a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o We argue that the positive association found between firm productivity and exports in the literature relates to the firm's innovation decisions. Using a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms we find strong evidence that product innovation and not process innovation affects productivity and induces small non exporting firms to enter the export market.

The paper provides empirical evidence on technological activity in the Spanish service sector, in particular for the tourist accommodation in the Balearics. The study wants to fulfil the lack of analyses in the field of tourism. Commonly, the study of innovation activity has been carried out from a manufacture perspective, for that reason the paper discusses the precise definition of innovation in accommodation services. The data refer to a large representative sample of hotels in Balearic Islands (Spain), providing a homogeneous set of information. The results show as higher categories hotels are more innovative than lower categories hotels; an aggregated measure of technological innovation presents a rate over the average for hotels that belong to a chain, and that for hotels under management contract. Half of innovative companies adjust the human capital skills and abilities. The hotel industry is a supplier driven sector that innovates introducing R&D embodied technology rather than undertaking internal R&D activities. r

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The concept of the circular economy (CE) is currently gaining impetus as a way to move towards sustainable, low‐carbon, resource‐efficient, and competitive economies. However, despite the potential benefits of CE activities, their implementation remains relatively rare. We use a cross‐sectional survey of European small and medium‐sized firms (SMEs) to identify the main barriers firms face to promote the CE, focusing specifically on the following: those related to a lack of resources (human and financial) and capabilities (expertise) and those related to the regulatory framework (administrative procedures and the costs of meeting the regulations). Our results indicate that it is the complexity of administrative/legal procedures and the costs of meeting regulations/legal standards that constitute the most significant barriers, whereas the lack of human resources is also perceived to be an obstacle by firms engaged in CE activities. Those obstacles may be considered revealed barriers, and it is only when the firms become involved in these activities that they actually perceive them. Furthermore, when we consider the breadth of CE activities, administrative procedures and regulations once again emerge as the most significant obstacles. Finally, we stress the need to distinguish between different CE activities given that the perception of barriers differs substantially across these activities. Firms undertaking a disruptive innovation redesigning products and services to minimize the use of materials are more likely to perceive all barriers as important. However, firms implementing such activities as minimizing waste, replanning energy usage, and using renewable energy only perceive those obstacles related to administrative procedures and regulations.

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We investigate the determinants of innovation activity making a distinction between product and process innovations. We analyse a pseudo production function of innovations where among the explanatory variables, special attention is paid to firm and market characteristics. The study is applied to a large sample of Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 1990-1993. There are important implications arising from the empirical results: 1) Product and process innovations are intimately related independently of the model used in the estimation.2) The control by unobserved firm effects as the ability and experience of manager is so important as to affect the conclusions on the managerial decisions about which type of innovation develop. 3) Given the feedback effects amongst innovation decisions and other factors determining them, it is also very important to consider a version of the model that allows correlation among those unobserved effects and explanatory variables. 4) The probability to innovate is higher in capital intensive firms and in firms with export activities. 5) Market competition encourages the decision to innovate up to a threshold. vi) The past firm experience and the managerial quality play a significant role in the probability to innovate. vii) Product and process innovation decisions are complementary.

Using a Spanish database, we have explored the role of persistence in the decision of firms to implement product and process innovations and to develop those innovations. We assume that a company that is continuously engaged in some type of innovation activity will be encouraged to innovate, either for investment reasons or to enhance its market image. Because of the effects of persistence (state dependence) could be contaminated by unobserved heterogeneity, we use panel data, and make an effort to separate these effects. We demonstrate that persistence is important in both innovation decisions. Persistence in innovation increases at least 15% the probability to develop more innovations. A second important result is that the introduction of the alternative innovation increases the probability to innovate in a range from 2 to 4%; it implies that complementarities between innovations are also important in the decision to continue innovating in terms of absorbed synergies and capacities generated by the firm.

This study develops a model that explains export sales volume by destination based on a company's export marketing strategy. A seemingly unrelated regression model (SURE) simultaneously estimates the explanatory value of the different elements of the marketing strategy, as well as company characteristics, such as experience, size and motivation to export, on entry decisions to six different regional markets made by exporting companies in a southern European country. The data were collected from a sample size of 2,264 exporting companies. Findings confirm the importance of exporting experience and proactiveness in determining high export sales volumes in every regional market except for those psychologically close. Nevertheless, different marketing strategies depending on the region lead to high export sales volumes. For example, low price strategies in the case of Latin America or differentiation strategies based on the augmented product in the case of the USA generate high export sales. Promotional expenditures are of higher importance for distant markets, but for closer markets channel development is the key. IntroductionExporting represents one of the most common entry modes to international markets. As a consequence, exporting and export behavior have been a primary area of interest in the international marketing field and the focus of extensive marketing literature (Aaby and Slater, 1989;Bilkey, 1978;Cavusgil and Nevin, 1981;Douglas and Craig, 1992;Leonidou, 1995Leonidou, , 1998Leonidou and Katsikeas, 1996). However, the majority of empirical studies in this area give little attention to the effect of export destination on export behavior and performance (Katsikeas, 1994). This study analyses export performance determinants in different regions using data from exporting companies in a Southern European country. Conducting this kind of research will help refine our understanding about how the strategy-performance relationship depends on the environmental context (Katsikeas et al., 2000). It will also allow us to assess the reliability and generalizability of past findings.