- Email: [email protected]
Introduction to the special issue of best papers Business Association of Latin American Studies 2010
Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1749–1751
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research
Introduction to the special issue of best papers Business Association of Latin American Studies 2010 Xavier Mendoza a,⁎, Jorge Carneiro b, 1 a b
ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University, Spain Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rua Dezenove de Fevereiro 127/201, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22.280-030 Brazil
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 1 June 2011 Received in revised form 1 October 2011 Accepted 1 October 2011 Available online 16 November 2011 Keywords: Latin America BALAS
a b s t r a c t This “Introduction to the Special Issue” briefly addresses the best papers presented at the BALAS 2010 Conference held in March 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. These papers were selected from twelve general business tracks and three conference theme tracks. The seven papers in this special issue cover a wide variety of topics in different fields: marketing, strategy, international human resources management, performance measurement systems, performance of biotech spin-offs, and sustainability. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction to the Special Issue It is a great pleasure to bring to your attention a selection of the best papers presented at the 2010 annual conference of the Business Association of Latin American Studies (BALAS). The conference took place from March 24th to 26th in Barcelona, Spain, hosted by ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University. Founded in 1984, BALAS is the first international business and economics association to focus exclusively on the study of economics, management, leadership and industry-related issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. BALAS brings together scholars, professional managers and decision makers to share ideas and research studies on the Latin American business environment and management practice. The main theme of the BALAS 2010 conference was ‘The coming age of regulation and corporate response’. Paper sessions were organized into 13 general business tracks and three conference theme tracks. A total of 184 papers were submitted and, after a blind peer review process, 89 were accepted for presentation at the Conference (a 48% acceptance rate). The 13 general business tracks were: Accounting, Taxation and Management Information and Control Systems; Consumer Behavior; Corporate Finance; Culture, Social and Ethical Issues; Economic Environment and Regional Integration; Entrepreneurship and Family Business; Financial Markets, Investment and Risk Management; Human Resource Management; Information Technology Management; Marketing Management; Management Education and Teaching
⁎ Corresponding author at: ESADE Business School, Avenida de Pedralbes, 60–62, 08034-Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: + 34 93 495 2157. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Mendoza), [email protected] (J. Carneiro). 1 Tel.: + 55 21 9163 4177. 0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.10.033
Cases; Strategies for Global Competitiveness; and Supply-Chain and Operations Management. The three conference theme tracks were: Business–Government Relations and non-Market Strategies, Knowledge and Innovation Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development. The selection of the best papers for this special issue occurred in two phases led by guest editors Xavier Mendoza (ESADE Business School and BALAS 2010 Conference Chair) and Jorge Carneiro (PUCRio). Track chairs, session chairs and BALAS Executive Committee members first identified the papers they felt deserved consideration for inclusion in the special issue. This initial pre-selection consisted of 18 papers with a wide diversity of focuses (empirical, methodological and also practitioner-oriented approaches) as well as geographical locus of data collection (13 papers covered seven different individual countries and five papers covered a multiplicity of countries in the region). ‘Financial Markets, Investment and Risk Management’ track papers were not considered eligible because they were subject to an independent selection process for publication in Academia: Revista Latinoamericana de Administración. In August 2010, authors were invited to submit a revised version of their papers. The authors of two papers declined the invitation because they had already submitted their work elsewhere. As a result, 16 papers entered the second phase — the double blind review process. After 11 months, and two rounds of double blind peer reviews, seven papers were finally selected for publication. All in all, we counted on the expertise of 36 reviewers from 23 leading academic institutions and 13 distinct countries (see the list at the end of this article). The seven papers in this special issue cover a variety of topics in different fields: marketing, strategy, international human resources management, performance measurement systems, performance of
