Purpose: Previous research demonstrates the link between corporate culture and organizational commitment. Given the potential differences in espoused corporate culture and its perception by employees, the purpose of this paper is to find an answer to the following question: how does employees' perception of company values affect their own commitment to that organization?Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a survey to 216 business leaders, using three types of questionnaires to collect data: values, HR practices and commitment. They designed ad hoc the questionnaires on values and HR practices, and the last one follows Allen and Meyer's model. Hypotheses were tested by using correlations, regression analysis, structural equation modeling and comparisons of averages.Findings: The results confirm the authors' hypothesis: a better adjustment between the perceived and the stated values has a positive relation with commitment. Particularly, people‐oriented values and ethical behavior are the ones that best predict affective commitment. The study verifies, also, that appropriate human resources practices greatly affect the perception of values.Practical implications: The greater importance of affective dimension in organizational commitment, reinforced by ethical and people‐oriented values, makes clear the need for companies to pay real attention to this set of values beyond the simple formulation in the corporate culture. Therefore, companies should ensure there is congruence between human resources practices and values statements.Originality/value: There are many previous research studies analyzing the link between corporate culture and commitment. This paper focuses on the existing gap between the espoused and the perceived values, finding that a better adjustment has a positive relation with organizational commitment.

Creating shared value (CSV) is an opportunity for sustainable growth for small and medium-sized enterprises that entails jointly achieving both social and business value. Currently there are few practical approaches that underpin the importance of CSV and that explore which variables have a positive impact on SMEs. Our paper seeks to shed light on this issue by proposing a measuring and governance model to assess the benefits of CSV in SMEs, using a sample of Spanish SMEs for the empirical analysis, and PLS-SEM as the analysis technique. We first highlight innovation management as a key variable for CSV. It is essential to take innovative strategic decisions to identify which initiatives generate shared value. Our findings confirm that innovative business management helps cultural transformation processes to be implemented with high shared value, which is a source of opportunities in a global economy and, consequently, lead to sustainable growth. Secondly, we aim to highlight how innovative firms enhance their reputation, which in turn has an impact on the creation of social and business value. We also find that if SMEs emphasise social value, they boost the creation of business value, with their role as mediators proving to be vital. We present a strategic management model based on variables such as innovation management, social value and reputation, due to their impact on business value.

Despite the limited resources of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they can still manage to be competitive and survive in the current environment by implementing competitive strategies that lead to innovation and improve their market performance. The aim of this study is to examine and analyse the effect of business strategy on market performance in Spanish small and medium-sized entrepreneurial enterprises, and the mediating effect of innovation is explored as a solution to business crises. In addition, we analyse the moderating effect that the perceived risk of COVID-19 may have on this relationship, as well as whether the commercialisation capacity of SMEs exerts an impact and improves performance based on innovation. Taking 1,842 Spanish entrepreneurial firms with fewer than 250 employees as a reference and using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), our study shows that entrepreneurial SMEs that apply a competitive strategy can achieve enhanced innovation. Moreover, this innovation has a direct and positive effect on the market performance of SMEs, and this effect is greater under higher marketing capability. Our findings suggest a heterogeneous effect on the impact of the perceived risk of COVID-19 on the strategy-innovation relationship. In entrepreneurial SMEs that adopt a differentiation strategy, the perceived risk has an enhancing impact, while in entrepreneurial SMEs that follow cost strategies, the effect is negative.

During environmental crises, it has always been particularly interesting to investigate how companies, specifically small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), find solutions to survive and learn how to act in adverse situations. We conducted our study during the current coronavirus pandemic to analyse how stakeholder pressure affects both the innovation capabilities of SMEs and their firm performance. On the one hand, we examine whether the market and financial performance are better in the presence of less stakeholder pressure. On the other hand, we analyse whether SMEs implement internal mechanisms that enhance their innovation capacity to solve external problems caused by greater stakeholder pressure, which in turn affects firm performance. Our main findings show that during the pandemic, stakeholder pressure is related to the innovative capacity of SMEs; therefore, the higher the pressure, the more important the innovative response of SMEs. However, with higher pressure, the company's performance would be directly reduced in the short term, as the conditions set would be more unfavourable. Innovation capacity also plays a mediating role in preventing poor business performance because of increased stakeholder pressure. Owing to the importance of the chief executive officer (CEO) in SMEs, we test, through multigroup analysis, the differences based on the CEO's educational level. For example, commitment to innovation in SMEs may be more important for managers with higher education. Finally, our findings show how managers can learn to face new challenges in unfavourable environments.