The purpose of this research paper is to analyse the internship expectations gap amongst the three main internship stakeholders: employers (company supervisors), academic supervisors and students, in an effort to detect the variables which could assist closing the gap between students' perceptions and the labour market employers and then, between the academic supervisors in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the students. This paper analyses firstly, the variables that determine students' perceptions and overall satisfaction with the internships. After, it examines the differences with the employers' expectations of the interns' performance. Finally, this paper analyses the variables that determine the academic supervisors in HEIs grading of the interns with the overall satisfaction about the students' internship performance. This research serves as a guide for the improvement, refinement and expansion of university internship programme design together with internship best practices definition to close the expectation gaps between the HEIs and the Business World. Two quantitative surveys were designed to measure students' and employers' perceptions of the internships. Additionally, one semi-structured qualitative interview is performed to deepen understanding of each student's perception of the internship. The authors perform a triangular analysis of students' perceptions and employers' (company supervisors) and academic supervisors' expectations. A T-test analyses the differences between cognitive, transversal and social skills developed in an internship as perceived by students and employers (company supervisors). Finally, linear regressions are run both to identify the variables that determine the students' internship overall satisfaction and also detect the variables that determine the final internship grade assigned by the academic supervisor from the university. The authors highlight the following interesting findings. While the students feel that the internships are highly useful and perceive that they were fully integrated into the company's culture, they also state that they learn how to develop their transversal skills much more than the cognitive skills learnt in the whole study programme in their degrees. In parallel, employers (company supervisors), for their part, perceive that students have strong social skills and adjust perfectly to the company's culture, but expected the students to have more creativity and cognitive skills. Finally, the academic supervisor's value the students' written skills together with the company's supervisor valuation more than the students' transversal skills. These main expectation gaps detected must be solved to improve internship outcomes and closing the gaps between the Higher Education and Business World. These findings consolidate existing research and add more quantitative results contextualised to Spanish Higher Education Institutions. The limitations of this research are that it only embeds a HEIs in Spain and the sample should be enlarged with more universities not only from Spain but also from around the world. Thus, the findings in this research can be used to improve the internship programme in this HEIs and its best practices, however they cannot be extrapolated to other HEIs still. Nevertheless, other HEIs can learn from this experience. Regarding the surveys these can be reviewed and homogenised for the student's perception items to be more aligned with the company supervisor's expectations and the academic supervisor's requirements of an internship. As implications, the authors have divided them into theoretical and practical. From the theoretical point of view, there needs to be more research about internships done in Economics, Law and Business Degrees field. From the practical point of view, the authors highlight several implications. First, HEIs must develop internship programmes further and promote the three stakeholders, employer–academic supervisor–student communication more fluid. This communication flow will maximize and align both employer and academic supervisor expectations about the students' performance in their internships. This way, student perceptions of their internship experience will improve and align further. Second, internships must be promoted in the Economics and Business Degrees as they are a unique opportunity for students to apply cognitive, transversal and social skills acquired in their study programmes, developing themselves as future professionals. Third, there is a growing need for HEIs to strengthen links with different companies, not only to teach students the skills employers' value but also to ensure that graduates are aware of what is happening in the labour market. Finally, through the internships developing further, academic supervisors must open their assessment to the students' professional skills (critical thinking, creativity, capacity to solve short term problems efficiently,) aligning with labour market needs. This paper is significant because it shows the growing need for universities to strengthen links with a variety of companies (Business World). Internships are becoming compulsory, having assigned a high percentage of European Credits Transfer System (ECTS) credits to students' Grade Point Average (GPA) in Economics, Law and Business. This research work shows HEIs should improve internship design to close the gap between Higher Education's supply of graduates and the business world's demand for adequately prepared professionals. The results in this paper can help the academic actors start improving the internship design and best practices definition.