1750
X. Mendoza, J. Carneiro / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1749–1751
biotech spin-offs, and sustainability. In the following section we provide more detail and comments on each paper. We believe that this selection of papers provides a fairly good sample of research interests and managerial practice in Latin America. We hope you will enjoy reading them. Xavier Mendoza, ESADE Business School, 2010 Conference Chair and European representative in the BALAS Executive Committee Jorge Carneiro, PUC-Rio, Brazilian representative in the BALAS Executive Committee Guest Editors to the Special Issue The papers The first two papers address marketing issues. The first one, entitled “Customer equity and market value: two methods, same results?” by Silveira, de Oliveira and Luce, 2012–this issue, empirically investigates two customer equity-based methods to compute proxies for a firm's market value. Marketing managers face constant pressure to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and contribution to corporate performance. Two growing streams of research in marketing literature are paying closer attention to this challenge — one calculates the customer's value (customer equity and customer lifetime value) and the other develops methods to measure the return on investment from marketing actions. This paper makes a relevant contribution to the first stream by comparing two customer equity (CE) modeling methods, a static approach and a dynamic one. These models differ substantially in terms of their complexity and the type of information needed. Using data from the Brazilian telecom industry, the authors demonstrate that the static CE model, which is simpler and easier to compute, is a reasonable alternative to the dynamic CE model as a proxy for a firm's market value. The second paper, entitled “Determinants of in-store price knowledge for packaged products: an empirical study in a Chilean hypermarket” by Olavarrieta, Hidalgo, Manzur, and Farías, 2012–this issue, examines the influence product and shopper factors have on the shoppers' in-store price knowledge of packaged food products. While price is considered an important variable to explain shopping decisions in economics and marketing theory, several studies have shown that many shoppers of non-durable consumer goods do not check the price of the items they buy. Based on a survey carried out on a sample of 585 packaged food product shoppers, the study by Olavarrieta et al., 2012–this issue extends these findings to a Latin American setting and provides evidence that shopper-related actions (e.g., self-reported price comparison activity) and the product (e.g., purchase of a single product instead of bundled products, in-store price signs, out-store price signs, and the item's absolute price) are positively associated with shoppers' in-store price knowledge. This paper is a useful contribution to the literature on price knowledge for fast moving consumer goods. Understanding the sources of variations in shopper price knowledge is important not only to academics but also to retailers and manufacturers in order to design their pricing strategies. The third paper in this special issue, entitled “Country effect on profitability: a multilevel approach using a sample of Central American firms” by Ketelhöhn and Quintanilla, 2012–this issue, explores the effects industry, firm, location (country) and year have on firm performance. Firm performance variability and its causes are subject to intense debate in the strategy field. The vast majority of empirical studies on firm performance have centered on the influences of industry, firm (the business segment), corporate parent and year. However, recent studies have also started to explore the effect of location (host and home-country) on firm performance. Based on a sample of 263 firms in 7 Central American countries, Ketelhöhn and Quintanilla, 2012–this issue study uses a multilevel regression model to estimate the relation between firm performance and its main determinants. The authors find a significant host-country effect on firm performance even within neighboring, similar countries treated as a block in
