustained success. Social, political, and cultural complexities, along with increasingly greater social and collective needs, are another feature of the environment in question. Given this environment, companies and organizations in general have to maintain a high level of strategic tension and a significant capacity to adapt and be flexible when faced with different contingencies. Organizations must be driven by people who are committed to its goals, who actively participate in the management of labor processes, who have creative skills, and who are capable of getting along well with others and working as part of a team. Likewise, leaders must lean toward transformational or shared leadership, in which both the management and workers assume responsibility for growth. Cooperation between workers and managers is based on the experience that insofar as the company's goals are achieved, so will those of each individual person. To appreciate the change, it is important to understand organizational behavior, as there can be no sustainable organizational change without a change in people's behavior.This book was published with generous financial support from the Basque Government.Introduction: Sabino Ayestarán and Jon Barrutia Güenaga ? 1. Human Resources and Innovation: A Study of Practices Developed by Innovative Companies in the Basque Country by Ibon Zamanillo Elguezabal and Eva Velasco Balmaseda ? 2. Vectors of Organizational Change in European Union Company Law by Juan Pablo Landa and Igone Altzelai ? 3. Company Stakeholder Responsibility (CSR) by Jose Luis Retolaza, Leire San-Jose, and Andrés Araujo de la Mata ? 4. Origins and Development of Industrial Clusters in the Basque Country: Path-Dependency and Economic Evolution by Jesús María Valdaliso, Aitziber Elola, María Jose Aranguren, and Santiago López ? 5. A Systemic and Multilevel Approach to Organizational Analysis by Nekane Balluerka ? 6. How Do Cultural Changes Influence the Psychological Contract between Worker and Organization? by José Valencia Gárate ? 7. Leadership Conduct and Its Consequences for Organizations in the Basque Country by Juan Jose Arrospide, Daniel Hermosilla, Félix Yenes, and Iñigo Calvo ? 8. Emotional Intelligence and Innovation: An Exploratory Study in Organizational Settings by Aitor Aritzeta ? Index ? List of Contributor

A silent revolution: The internationalisation of large Spanish family firms

This article studies the dominant role played by large family firms in the internationalisation of the Spanish economy. Based on new empirical evidence from circa 150 historical and internationalised family firms, the article integrates concepts and theories from recent literature on internationalisation, international entrepreneurship, sociology, and family business. The main argument is that in Spain, as in other European, South American and Asian countries, the integration of most of the leading family firms in the global market has been the outcome of a long learning process strongly influenced by the country's natural and human resources, institutional framework, and regional patterns of economic development and business cultures. In contrast with other countries, however, foreign capital and technology and collective action at regional, national and international levels play a far more important role in the internationalisation of large family firms.internationalisation, family firms, Spain,