Delineating the Path of Family Firm Innovation: Mapping the Scientific Structure

Research on family firm innovation (FFI) has grown exponentially in recent years, as evidenced by the growing number of authors devoted to its study. However, to date, numerous questions remain unsolved about how family firms are coping with different innovation issues. In this context, this study aims to explore the scientific literature on FFI through performance indicators of scientific production, social networks of collaborations between authors and the intellectual and conceptual structures of the field. To accomplish this goal, bibliometric techniques are conducted, namely co-author, co-citation and co-word analyses. This study is carried out through a review of 975 published documents on FFI retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus databases during the period 1987–2019. The findings reveal the richness of the FFI field and allows this large body of work to be organized into four theoretical roots and five thematic clusters. Additionally, this study proposes an integrative framework aimed at advancing new knowledge on the available research paths on FFI and identifying new research avenues to further develop the field. Hence, our research enriches the lively debate on FFI by offering a better understanding of the heterogeneous innovation behaviour of family firms

What Is Going on with the Research into the Internationalization of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)? An Intellectual Structure Analysis into the State-of-the-Art (1990–2018)

The internationalization of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is a topic of constant research interest due to the impact these have on economic growth and employment in developed, emerging and developing countries. A desire to understand and a growing interest in the study of the internationalization process of SMEs has provoked a significant increase in the production of manuscripts in this field in the last decade. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out periodic reviews on the state-of-the-art of this phenomenon in order to highlight advances and limitations, to motivate reflections and stimulate progress in future research. Thus, the main objective of this study is to describe the state-of-the-art of the research into SME Internationalization based on a bibliometric analysis of 1152 manuscripts published from 1990 to 2018. The results enable the identification of the main agents that are constantly developing this field through an analysis of scientific production and collaboration indicators. Furthermore, through a co-word analysis, this research establishes hot-spot research trends that need to be developed in future research. The main contribution of this research is the configuration of a knowledge map on SME Internationalization research

Microservices and Machine Learning Algorithms for Adaptive Green Buildings

In recent years, the use of services for Open Systems development has consolidated and strengthened. Advances in the Service Science and Engineering (SSE) community, promoted by the reinforcement of Web Services and Semantic Web technologies and the presence of new Cloud computing techniques, such as the proliferation of microservices solutions, have allowed software architects to experiment and develop new ways of building open and adaptable computer systems at runtime. Home automation, intelligent buildings, robotics, graphical user interfaces are some of the social atmosphere environments suitable in which to apply certain innovative trends. This paper presents a schema for the adaptation of Dynamic Computer Systems (DCS) using interdisciplinary techniques on model-driven engineering, service engineering and soft computing. The proposal manages an orchestrated microservices schema for adapting component-based software architectural systems at runtime. This schema has been developed as a three-layer adaptive transformation process that is supported on a rule-based decision-making service implemented by means of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The experimental development was implemented in the Solar Energy Research Center (CIESOL) applying the proposed microservices schema for adapting home architectural atmosphere systems on Green Buildings

A Bibliometric Analysis of International Competitiveness (1983–2017)

The objective of this paper is to determine the current state of scientific production regarding “competitiveness„ in the international context through a bibliometric analysis. This study presents a review of 2293 documents published about competitiveness in the international context from the Scopus database (1983–2017). Two different processing software applications were used, Vosviewer and Scimat. Although very recent bibliometric analyses of the topic exist, the methodology applied in the search term is restricted due to the separate use of a single search combination “national competitiveness„ or “international competitiveness„. For this work, three combinations of words with logical operators were used, TITLE-ABS-KEY (“international competitiveness„) OR (“national competitiveness„) OR (“export competitiveness„), thus managing to span the concept of competitiveness in the international context in a broader sense. Our results show that competitive research is in a period of high production. The most productive authors and journals are not the most cited on competitiveness. Only three countries stand out with the largest scientific production about this topic. The trend of the most recent research points to knowledge areas in environmental sciences. The most researched geographical areas in international competitiveness encompass the whole world and especially Southeast Asia

Influence of the economic crisis on the identification of country profiles within the European tomato market

The objectives of this work are to determine the profiles of the countries that make up the European tomato consuming market and to observe if the economic-financial crisis (2007/2008) has influenced them. Both Lafay’s economic indicators were applied and country profiles and subprofiles were identified through a multilevel two-stage cluster analysis. The empirical analysis covers the period from 2005 to 2016, separated into two periods, pre-crisis (2005–2010) and post-crisis (2011–2016). Most countries obtained import and export profiles that coincide in both indices, Except in Italy. Only one post-crisis profile change was detected, this being for Greece, from an importer to an exporter. As a result of the initial two-stage clustering analysis (both in the pre-crisis and post-crisis period), three clusters were obtained. At the first level of clustering, Italy is identified with a producer profile and Spain and the Netherlands with an exporter profile. At the second level of clustering of the initial larger group, two clusters were identified, Germany and the United Kingdom with an importing sub-profile, and France and Belgium with an exporting sub-profile. In the transition from the pre-crisis to the post-crisis period, Portugal changed from a producer sub-profile to an exporter sub-profile