previous studies. This finding suggests that previous studies might underestimate the effect of location. The fourth paper, entitled “Managing cross-cultural differences: a test of human resource models in Latin America” by Bonache, Trullen, and Sanchez, 2012–this issue, examines whether multinational firms should adapt their Human Resource Management (HRM) practices to address cross-cultural differences. The paper makes relevant contributions to the international HRM literature both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, the authors make explicit the often latent debate found in the literature between the universalist and culturalist positions, proposing a synthetic position instead (a “culturally-animated universalist” position) that supersedes the previous debate by reconciling the two conflicting positions. The authors test the effectiveness of these three positions on a sample of 138 firms from different Latin American countries. The results suggest that firms adopting a universalist approach outperform those using a culturalist one. However, the effect of universal HR practices (developed around a core set of HR principles, often conceptualized in the literature as High Performance Work Systems) is also contingent on the country's performance orientation, hence the need to adopt a culturally-animated universalist approach. Last but not least, the study also contributes to fill an important gap in the literature: the lack of multi-country empirical research capable of guiding managers on the effectiveness of various HRM practices across Latin America. The fifth paper, entitled “Multidimensional assessment of organizational performance: integrating BSC and AHP” by Bentes, Carneiro, Ferreira da Silva, and Kimura, 2012–this issue, presents an approach to measure organizational performance combining the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) frameworks. Organizational performance is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon whose component elements may have distinct priorities for different managers and may even be mutually inconsistent. To respond to this complexity, a considerable amount of literature has focused on the introduction of weights in the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) – the most popular performance measurement system using multiple perspectives – as well as regarding the joint application of BSC and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) — a decision-making tool which prioritizes multidimensional perspectives and ranks decision alternatives. This paper makes a solid empirical contribution to this second stream. While other studies exploring the joint application of AHP and BSC typically rely on illustrative, hypothetical examples or theoretical discussions of potential uses, this paper presents and critically analyzes the application of an integrated BSC-AHP methodology in a real-life business setting, specifically in a Brazilian telecom company. The sixth paper, entitled “Performance analysis of research spinoffs in the Spanish Biotechnology industry” by Yagüe and March, 2012–this issue, addresses the question of whether research spinoffs differ in their performance and ownership structure from the other firms in the Spanish biotechnology industry. The term “research spin-off” refers to any new, often initially small, high technology or knowledge-intensive company whose intellectual capital has its origins in a university or public research institution. These are the prevailing type of biotech firms in the US and Canada, the leading countries in the industry. Based on a sample of 102 Spanish biotechnology firms (almost the entire population at the end of 2005, 32 of which were research spin-offs), Yagüe and March, 2012–this issue find that research spin-offs – compared to the other firms in the industry – are not necessarily located in core regions, they are not more active in filing international patents, and they are smaller in size. They only have two apparent advantages: the capacity to attract more venture capital and the ability to increase their turnover. Overall, the Spanish biotechnology industry diverges in some significant aspects from the North American model. Some key features in the Spanish context are common to other Southern
X. Mendoza, J. Carneiro / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1749–1751
European and Latin American countries, making the findings of this study also relevant beyond Spanish borders. The closing paper, entitled “Case study on Dole's carbon-neutral fruits” by Kilian, Hettinga, Jiménez, Molina, and White, 2012–this issue, is a teaching case and is presented in two parts: the case itself and its teaching note (written by Kilian and Jiménez, 2012–this issue). The “Costa Rica Carbon Neutral Strategy 2021,” a government-led initiative to make the country a carbon-neutral nation by the year 2021, inspired Dole Costa Rica to consider carbon neutrality. In 2007, the company announced its goal of becoming a carbonneutral company and one year later it had developed a series of programs to reduce its carbon footprint within Costa Rica. The company's CSR manager has been studying the possibility of mitigating all carbon emissions along the supply chain allowing Dole to offer a carbon-neutral product. At the beginning of 2009, the company prepares to make a decision on whether to start producing carbonneutral fruits, and if so, how to implement that decision. This is an excellent case study to analyze and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a carbon neutral company, how the different action alternatives impact on the company's stakeholders, strategy, market share and finances, as well as the managerial challenges involved.
