This study focuses on the factors that may influence Spanish family owned businesses to decide to export and move towards internationalization, posing their level of debt as a possible determining factor. To do so, a review of publications on the subject has been carried out, as well as an empirical study using a sample of 1,846 businesses, which include both family and non-family firms. The results seem to show that the debt level of businesses whose propriety and management are handled by a family differs from that of those that do not fit this characteristic, especially where the decision whether or not to export products abroad is concerned.

In this paper the authors study the relationship between the use of external advice and the size of a Spanish family business, focusing especially on the advice on legal matters and human resources, due to the importance of these particular issues for family firms. To fulfill this objective, an in-depth review of the literature has been performed, as well as an empirical study. The results show that a family nature of business has a positive impact in the use of human resources management external advice. Nevertheless, for legal advice no relationship can be found. Finally, in line with the literature and the results of the analysis, no positive relationship has been found between family business size and the use of external advice, in comparison to the results for companies in general. The scarcity of published work about the issue and the results obtained, especially those related to the use of legal advice for family business managers, make this paper useful for researchers and businesses managers.

Purpose-This paper aims to study the differences between family and non-family firms when establishing cooperation agreements. Design/methodology/approach-The empirical research was conducted using a sample of 1,848 firms, of which 828 are family firms. The use of statistical regression estimation is based on the binary logistic model. Findings-The results show important differences between family and non-family firms in relation to interfirm cooperation and the innovation capacity of the firms, their quality concerns, and their ability to develop external relationships. Originality/value-This paper contributes to the literature by offering new insights in relation to cooperation strategies in family firms, analyzing the effect on the different types of cooperation due to the diverse nature of the chosen partner, as well as the effect of certain internal capabilities of the firm.

El abandono académico en España, en especial en la rama de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, genera una gran preocupación a las autoridades educativas. Se trata de un problema relevante, el cual supone un freno para el desarrollo personal del estudiante, además de ocasionar un impacto social y económico sustancial, tanto para las familias como para la comunidad en general. Por ello, el presente trabajo pretende profundizar en la deserción de los estudios universitarios y sus causas. Así, se centra en la identificación de los factores que llevan al alumnado a dicho abandono de la titulación que actualmente está cursando. Con este propósito, se lleva a cabo un análisis empírico de carácter exploratorio y descriptivo con una muestra de 430 estudiantes, en el que se analiza, en particular, la relación entre la intención del estudiante de dejar la carrera con una serie de variables tales como: la posición que le otorgó al grado en el que finalmente se matriculó al rellenar el documento de preinscripción para el acceso a la universidad; las razones que motivaron su elección; el propio grado y el curso en el que se encuentra actualmente; así como la titularidad del centro docente de estudios secundarios del que procede. Los resultados confirman una relación entre las variables estudiadas, mostrando que un 7,2 por ciento de estudiantes abandonará la carrera en el presente curso, siendo probable una mayor tasa de abandono no explorada.

Scholars have dedicated significant efforts to understanding the factors that influence the environmental strategy of a firm, in order to mitigate the negative impacts on the ecosystem. Learning more about the factors that encourage environmental behavior allows managers and policy makers to improve action and advance correctly in this direction. Despite this academic interest, the literature regarding family business has undertaken limited attention over the issue. Hence, our paper aims to advance in this line of research, by empirically examining the relationship between government support in family firms and their investment in environmental protection. Specifically, we intend to analyze whether the family nature, and the government financial support, influence their environmental strategy. The empirical analysis is developed with a sample of 1802 manufacturing firms in Spain, using a binary logistic regression to evaluate the existence of dependency relationships between the analyzed variables. The results show this dependency, confirming family nature and government support as significant factors for a proactive environmental strategy, funding the idea that family character positively affects environmental performance in line with the socio-emotional wealth approach, and these differences are greater if the company operates mainly in a local area. Likewise, family firms that receive state direct and indirect funding, invest more in environmental issues to mitigate negative external impacts. The practical implications of the results obtained are especially useful for managers of family businesses as well as for central governments and local institutions as a matter of reflection. To reduce administrative processes and costs for family firms in terms of direct and indirect support is of great importance, as an inadequate process may become a barrier to develop environmental strategies.

In the academic context, the interest in environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) has fueled a growing body of research and publications in recent years, fitting well within the discussion of grand challenges (Eisenhardt et al., 2016). These grand challenges have become fundamental concerns, with wide interest in management literature, and a worldwide framing in the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its 17 aspirational goals for sustainable development (Jamali et al., 2019(Jamali et al., , 2021. Bansal and Roth (2000) define ECSR as a set of initiatives (including changes to the firm's products, processes, and policies) aimed at mitigating a firm's impact on the natural environment to address the environmental challenges that the world is facing. One of the principal lines of research analyses the main factors influencing firm environmental commitment (Sharma & Sharma, 2011). Bansal and Roth (2000) argue that examining why some firms embrace ecologically responsible initiatives supports organizational theorists to recognize these factors, allowing managers and policy makers to determine the relative effectiveness of the different mechanisms and measures implemented to promote sustainability. In a similar vein, Bansal (2005) claims that only through such research is it possible

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest two main objectives: to analyze if the size of the company is determined by the use of external legal and human resources (HR) advice; and to analyze if the size of the family business is determined by the use of these two same types of external advice. Design/methodology/approach The assessment is developed (2,013 firms, the Spanish industrial sector) by using descriptive statistics to compare the features of the different types of firms in the sample: family and non-family ones. This is completed with a test of equality of means and using econometric models. Findings Regarding legal advice, results show that as far as legal matters are concerned, when family businesses make greater use of this type of advice, they are smaller. This is a remarkable and interesting result because it differs from non-family firms, in which the use of this type of advice is positively related with size. Regarding the use of HR advice, while it remains significant in general cases with a positive result, this is not the same for family firms. Originality/value The use of advising in family firms is seldom dealt with in the literature, despite its helpfulness for family firm managers. There is gap in this field and a great deal of interesting research remains to be developed, because the authors consider that factors determining the use of advice in family and non-family firms are different.

In the past few decades, a new way of responding to social and environmental problems has emerge: the social entrepreneurship. It is presented as a special type of venture, in which the creation of social value prevails over the maximization of profits. Thus, the main objective of these types of ventures is to serve the community and to search for a positive social change. In this chapter, in addition to presenting the concept of social entrepreneurship and its various approaches within the so-called third sector and the emergent fourth sector, the main sources of funding that can be used by social entrepreneurs are also presented, especially business angels and crowdfunding, are detailed. New paradigms such as the collaborative economy and the circular economy are also addressed within social economy, highlighting the relationship with social entrepreneurship and the path of opportunity to foster new ventures in these fields.