How effective are business ethics/CRS courses in higher education?

[EN] Concern is increasing worldwide for introducing dedicated courses on business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in higher education curricula. In this study, awareness of business ethics is investigated from a sample of 307 undergraduate and postgraduate management students at a Polish university. This investigation aims at assessing management students' awareness of business ethics issues, focusing on the potential differences in such perceptions depending on previous business ethics/CSR courses taken. Surprisingly, our results do not match prior findings in the extant literature. Notably, in our sample, having taken previous courses on business ethics/CSR does not play a relevant role in students' ethical awareness. These findings stimulate further questions (e.g., considering business ethics/CSR course design and methodology issues) and challenges for future research.Tormo-Carbó, G.; Oltra, V.; Seguí-Mas, E.; Klimkiewicz, K. (2016). How effective are business ethics/CRS courses in higher education?. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 228:567-574. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.08756757422

Étude de l’entrepreneuriat académique grâce à des formules d’économie sociale : Analyse des spin-off (entreprises dérivées) universitaires coopératives

[EN] In recent years, setting up spin-off companies has become an efficient way to transfer technology and research results to the marketplace. This study found that it is not very usual to set up spin-offs as cooperatives, since most companies of this type take the form of limited or public limited companies, and therefore concentrates on analysing the features that define and differentiate them. The results obtained from the case studies and an interview show that human capital is more important than financial capital in this type of company, they are concentrated in the ICT sector, most are based in the Andalusia region of Spain and they show no great differences in the motives for setting up the spin-off.[ES] La creación de spin-off se ha convertido en los últimos años como un mecanismo eficiente de transferencia de tecnología y de los resultados de investigación. Esta investigación ha detectado que la creación de una spin-off bajo la forma societaria de cooperativa es un hecho poco extendido entre este tipo de empresas, ya que la gran mayoría se constituyen como sociedades limitadas o anónimas, por lo que el análisis de las características que las definen y las diferencian son el objetivo central de la investigación. Los resultados obtenidos a través del estudio de casos y de una entrevista muestran que para este tipo de empresas prevalece el capital humano sobre el financiero, se concentran en el sector de las TICs, la gran mayoría de estas están radicadas en Andalucía y no presentan grandes diferencias en cuanto a motivaciones relacionadas con la creación de la spin-off.[FR] La création de sociétés spin-off s’est convertie, ces dernières années, en un mécanisme efficace de transfert de technologie et de résultats de recherche. Cette étude a pu établir que la création d’une société spinoff sous forme de coopérative est assez peu commune pour ce type d’entreprise, et que la grande majorité de cellesci se constituent en tant que sociétés limitées ou anonymes. L’analyse des caractéristiques qui définissent et différencient ces types de sociétés est donc l’objectif central de cette étude. Les résultats obtenus grâce à cette étude de cas et grâce à un entretien montrent que, pour ce type d’entreprises, le capital humain revêt plus d’importance que le capital financier. Ces entreprises, qui se concentrent dans le secteur des TIC, sont, pour la grande majorité, basées en Andalousie et ne présentent pas de grandes différences en ce qui concerne les motivations liées à la création de sociétés spin-off.Los autores desean agradecer la financiación de esta investigación a la Universitat Politècnica de València (proyecto PAID-06-12-SP20120916) y al Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (proyecto PN ECO2011-29863). Asimismo, también quieren agradecer la colaboración de las cooperativas objeto de estudio para responder a los cuestionarios, y especialmente a Lucía del Moral, socia de Taraceas, por su disponibilidad para la realización de la entrevista.Seguí Mas, E.; Sarrión Viñes, F.; Tormo Carbó, G.; Oltra Comorera, V. (2013). Estudio del emprendimiento académico bajo fórmulas de economía social: análisis de las spin-off universitarias cooperativas. CIRIEC - España : Revista de Economía Pública, Social y Cooperativa. 78:101-124. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/50678S1011247

Scientific production in the field of academic spin-off: A bibliometric analysis

El artículo está con Reconocimiento-NoComercial 3.0 de Creative Commons. Puede copiarlo, distribuirlo y comunicarlo públicamente siempre que cite a su autor y a Intangible Capital. No lo utilice para fines comerciales.[CA] Objecte: Revisió de la literatura existent de les spin-off acadèmiques amb l objecte de presentar la situació actual de la producció científica d aquest camp. Disseny/metodologia: Anàlisi bibliomètrica. Aportacions i resultats: L anàlisi bibliomètrica de la literatura (1990-2014) sobre spin-off acadèmiques ha permès identificar als autors més rellevants, les revistes que tant directament (nombre de publicacions) com indirectament (nombre de cites) contribueixen a la literatura, l anàlisi de coautoria, paraules clau, la geolocalització i cocitació entre els articles. La producció científica d aquest camp està composta principalment per articles escrits en anglès, en revistes d alt impacte (publicats principalment als últims anys), el que indica tant l actualitat del camp, com l interès de revistes d alt impacte de publicar estudis referents a les spin-off. La incidència d un nombre elevat d autors que sols publiquen un sol treball, a més del nombre reduït de col·laboracions entre ells, identifica que la literatura actual està en procés de creixement i d elevat potencial. Limitacions: De forma anàloga a altres estudis, aquest no està exempt de limitacions. Una possible limitació del estudi resideix en la possible no inclusió d'algun dels articles potencialment rellevants a la literatura, no per falta de metodologia, sinó més bé per l abast de la base de dades (és la més important però no és l única). Valor afegit: El valor afegit d aquest estudi resideix en una revisió actualitzada de la literatura spin-off amb tècniques d anàlisi poc utilitzades en aquest camp.[EN] Purpose: Literature review of existing academic spin-offs in order to present the current situation at the international level. Design/methodology/approach: Literature review. Findings and Originality/value: The bibliometric analysis of the literature (1990-2014) on academic spin-off permits find the most relevant authors, journals, both directly (number of publications) and indirectly (number of citations) contribute to the literature, analysis co-authors, keywords, geolocation and co-citation between articles. The scientific production in this field consists mainly of articles written in English in high impact journals (published mainly in recent years), indicating both the field today, as the interest in high impact journals published studies relating to the spin-off. The incidence of a large number of authors who publish only a single job, besides the small number of collaborations between them, it find out what the current literature is still growing. Research limitations/implications: Similarly to other studies, this is not without limitations. A possible limitation of the study lies in the possible non-inclusion of one of the key items considered in the literature, but not for lack of methodology, but rather by the scope of the database. Originality/value: The added value of this study lies in an updated review of the literature spin-off with little use of analysis techniques used in this field.Seguí Mas, E.; Sarrión Viñes, F.; Tormo Carbó, G.; Oltra Comorera, V. (2016). Producció científica en el camp de les spin-off acadèmiques: Una anàlisi bibliomètrica. Intangible Capital. 12(1):246-267. doi:10.3926/ic.696S24626712