In recent years, businesses have faced growing pressures from stakeholders, including investors, customers, and regulators, to adopt sustainable practices. These pressures stem from the global focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria and their association with risk management and corporate resilience. As a result, understanding the connection between sustainability and performance indicators, such as return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA), is crucial to determine whether sustainable practices positively influence financial outcomes or primarily serve to address external expectations. This study seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence by employing a rigorous methodological approach—Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)—to assess the impact of sustainability practices on key performance measures. The inclusion of a diverse range of industries from the US and Europe enhances the relevance of the findings, as it facilitates their generalization across developed economies where sustainability initiatives are highly prioritized. Our results are consistent with prior research demonstrating a positive relationship between sustainability and financial performance, particularly in high-development contexts over a medium-term period. These findings carry important implications for managers and policymakers, emphasizing that sustainability is not a compromise but a catalyst for economic and financial profitability. This study contributes to the literature by illustrating how sustainability can simultaneously advance ethical objectives and enhance financial performance, establishing it as a critical area of focus for both academics and practitioners.

Service and product innovation have been emphasized as being essential to the success of ICT firms in numerous studies. Being ongoing processes, R&D activities make it challenging to forecast the benefits to a business. Does the company obtain immediate returns on its research and development expenditures? How long will their effectiveness remain? During the development of a strategy, business managers must take all these factors into account. A major objective of this paper is to determine the relationship between a company’s R&D investment and its business performance. We collected data from 1262 small- and medium-sized enterprises in the ICT service industry in China between 2011 and 2020. The R&D investment was selected as the independent variable, while its financial performance (ROA, ROE, liquidity ratio, debt asset ratio, and interest cover ratio) and market value (Tobins’ Q) were selected as the dependent variables. Multiple linear regressions were used to determine whether there was a correlation between these variables. Firstly, R&D investment improve current profitability and there is a one-period lag in these benefits. Second, R&D is negatively correlated with short-term debt-paying ability, but positively correlated with a long-term view, and these effects will last for one period. Lastly, R&D investment has a negative impact on the current market value, but the R&D investment within the two lagged periods still has a positive impact. This study addresses a significant gap in empirical research. Recommendations for companies to consider when making R&D decisions are also included in the paper.

The adoption of sustainable enterprise resource planning systems in small and medium-sized enterprises represents a strategic response to the evolving landscape of corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship. This study seeks to identify which factors determine the level of satisfaction when implementing a sustainable enterprise resource planning system in small- and medium-sized business. A survey was designed to measure managers’ satisfaction with S-ERP implementation in their companies. A multivariate analysis was run to test the factors affecting the level of satisfaction with the implementation. The general results show that the type of module implemented positively and significantly affects the level of satisfaction with S-ERP. One specific result is that the more accounting modules implemented, the more complex the system is, and the more effort is needed to implement the new technology effectively and use it properly. Another result shows that the sales marketing module has an inverse impact on satisfaction with an S-ERP, possibly because this module is complex and difficult to manage. This study contributes significantly to the emerging body of knowledge on S-ERP implementation by seeking to fill the research gap on the interaction between the S-ERP system and user’s satisfaction, focusing on small businesses. Future research directions should delve into the long-term impact of sustainable ERP adoption on SME performance and resilience. Additionally, investigating the effectiveness of government policies in supporting sustainable ERP adoption, along with exploring the actual environmental impact of ERP systems in SMEs, can contribute to advancing our understanding of this dynamic and evolving field.

Background: Enterprises are entering into the era of the real-time economy, also called the “now economy”, which can be characterized by a substantive acceleration of business measurement, assessment and decision processes. The real-time reporting, as a phenomenon of the now economy, presents a new challenge to the Accounting Information Systems. The current long wave of prosperity is characterized by an innovative momentum of ICT, with several disruptive innovations, far from being completely utilized. Objectives: Possible future potentialities and consequences of this innovative momentum of ICT on the real-time reporting are analysed within a network scenario approach. Methods/Approach: The used approach is the Futures Wheel, a structured brainstorming method that structures ideas about future events, issues, trends, and strategy, organised under several layers of rings of consequences. Results: The innovative momentum has certain visible direct consequences such as smart mobile devices, higher business intelligence, improved enterprise architecture and enterprise application integration, cloud services offer or increased business process maturity in organizations, and a significant number of indirect consequences on the real-time accounting. Conclusions: The actual innovative momentum of ICT has a vast set of indirect opportunities for the real-time reporting which, after a proper plan, can address its implementation.