This paper analyzes the effect of systems of human resource management (HRM) practices on a company's innovation capabilities. To date, few studies have analyzed the way a firm may be more innovative by using specific sets of high-performance HRM practices from an intellectual capital-based view of the firm. From an extensive literature review, a model was established and tested through structural equation modelling, using the statistical technique of partial least squares. The study was applied to a sample of technological firms in Spain and the results show that high-profile personal HRM practices positively influence human capital while collaborative HRM practices influence social capital, which, in turn, affect innovation capabilities by means of, respectively, total and partial mediating effects. Managerial and HRM implications of these results are drawn by the authors, highlighting the idea of paying increased attention to managing firms with a focus on strategic intangible assets in order to gain competitive advantages based on innovation.

This study focuses on the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives on financial performance, using the information disclosed by companies on their websites. The final sample is made up of the 122 companies listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange (Spain). The empirical analysis entailed two phases: an analysis of the differences among the companies' Financial Performance (FP) depending on their CSR strategy, and the use of a hierarchical cluster analysis and a multiple linear regression in order to explain the effect of CSR practices on corporate performance. The results of the analyses were significant and in the direction hypothesised. That is, CSR improves financial performance and, when considering the intangible components of CSR, the relationship is stronger for the company's long-term performance than for its short-term performance.

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This paper presents an approach for detecting and identifying faults in railway infrastructure components. The method is based on pattern recognition and data analysis algorithms. Principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to reduce the complexity of the data to two and three dimensions. PCA involves a mathematical procedure that transforms a number of variables, which may be correlated, into a smaller set of uncorrelated variables called 'principal components'. In order to improve the results obtained, the signal was filtered. The filtering was carried out employing a state-space system model, estimated by maximum likelihood with the help of the well-known recursive algorithms such as Kalman filter and fixed interval smoothing. The models explored in this paper to analyse system data lie within the so-called unobserved components class of models.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse social capital (SC) development oriented to innovation. The relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWSs) and total quality management (TQM) philosophy is considered in this paper as an enabling factor that allows firms to accumulate SC oriented to develop radical and incremental innovation capabilities (IIC). Design/methodology/approach This paper establishes hypotheses and a model based on partial and total mediating effects of SC to develop innovation capabilities, which are focused on previous unexplored connections between HPWS and TQM and their effects on SC. The model and hypotheses are statistically tested through a partial least squares approach to structural equations models in a multi-industry sample of Spanish companies. Findings The study results show a system of specific human resource practices connected to SC development. Moreover, SC is found to be a mediating factor in the relationship between TQM and IIC, although the effect is not significant when radical innovation capabilities (RIC) are considered in the model. Finally, it is shown that HPWS partially mediates the relationship between TQM and SC. Research limitations/implications This paper mainly contributes to the study of organizational context enablers for intellectual capital (IC) development from a knowledge-based view, especially when firms are seeking to build or improve innovation capabilities. As a managerial approach, HPWSs and TQM are shown as powerful tools to establish prolific contexts for SC development, especially when TQM is rightly supported by a HPWS. Originality/value This is a quantitative study that analyses, for the first time, predictive relationships between popular tools such as TQM and HPWSs to create an organizational context for SC development, considering a multi-industry sample of firms. Important implications are also drawn to help managers to create IC assets related to social interaction and network relationships.

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The European Commission considers the following groups of entrepreneurs: females, family businesses, liberal professions, migrants, and seniors. Disabled people are not included, and this paper could, therefore, open up a new field of research and an important issue to be considered among the European Union’s social objectives. The University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) in Spain provides an entrepreneurship education course, “Entrepreneurship and disability,” for disabled students. It is the first time that a course with these characteristics has been taught at a Spanish University, which signifies that there is no similar research of this nature. Keeping in mind its originality, this study makes an important contribution to the field. The main objective is to analyze whether the motivation to start up a business differs between students with disabilities and those without. We analyzed “before” and “after” data in order to test the potential impact of entrepreneurship education on the students’ entrepreneurial attitude. An analysis of variance with several demographic variables has allowed us to prove that the education that students received, their business experience, and their field of study have significant effects. This statistical test showed no significant differences between disabled and non-disabled students.

Purpose-The purpose of this study is to analyze, in the context of the last economic crisis, the prediction capacity of the different risk measures and the relationship between risk and return. Design/methodology/approach-We selected three risk measures constructed using annual accounting data obtained from Spanish companies. A logistic regression was then developed to verify whether the companies' predictions were eventually correct, considering those companies that were able to survive the crisis. A multiple linear regression was subsequently employed in order to review Bowman's paradox, that is, in the risk-return relationship. Findings-The research results support the two hypotheses formulated: 1) variability measures of risk have a greater predictive power than that of downside risk measures; 2) the risk-return paradox is more likely to exist in the more uncertain environment of a pre-crisis period of time. Originality/value-Managers could employ the frameworks developed in this study as important diagnostic tools in order to attain advance warning of whether an organization may be close to failure. An analysis of this nature would then allow a firm to take appropriate action to arrest the process.