1751
University, Taiwan), Marcos Cohen (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), John Dawson (University of Edinburgh, UK), Kleber Figueiredo (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Cristina Gimenez (ESADE Business School, Spain), Jaime Alonso Gómez (ITESM-Monterrey Tech, Mexico), José Luis Guerrero-Cusumano (Georgetown University, USA), William Hardin (Florida International University, USA), Gary Knight (Florida State University, USA), Nikolaos Kakkos (Technological Education Institution of Larisa, Greece), Tony Lingham (Case Western Reserve University, USA), Ana Heloísa Lemos (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Anthony Miyazaki (Florida International University, USA), Felipe Monteiro (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA), Karen Paul (Florida International University, USA), Jay Rao (Babson College, USA), Albert Saiz (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA), Anderson Sant'Anna (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil), Vitor Simões (Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal), Carlos Sousa (University College Dublin, Ireland), Ricardo Veiga (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil). We thank Silvia Muñoz for her invaluable assistance to the guest editors, the organization of paper submission and review deadlines and her help in communicating with both authors and reviewers. References
Acknowledgements We are enormously indebted to the 36 reviewers listed below who generously dedicated their time and efforts to provide expert reviews that certainly contributed to improve the papers (in alphabetical order by surname): José Luis Alvarez (ESADE Business School, Spain), Rebecca Arkader (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Catherine Axinn (Ohio University, USA). Joan Manuel Batista (ESADE Business School, Spain), Josep Bisbe (ESADE Business School, Spain), Max Boisot (ESADE Business School, Spain), Luiz Artur Brito (FGV/EAESP, Brazil), Richard Boyatzis (Case Western Reserve University, USA), Miguel Carrillo (Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Trinidad & Tobago), Monica Casabayó (ESADE Business School, Spain), Lourdes Casanova (INSEAD, France), Leticia Cassotti (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Xavier Castañer (Université de Lausanne, Switzerland), Marie Agnes Chauvel (Federal University of São João del Rei, Brazil), Sylvie Chetty (Massey University, New Zealand), Yuntsai Chou (Yuan Ze
Bentes AV, Carneiro J, Ferreira da Silva J, Kimura H. Multidimensional assessment of organizational performance: integrating BSC and AHP. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1790–9. (this issue). Bonache J, Trullén J, Sánchez JI. Managing cross-cultural differences: testing of human resource models in Latin America. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1773–81. (this issue). Ketelhöhn N, Quintanilla C. Country effects on profitability: a multilevel approach using a sample of Central American firms. Journal of Business Research 2012;65: 1767–72. (this issue). Kilian B, Hettinga J, Jiménez G, Molina S, White A. Case study on Dole's carbon-neutral fruits. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1800–10. (this issue). Kilian B, Jiménez G. Dole's carbon-neutral fruits — Teaching note. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1811–4. (this issue). Olavarrieta S, Hidalgo P, Manzur E, Farías P. Antecedents of in-store price knowledge for packaged products: an empirical study in a Chilean hypermarket. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1759–66. (this issue). Silveira CS, de Oliveira MR, Luce FB. Customer equity and market value: two methods, same results? Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1752–8. (this issue). Yagüe RM, March I. Performance analysis of research spin-offs in the Spanish Biotechnology industry. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1782–9. (this issue).
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research
Introduction to the special issue of best papers Business Association of Latin American Studies 2010 Xavier Mendoza a,⁎, Jorge Carneiro b, 1 a b
ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University, Spain Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rua Dezenove de Fevereiro 127/201, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22.280-030 Brazil
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 1 June 2011 Received in revised form 1 October 2011 Accepted 1 October 2011 Available online 16 November 2011 Keywords: Latin America BALAS
a b s t r a c t This “Introduction to the Special Issue” briefly addresses the best papers presented at the BALAS 2010 Conference held in March 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. These papers were selected from twelve general business tracks and three conference theme tracks. The seven papers in this special issue cover a wide variety of topics in different fields: marketing, strategy, international human resources management, performance measurement systems, performance of biotech spin-offs, and sustainability. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction to the Special Issue It is a great pleasure to bring to your attention a selection of the best papers presented at the 2010 annual conference of the Business Association of Latin American Studies (BALAS). The conference took place from March 24th to 26th in Barcelona, Spain, hosted by ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University. Founded in 1984, BALAS is the first international business and economics association to focus exclusively on the study of economics, management, leadership and industry-related issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. BALAS brings together scholars, professional managers and decision makers to share ideas and research studies on the Latin American business environment and management practice. The main theme of the BALAS 2010 conference was ‘The coming age of regulation and corporate response’. Paper sessions were organized into 13 general business tracks and three conference theme tracks. A total of 184 papers were submitted and, after a blind peer review process, 89 were accepted for presentation at the Conference (a 48% acceptance rate). The 13 general business tracks were: Accounting, Taxation and Management Information and Control Systems; Consumer Behavior; Corporate Finance; Culture, Social and Ethical Issues; Economic Environment and Regional Integration; Entrepreneurship and Family Business; Financial Markets, Investment and Risk Management; Human Resource Management; Information Technology Management; Marketing Management; Management Education and Teaching
