Teamwork skills are considered essential for personal, academic and professional achievement, so universities are increasingly integrating them into their syllabuses. However, little is known about how some specific features of students and their educational development can affect their acquisition. Accordingly, this study aims to fill this gap and describe higher education students’ mastery of teamwork skills and its relation to certain socio-academic variables (gender, academic year and grade point average—GPA). With the aim of determining the level of teamwork skills among university students, an observational, transversal descriptive study was designed with an intentional sample of Spanish university students. The sample is made up of 615 social science degree students. The results suggest significant gender differences, highlighting that female students outdid their male counterparts in most teamwork skills, except leadership. Likewise, students’ skills improved as they progressed in their studies, particularly those skills related to adaptability and decision-making. Finally, a positive relationship was observed between teamwork skills and GPA, except for interpersonal development. A regression analysis confirmed the influence of both academic year and GPA for women whilst no effect was detected in the case of men. Based on these results, it is suggested to make changes in university education programmes to compensate for the influence of socio-academic factors and benefit from the most positive features of each gender regarding teamwork to achieve an equal and fair higher education.

Purpose: This study aims to determine whether university students are successfully acquiring or improving skills related to teamwork through a variety of extra-curricular activities, such as sports, music, volunteering, international group work experiences and professional practices.Design/methodology/approach: Descriptive statistics have been calculated to evaluate the normal behaviour of the variables. Accidental sampling was used via a cross-curricular study with a quasi-experimental design. An analysis of means was performed using the Student's t-test.Findings: The results show the students to have highly developed interpersonal and communication skills, followed by adaptation and decision-making skills. The lowest scores corresponded to coordination and leadership skills. On the other hand, a significant correlation was established between extra-curricular activities and the acquisition of essential teamwork skills.Originality/value: This study can confirm the important relation between extra-curricular activities and the acquisition of the teamwork skills that play a vital role in the overall development of our students, as well as for their integration into the job market, with particular emphasis on the acquisition of leadership skills which students are most lacking in, but which have shown to improve with any of the proposed activities. The promotion of the extra-curricular activities by the University, could greatly support our students' soft skills acquisition and complement their education.

Creative tourism is a novel segment of the tourism market that may turn into a great opportunity for small cities to attract visitors. Thus, it can be a possible economic and social driver for local development. Despite its potentiality, not much empirical research has been conducted to explore the specific strengths and weaknesses of developing creative tourism in small cities, probably due to the lack of reliable data. Our study aims to fill this gap by using the C3 Index, a composite indicator developed by the Joint Research Center-European Commission, as the data source, and the bootstrap method as a statistical tool to detect significant differences between small and large cities. Our findings reveal that the smallest cities show positive features to foster creative tourism (e.g., they have at least as good cultural infrastructures and cultural participation as the largest cities). However, in some other aspects, small cities still have room to improve (e.g., improvements in local and international connections or further development of the cultural and creative sector).

Teamwork skills have been demonstrated to be excellent allies for the academic and professional sphere, and they can improve students’ psychological balance and self-esteem. For this reason, it is important to explore the relationship between teamwork skills and self-esteem. Considering the relevance of soft skills and self-esteem in university training, the main objective of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between teamwork skills and the successful development of self-esteem, a fundamental emotional factor in education. Additionally, we will analyse how self-esteem is related to other socio-academic factors (age, sex, and GPA). A questionnaire was distributed to social science university students. The Rosenberg 10-item scale, which aims to measure feelings of personal worth and self-respect, has been used to determine self-esteem. To measure soft skills for teamwork, we chose the Teamwork Skills Questionnaire, which evaluates the skill level of an individual in order to participate effectively in teamwork. The regression model indicates that self-esteem predictors related to teamwork skills are decision making, leadership, and communication. The results suggest significant differences in some individual variables, such as sex and age, with lower self-esteem being observed in females and older students. The described enriching interactions suggest the need to integrate teamwork training and self-esteem fostering at university to offer students lifelong competencies for their future success.

Introducción: El objetivo principal de este estudio es analizar la percepción de los empleadores y la autopercepción del alumnado para dos de las competencias clave desarrolladas en las prácticas externas: la creatividad y destrezas comunicativas. También se indaga en la existencia de diferencias para ambas competencias en función del sexo del alumnado y de la duración de las prácticas. Metodología: La población objeto de estudio está formada por los empleadores y alumnado participantes en las prácticas del Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas del Campus de Ourense (Universidade de Vigo). Se analizan 638 expedientes de prácticas, para lo cual se utiliza un enfoque observacional transversal mediante un diseño descriptivo correlacional. Resultados: Se observa la existencia de una correlación positiva y significativa entre las dos competencias, tanto en opinión de los empleadores como del alumnado. Además, cabe destacar la alta valoración de las destrezas comunicativas proporcionadas por ambos colectivos. Por el contrario, la creatividad no es tan altamente valorada, percibiéndola especialmente como más baja el alumnado. No se observan diferencias en ninguna de las competencias valoradas por parte de ambos colectivos en función del sexo del estudiantado. Sin embargo, el alumnado si percibe que la duración de las prácticas influye en la adquisición de las competencias. Discusión y Conclusiones: Las prácticas externas son un complemento idóneo a la formación universitaria para el desarrollo de competencias. El entorno laboral es clave para que se desarrolle la creatividad y la innovación, por lo que trasladar la implementación de las destrezas comunicativas a un contexto deliberadamente creativo como el empresarial puede contribuir a mejorar las habilidades del alumnado.

The current world financial crisis is causing real difficulties in the operation of firms and has generated renewed interest in audit reports. This study aims to analyse the impact of the financial crisis on the audit reports issued by auditors. We focus especially on those reports that contain questions relating to going concern situations. The sample analysed is formed by 2935 audit reports of unlisted Spanish firms for the years 2007–2010. From the results obtained we can affirm that the crisis being suffered by Spanish firms has not gone unnoticed by audit professionals. Our research reveals that as the crisis in Spain has worsened, the proportion of reports that include references to going concern situations has increased in comparison with 2007, when the financial crisis had not become manifest in Spain. The sectors of the Spanish economy most affected by the crisis are real estate and construction. Taking into account whether the audit firm issuing the report is Big-4 or Non-Big-4, no significant differences can be appreciated in the percentage of reports issued with going concern qualifications before the start of the crisis (2007) and during the crisis (2008–2010).