Safeguarding Health at the Workplace: A Study of Work Engagement, Authenticity and Subjective Wellbeing among Religious Workers

: Research in work and organizational psychology has paid little attention to religious workers, something certainly surprising as faith-based organizations play a key role in the welfare state of many countries. This research shows that religious workers in a Catholic order present a high degree of subjective wellbeing, both in terms of flourishing and satisfaction with life in general, and a positive balance of positive and negative feelings. More specifically, this study examines the relationship between authenticity and wellbeing amongst religious workers. Survey responses from 142 religious workers in Spain were analyzed using partial least squares path modelling. The results reveal that subjective wellbeing at work is positively related to authenticity. In addition, this relationship is mediated by their level of work engagement

The distinction of "Corporate Equality": a new certification governing equal opportunities

Objeto: Analizar la presencia de la igualdad de oportunidades en las normas y modelos relacionados con la gestión empresarial y caracterizar al distintivo “Igualdad en la Empresa” como una nueva certificación de la igualdad de oportunidades. Diseño/metodología/enfoque: Se ha estudiado la presencia de la igualdad de oportunidades en los diferentes modelos y normas y se ha caracterizado al distintivo “Igualdad en la Empresa” atendiendo a distintos criterios. Aportaciones y resultados: Tras el análisis de la presencia de la igualdad de oportunidades en las distintas normas y modelos relacionados con la gestión empresarial, hemos visto que no es algo que suceda en la práctica. Ante esta situación el distintivo “Igualdad en la Empresa” se impondría como una nueva certificación que regula específicamente la gestión de la igualdad de oportunidades en la empresa. Sin embargo, la escasa comunicación que del mismo están haciendo las empresas que lo han obtenido hasta este momento, dificulta su conocimiento y valoración por parte de los distintos grupos de interés con los que la empresa se relaciona. Valor añadido: El artículo realiza una contribución teórica a la caracterización del distintivo “Igualdad en la Empresa” como una nueva certificación en igualdad de oportunidades.Purpose: Analyse the existence of equal opportunities in rules and standards related to business management and typify the "Corporate Equality" distinction as a new equal opportunities certification. Design/methodology: The existing equal opportunities principles established in different standards and rules have been studied and the "Corporate Equality" distinction has been typified according to different criteria. Findings: Having analysed the existing equal opportunities principles established in different rules and standards concerning business management, it is obvious that these principles are not put into practice. Therefore, the distinction of “Corporate Equality" would indeed stand for a new certification that specifically controls how equal opportunities principles within the company are implemented. However, the lack of information about what these companies have actually achieved up to now limits the knowledge, awareness and appreciation of the different interest groups which deal with aforesaid firms on such matter. Originality/value: The article makes a theoretical contribution to typify the "Corporate Equality" distinction as a new equal opportunities certification.Peer Reviewe

A Guarantee Systems Classification: The Latin American Experience

Guarantee systems are financial tools designed to mitigate the dysfunctions, within credit operations, generated from the entrepreneurs’ demand for collaterals. The present work diagnoses the unwanted effects, triggered by international rules, on the access to funds by micro, small, and medium enterprises; it posits as well the guarantee systems as solutions to these specific circumstances. Thus, it examines their legal configurations, their operational features, their relation to the financial system, and the performance levels they have achieved in Latin America. This paper has deemed virtually all the existing systems so that the results are highly significant, providing an outstanding contribution of knowledge to this field of study. This work purposes and introduces an original compilation of guarantee financial schemes, unveiling a new reality from the perspective of an empirical classification for Latin America. The set has been sorted by the different forms in which they have operated and supported the guarantee coverage on its assets or whether they have merely acted as operators and managers of an autonomous and liquid resource known as guarantee trust or fund –which is predominant within public participation schemes that not often bear the collateral coverage on their own financial equity. This classification defines and establishes diverse operational and administrative situations

La influencia del modelo de sucesión en el género del sucesor

La relevancia de la Empresa Familiar es indiscutible, desempeñando una significativa contribución a la economía y la sociedad de un país. Debido a ello se ha convertido en un tema de investigación de gran importancia. Y puesto que uno de sus objetivos más importantes es la transmisión a la siguiente generación numerosos estudios se han centrado en este ámbito. Muchos de ellos tienen como objetivo el análisis del impacto de la variable género en la sucesión. El propósito de este trabajo es identificar los modelos de sucesión que predominan y los rasgos del sucesor asociados a cada uno de esos modelos, comprobando si el género del sucesor es determinante a la hora de ser elegido como tal