⁎ Corresponding author at: ESADE Business School, Avenida de Pedralbes, 60–62, 08034-Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: + 34 93 495 2157. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Mendoza), [email protected] (J. Carneiro). 1 Tel.: + 55 21 9163 4177. 0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.10.033
Cases; Strategies for Global Competitiveness; and Supply-Chain and Operations Management. The three conference theme tracks were: Business–Government Relations and non-Market Strategies, Knowledge and Innovation Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development. The selection of the best papers for this special issue occurred in two phases led by guest editors Xavier Mendoza (ESADE Business School and BALAS 2010 Conference Chair) and Jorge Carneiro (PUCRio). Track chairs, session chairs and BALAS Executive Committee members first identified the papers they felt deserved consideration for inclusion in the special issue. This initial pre-selection consisted of 18 papers with a wide diversity of focuses (empirical, methodological and also practitioner-oriented approaches) as well as geographical locus of data collection (13 papers covered seven different individual countries and five papers covered a multiplicity of countries in the region). ‘Financial Markets, Investment and Risk Management’ track papers were not considered eligible because they were subject to an independent selection process for publication in Academia: Revista Latinoamericana de Administración. In August 2010, authors were invited to submit a revised version of their papers. The authors of two papers declined the invitation because they had already submitted their work elsewhere. As a result, 16 papers entered the second phase — the double blind review process. After 11 months, and two rounds of double blind peer reviews, seven papers were finally selected for publication. All in all, we counted on the expertise of 36 reviewers from 23 leading academic institutions and 13 distinct countries (see the list at the end of this article). The seven papers in this special issue cover a variety of topics in different fields: marketing, strategy, international human resources management, performance measurement systems, performance of
1750
X. Mendoza, J. Carneiro / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1749–1751
biotech spin-offs, and sustainability. In the following section we provide more detail and comments on each paper. We believe that this selection of papers provides a fairly good sample of research interests and managerial practice in Latin America. We hope you will enjoy reading them. Xavier Mendoza, ESADE Business School, 2010 Conference Chair and European representative in the BALAS Executive Committee Jorge Carneiro, PUC-Rio, Brazilian representative in the BALAS Executive Committee Guest Editors to the Special Issue The papers The first two papers address marketing issues. The first one, entitled “Customer equity and market value: two methods, same results?” by Silveira, de Oliveira and Luce, 2012–this issue, empirically investigates two customer equity-based methods to compute proxies for a firm's market value. Marketing managers face constant pressure to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and contribution to corporate performance. Two growing streams of research in marketing literature are paying closer attention to this challenge — one calculates the customer's value (customer equity and customer lifetime value) and the other develops methods to measure the return on investment from marketing actions. This paper makes a relevant contribution to the first stream by comparing two customer equity (CE) modeling methods, a static approach and a dynamic one. These models differ substantially in terms of their complexity and the type of information needed. Using data from the Brazilian telecom industry, the authors demonstrate that the static CE model, which is simpler and easier to compute, is a reasonable alternative to the dynamic CE model as a proxy for a firm's market value. The second paper, entitled “Determinants of in-store price knowledge for packaged products: an empirical study in a Chilean hypermarket” by Olavarrieta, Hidalgo, Manzur, and Farías, 2012–this issue, examines the influence product and shopper factors have on the shoppers' in-store price knowledge of packaged food products. While price is considered an important variable to explain shopping decisions in economics and marketing theory, several studies have shown that many shoppers of non-durable consumer goods do not check the price of the items they buy. Based on a survey carried out on a sample of 585 packaged food product shoppers, the study by Olavarrieta et al., 2012–this issue extends these findings to a Latin American setting and provides evidence that shopper-related actions (e.g., self-reported price comparison activity) and the product (e.g., purchase of a single product instead of bundled products, in-store price signs, out-store price signs, and the item's absolute price) are positively associated with shoppers' in-store price knowledge. This paper is a useful contribution to the literature on price knowledge for fast moving consumer goods. Understanding the sources of variations in shopper price knowledge is important not only to academics but also to retailers and manufacturers in order to design their pricing strategies. The third paper in this special issue, entitled “Country effect on profitability: a multilevel approach using a sample of Central American firms” by Ketelhöhn and Quintanilla, 2012–this issue, explores the effects industry, firm, location (country) and year have on firm performance. Firm performance variability and its causes are subject to intense debate in the strategy field. The vast majority of empirical studies on firm performance have centered on the influences of industry, firm (the business segment), corporate parent and year. However, recent studies have also started to explore the effect of location (host and home-country) on firm performance. Based on a sample of 263 firms in 7 Central American countries, Ketelhöhn and Quintanilla, 2012–this issue study uses a multilevel regression model to estimate the relation between firm performance and its main determinants. The authors find a significant host-country effect on firm performance even within neighboring, similar countries treated as a block in
