This paper’s goal is twofold: it aims to assess the performance of 58 Iberian banks and explore the relationship between such performance and the banks’ Intellectual Capital (IC) efficiency during a post-crisis period. As long as the authors are aware, there is a gap in the literature in exploring the relationship between banks’ global performance and IC efficiency. First, the Data Envelopment Analysis model was adopted to measure the efficiency of Iberian banks and rank them according to their performance. Data were collected digitally, specifically by using the Bankscope database provided by Bureau van Dijk. Results show that by improving their resources management practices, banks can significantly increase their efficiency. Then, fractional regressions were used to infer the relationship between IC’s efficiency and the scores obtained in the first stage. Results suggest that Iberian banks’ global performance is mainly determined by their human capital efficiency. Finally, this study stresses the importance of IC measurement to support more efficient decision-making by bank managers.

Nowadays, due to the complexity of the relationships with external entities, along with the importance that traditional media and the innovative social media have in creating competitive advantages, it is necessary for companies to collaborate in order to create Intellectual Capital (IC). Although collaboration is crucial to create IC, there is a paucity in literature regarding the effects that a specific type of collaboration may have on the IC of an organisation, specifically a franchising with a mediatic actor. Moreover, literature addressing IC creation and destruction over time is scarce, especially when applied to the construction industry. This paper’s goal is twofold: understanding the longitudinal changes of a construction SME’s Intellectual Capital, regarding its creation and destruction; analysing the impact that a specific inter-organisational collaboration franchising—with a mediatic actor may have on such IC. A single in-depth case study was conducted, allowing to conclude that the actions of an organisation can develop both Intellectual Assets and Intellectual Liabilities. It was also concluded that inter-organisational collaboration, through a franchise with an actor with experience in communication, can generate, in the long term, positive and innovative effects regarding the different IC components, namely the Relational one. More specifically, the paper allowed to ascertain that an organisation’s IC changes over time in a dynamic fashion, i.e., Intellectual Liabilities which emerged before an innovative collaboration can be transformed into Intellectual Assets and create competitive advantages. This paper contributes to stress the importance of managing IC, not only when it is created, but namely in when it can be destroyed, in a context of inter-organisational collaborations applied to a construction SME.

This paper is about business transfer in family businesses companies. The problem of succession in family businesses in Portugal gets special interest given the high number of these companies. The field study uses interviews from five cases studies which were in a succession process. To help in the succession process is important to take into account the succession plan role and all problems that can happen during the process. The succession plan is the most important instrument in the succession process. It should be done on time to prepare conveniently whom is the successor, when and how the succession takes place. Even though, our evidence suggests that succession can be successful, even without a formal succession plan.

All agri‐food cooperatives share common interests, irrespective of their geographical borders, which should encourage them to undertake inter‐cooperation processes as well as to set up transnational cooperatives. This paper has two objectives. The first is to analyze Spanish and Portuguese cooperative regulations and the Statute for a European Cooperative Society to define how to embark on these processes in the two countries while also pinpointing the conflicts that may arise from the different regulations. Secondly, it seeks to ascertain which Spanish and Portuguese cooperatives have had experience in this field and to characterize them through a multiple‐case study, including the rationale for the processes, the advantages and the constraints. The results have revealed five cross‐border cooperation categories and show that the Statute for a European Cooperative Society has not had the expected success at the EU level, due to its complexity. However, in general, the lack of expected cross‐border cooperative experiences is not due to legal, language or management issues. It is for different reasons. Firstly, cooperatives think that they can achieve the same objectives through inter‐cooperative agreements. Secondly, government policies protect the regional nature of their cooperatives, rather than encouraging them to expand their business and therefore their capacity to respond to current challenges.

This study examines on the association between the accountability and economic performance of Portuguese hospital entities after the entry into force of the new Public Accounting Standards, taking into account stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, and institutional theory. Furthermore, we investigate whether accountability, underlying procurement, and other entity operations act differently in public and private hospitals. For this purpose, we collected data for 56 Portuguese hospital entities in the period from 2018 to 2022. We conducted a quantitative analysis, testing the hypotheses using econometric regressions estimated with panel data. The results show a reduction in the return on assets for both sectors. Our evidence suggests that being a public hospital entity harms economic performance. In this sector, size and gender positively affect economic performance. Still, the level of provisions negatively affects it. In contrast, in private hospital entities, the determinants of their economic performance are the number of directors (with a negative impact) and provisions (with a positive one). These results show that when hospital entities are committed to governance structures and social responsibility, or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors underlying sustainability strategies, they can enhance their performance. This article contributes by collecting evidence on the effect of accountability on the performance of public hospital entities, the features of which tend to be different from those of private hospital entities.

This chapter analyzes research in social responsibility (SR) reporting in higher education institutions (HEI), addressing different aspects: a longitudinal assessment, the theoretical approaches, the adopted methodologies, and its main results. A systematic literature review is undertaken. To do so, the ISI Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases were used to retrieve the articles for analysis. The articles were limited to business and management research area. Findings show that literature on SR reporting in HEIs is still in its infancy and it is very heterogeneous, with only 24 articles addressing this theme. Most articles resorted to qualitative methodologies, emphasizing the case study. Findings also show a lack of normalization regarding reporting. Stakeholders' theory and the seek for legitimacy are crucial in SR disclosing in HEIs. Several contributions emerge, namely the provision of a comprehensive review of the current state of research on SR reporting in HEIs and, consequently, a call for increasing the awareness of such organizations towards the importance of this theme.