Experimental Studies of Phase Change Materials in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Proceedings of: 14th International Conference on Fluidization: From Fundamentals to Products. Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, 26-31 may 2013.The aim of this work is to experimentally study the behaviour of three microencapsulated PCM in a bubbling fluidized bed for thermal energy storage. Different experiments, heating and cooling the granular PCM with fluidizing air, are carried out with different superficial gas velocities. When achieving their phase change temperature two of the three materials present agglomeration. For this reason, the material flowability and wear resistance are studied by measuring the angle of repose and attrition, respectively. Nevertheless, the angle of repose does not seem to be influenced by the temperature of the material and the particle size distributions after the attrition tests indicate that the bed particles are just slightly smaller than the original ones.This work was partially founded by the Spanish Government (Project ENE2010-15403), the regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha (Project PPIC10-0055-4054) and Castilla-La Mancha University (Project GE20101662).Publicad

La asimetría de la información en la crisis financiera, el racionamiento del crédito y la garantía como mecanismo simbiótico del sistema

Tras la caída de Lehman brothers y el inicio de la crisis financiera se produce un parón en la actividad económica y se evidencia una falta de financiación atribuible a la asimetría de información que sufre el sistema financiero, en este trabajo veremos como ha sido analizado por distintos economistas este fenómeno que produce el racionamiento del crédito y el riesgo moral. Realizamos un recorrido por la economía española demostrando esta falta de financiación y el endurecimiento de las condiciones financieras con datos actuales, y como, a través de la garantía se puede salvar dicho racionamiento del crédito en la pequeña empresa. No obstante, comprobamos como no se desarrolla el sistema de garantía en la economía española para alcanzar los volúmenes deseable

Health-5G: A Mixed Reality-Based System for Remote Medical Assistance in Emergency Situations

Mixed reality is the combination of virtual and augmented reality to interactively and believably merge physical and computer-generated environments. This paper discusses the design of Health5G, a scalable mixed reality-based system that facilitates and supports emergency response by medical emergency teams. Health-5G is supported by a distributed architecture divided into four interrelated applications responsible for advanced computer-human interaction, effective real-time videoconference, medical device integration, and communication infrastructure, respectively. The mixed reality layer is provided by the headset Microsoft Hololens 2™. Health-5G is based on scenarios in which emergency personnel wear mixed reality glasses that can transmit audio, video, and data streams bidirectionally over a 5G network to medical specialists stationed in a hospital at any distance. Thanks to Health-5G, the specialist will be able to access the emergency team’s point of view at any time and provide verbal and visual instructions, including gestures and positioning of graphical markers in 3D space. In this way, emergency personnel can provide the best possible care to the patient without having to wait for them to arrive at the hospital, saving a lot of time in scenarios where every second can make a difference. Health-5G also addresses the integration of medical devices and the collection of the patient’s medical data in a scalable way through optical character recognition. A case study is discussed where Health-5G is used to attend a patient in the street suffering from syncope due to third-degree atrioventricular block. Latency and performance tests over a 5G network are also discussed. To the best of our knowledge, there is no comprehensive solution in the literature that provides all the capabilities offered by Health-5G in terms of functionality and advanced interaction mechanisms within the context of remote, immersive support in emergency situations

Los objetivos de la empresa familiar, una cuestión previa en la definición de un modelo de gobierno

La teoría de la agencia es un marco de referencia adecuado para explicar los conflictos que surgen en el seno de la empresa familiar entre directivos y propietarios. Sin embargo, en este tipo de organizaciones dicho conflicto adquiere matices especiales, derivados de la confluencia de dos instituciones muy arraigadas: la empresa y la familia, pero con orígenes, objetivos y relaciones de naturaleza distinta. Por tanto, en las empresas familiares, debido a esta confluencia de instituciones, no se puede hablar del objetivo típico de la empresa no familiar, la maximización del valor, sino que se analizará cuáles son los objetivos desde el punto de vista de los diferentes grupos de interés y, en definitiva, qué es valioso para los propietarios de la empresa familiar.La resolución de conflictos pasa por establecer un sistema de gobierno efectivo, que alinee los intereses de los diversos grupos hacia la consecución de los objetivos comunes.Agency theory constitutes an adequate framework for explaining the family business’ conflict between the executives and the owners. However, in these organizations, this conflict has special features, due to the confluence of two rooted institutions, such as: the family and the enterprise, but with diverse origins, objectives and relations. So, in family business, because of this confluence of institutions, it is not possible to think in only one objective as in a non-family business, the maximization of value creation. It is required to analyze which are the objectives from the point of view of the different interests’ groups and, obviously, what is worth for owners in family business. Conflict solution needs to establish an effective corporate governance system that let to align the diverse interests towards the achievement of common goals