previous studies. This finding suggests that previous studies might underestimate the effect of location. The fourth paper, entitled “Managing cross-cultural differences: a test of human resource models in Latin America” by Bonache, Trullen, and Sanchez, 2012–this issue, examines whether multinational firms should adapt their Human Resource Management (HRM) practices to address cross-cultural differences. The paper makes relevant contributions to the international HRM literature both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, the authors make explicit the often latent debate found in the literature between the universalist and culturalist positions, proposing a synthetic position instead (a “culturally-animated universalist” position) that supersedes the previous debate by reconciling the two conflicting positions. The authors test the effectiveness of these three positions on a sample of 138 firms from different Latin American countries. The results suggest that firms adopting a universalist approach outperform those using a culturalist one. However, the effect of universal HR practices (developed around a core set of HR principles, often conceptualized in the literature as High Performance Work Systems) is also contingent on the country's performance orientation, hence the need to adopt a culturally-animated universalist approach. Last but not least, the study also contributes to fill an important gap in the literature: the lack of multi-country empirical research capable of guiding managers on the effectiveness of various HRM practices across Latin America. The fifth paper, entitled “Multidimensional assessment of organizational performance: integrating BSC and AHP” by Bentes, Carneiro, Ferreira da Silva, and Kimura, 2012–this issue, presents an approach to measure organizational performance combining the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) frameworks. Organizational performance is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon whose component elements may have distinct priorities for different managers and may even be mutually inconsistent. To respond to this complexity, a considerable amount of literature has focused on the introduction of weights in the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) – the most popular performance measurement system using multiple perspectives – as well as regarding the joint application of BSC and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) — a decision-making tool which prioritizes multidimensional perspectives and ranks decision alternatives. This paper makes a solid empirical contribution to this second stream. While other studies exploring the joint application of AHP and BSC typically rely on illustrative, hypothetical examples or theoretical discussions of potential uses, this paper presents and critically analyzes the application of an integrated BSC-AHP methodology in a real-life business setting, specifically in a Brazilian telecom company. The sixth paper, entitled “Performance analysis of research spinoffs in the Spanish Biotechnology industry” by Yagüe and March, 2012–this issue, addresses the question of whether research spinoffs differ in their performance and ownership structure from the other firms in the Spanish biotechnology industry. The term “research spin-off” refers to any new, often initially small, high technology or knowledge-intensive company whose intellectual capital has its origins in a university or public research institution. These are the prevailing type of biotech firms in the US and Canada, the leading countries in the industry. Based on a sample of 102 Spanish biotechnology firms (almost the entire population at the end of 2005, 32 of which were research spin-offs), Yagüe and March, 2012–this issue find that research spin-offs – compared to the other firms in the industry – are not necessarily located in core regions, they are not more active in filing international patents, and they are smaller in size. They only have two apparent advantages: the capacity to attract more venture capital and the ability to increase their turnover. Overall, the Spanish biotechnology industry diverges in some significant aspects from the North American model. Some key features in the Spanish context are common to other Southern
X. Mendoza, J. Carneiro / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1749–1751
European and Latin American countries, making the findings of this study also relevant beyond Spanish borders. The closing paper, entitled “Case study on Dole's carbon-neutral fruits” by Kilian, Hettinga, Jiménez, Molina, and White, 2012–this issue, is a teaching case and is presented in two parts: the case itself and its teaching note (written by Kilian and Jiménez, 2012–this issue). The “Costa Rica Carbon Neutral Strategy 2021,” a government-led initiative to make the country a carbon-neutral nation by the year 2021, inspired Dole Costa Rica to consider carbon neutrality. In 2007, the company announced its goal of becoming a carbonneutral company and one year later it had developed a series of programs to reduce its carbon footprint within Costa Rica. The company's CSR manager has been studying the possibility of mitigating all carbon emissions along the supply chain allowing Dole to offer a carbon-neutral product. At the beginning of 2009, the company prepares to make a decision on whether to start producing carbonneutral fruits, and if so, how to implement that decision. This is an excellent case study to analyze and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a carbon neutral company, how the different action alternatives impact on the company's stakeholders, strategy, market share and finances, as well as the managerial challenges involved.