Accounting Ethics in Unfriendly Environments: The Educational Challenge

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2455-6In recent years, and in close connection with a number of well-known financial malpractice cases, public debate on business ethics has intensified worldwide, and particularly in ethics-unfriendly environments, such as Spain, with many recent fraud and corruption scandals. In the context of rowing consensus on the need of balancing social prosperity and business profits, concern is increasing for introducing business (and particularly accounting) ethics in higher education curricula. The purpose is to improve ethical behaviour of future business people, and of accounting professionals in particular. In this study, from a sample of 551 business students at a Spanish university, the importance of accounting ethics is investigated. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we attempt to examine students overall perceptions of business ethics in unfriendly environments and, specifically, their views on the importance and goals of accounting ethics education. Second, we intend to investigate whether potential differences in such perceptions depend on previous business ethics courses taken, gender, and age of students. Our results show that those students who have previously taken an ethics course are especially prone to considering that accounting education should include ethical considerations, and show greater interest in further introducing this subject in their curricula. These facts should encourage universities offering business degrees in ethicsunfriendly environments to extend the implementation of ethics courses in their curricula. Besides, significant differences in students perceptions on the importance of accounting ethics are found depending on their gender and age. 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A new framework for understanding inequalities between expatriates and host country nationals

An interdisciplinary theoretical framework is proposed for analysing justice in global working conditions. In addition to gender and race as popular criteria to identify disadvantaged groups in organizations, in multinational corporations (MNCs) local employees (i.e. host country nationals (HCNs) working in foreign subsidiaries) deserve special attention. Their working conditions are often substantially worse than those of expatriates (i.e. parent country nationals temporarily assigned to a foreign subsidiary). Although a number of reasons have been put forward to justify such inequalities—usually with efficiency goals in mind—recent studies have used equity theory to question the extent to which they are perceived as fair by HCNs. However, since perceptual equity theory has limitations, this study develops an alternative and non-perceptual framework for analysing such inequalities. Employment discrimination theory and elements of Rawls’s ‘Theory of Justice’ are the theoretical pillars of this framework. This article discusses the advantages of this approach for MNCs and identifies some expatriation practices that are fair according to our non-perceptual justice standards, whilst also reasonably (if not highly) efficient

Understanding the declared knowledge and readiness to apply Corporate Social Responsibility of Polish and Spanish business students

The purpose of this paper is to compare two groups of business students from Poland and Spain regarding their declared knowledge and readiness to apply the principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The research was conducted in 2018 among students of two selected universities: the Faculty of Management at the University of Lodz in Poland (UL) and the Faculty of Economics at the University of Valencia (UV). A literature review was performed to compare the CSR education programs at both faculties and to investigate students’ opinions about CSR. The Chi2 independence test was used to find any statistical differences between the two researched groups. In total, 607 students took part in the study. The findings revealed that UV students declare themselves to be better prepared than UL students to make sufficient CSR-based employment decisions. It was also found that UV students more frequently declared a readiness to take CSR measures such as encouraging the company's management to take an interest in CSR, or to personally promote CSR activities in the company. UV students also declared a willingness to work in a company guided by CSR values and activities even for lower remuneration. The findings may be affected by social as well as economic contextual factors and they make it possible to formulate concrete recommendations on how to improve students' awareness of CSR ideas

Facilitating organisational learning through teamwork-based knowledge management: evidence from Spain

[EN] In the context of organisational learning optimisation through knowledge management policies, it is essential to pay careful attention to teamwork design and dynamics. Having these ideas in mind, the aim of our paper is to empirically study whether a number of knowledge management policies related to team design and dynamics facilitate organisational learning processes across the different ontological levels (individual, group, and organisational-institutional). Hence, we propose a model linking teamwork-design based on knowledge management policies (including the sub-dimensions of team composition, team bonding, and team bridging) and organisational learning. We test this model in a sample of large Spanish companies. Our findings highlight the role of, on the one hand, individual-group learning level and, on the other hand, institutional learning level, as the two cornerstones of organisational learning. Furthermore, team autonomy and creativity stand out as crucial factors for successful knowledge management policies.S658018