1751
University, Taiwan), Marcos Cohen (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), John Dawson (University of Edinburgh, UK), Kleber Figueiredo (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Cristina Gimenez (ESADE Business School, Spain), Jaime Alonso Gómez (ITESM-Monterrey Tech, Mexico), José Luis Guerrero-Cusumano (Georgetown University, USA), William Hardin (Florida International University, USA), Gary Knight (Florida State University, USA), Nikolaos Kakkos (Technological Education Institution of Larisa, Greece), Tony Lingham (Case Western Reserve University, USA), Ana Heloísa Lemos (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Anthony Miyazaki (Florida International University, USA), Felipe Monteiro (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA), Karen Paul (Florida International University, USA), Jay Rao (Babson College, USA), Albert Saiz (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA), Anderson Sant'Anna (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil), Vitor Simões (Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal), Carlos Sousa (University College Dublin, Ireland), Ricardo Veiga (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil). We thank Silvia Muñoz for her invaluable assistance to the guest editors, the organization of paper submission and review deadlines and her help in communicating with both authors and reviewers. References
Acknowledgements We are enormously indebted to the 36 reviewers listed below who generously dedicated their time and efforts to provide expert reviews that certainly contributed to improve the papers (in alphabetical order by surname): José Luis Alvarez (ESADE Business School, Spain), Rebecca Arkader (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Catherine Axinn (Ohio University, USA). Joan Manuel Batista (ESADE Business School, Spain), Josep Bisbe (ESADE Business School, Spain), Max Boisot (ESADE Business School, Spain), Luiz Artur Brito (FGV/EAESP, Brazil), Richard Boyatzis (Case Western Reserve University, USA), Miguel Carrillo (Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Trinidad & Tobago), Monica Casabayó (ESADE Business School, Spain), Lourdes Casanova (INSEAD, France), Leticia Cassotti (Coppead Business School, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Xavier Castañer (Université de Lausanne, Switzerland), Marie Agnes Chauvel (Federal University of São João del Rei, Brazil), Sylvie Chetty (Massey University, New Zealand), Yuntsai Chou (Yuan Ze
Bentes AV, Carneiro J, Ferreira da Silva J, Kimura H. Multidimensional assessment of organizational performance: integrating BSC and AHP. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1790–9. (this issue). Bonache J, Trullén J, Sánchez JI. Managing cross-cultural differences: testing of human resource models in Latin America. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1773–81. (this issue). Ketelhöhn N, Quintanilla C. Country effects on profitability: a multilevel approach using a sample of Central American firms. Journal of Business Research 2012;65: 1767–72. (this issue). Kilian B, Hettinga J, Jiménez G, Molina S, White A. Case study on Dole's carbon-neutral fruits. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1800–10. (this issue). Kilian B, Jiménez G. Dole's carbon-neutral fruits — Teaching note. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1811–4. (this issue). Olavarrieta S, Hidalgo P, Manzur E, Farías P. Antecedents of in-store price knowledge for packaged products: an empirical study in a Chilean hypermarket. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1759–66. (this issue). Silveira CS, de Oliveira MR, Luce FB. Customer equity and market value: two methods, same results? Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1752–8. (this issue). Yagüe RM, March I. Performance analysis of research spin-offs in the Spanish Biotechnology industry. Journal of Business Research 2012;65:1782–9. (this issue).