Current Issue
In the first article, Ligia Isabel Beltrán-Urvina, Luis Clemente Calderón-Ayala, Edwin Vinicio Guerra-Miño, Byron Fabricio Acosta-Andino, and Javier Alejandro Valenzuela Aguilar (Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ecuador) investigate the relationship between competitiveness and cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies in textile companies. The authors identify significant impacts of differentiation strategy and focus on competitiveness. Cluster analysis revealed that highly competitive companies are mostly microenterprises with 1 to 10 years in the market, emphasizing innovation, design, and value propositions. They conclude that adapting textile products to specific market segments improves customer preference, and they recommend that entrepreneurs strengthen these strategies.
Perception of innovation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are important for the strategic management of companies. In this regard, Pedro Severino-González (Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile), Jessica Lalangui-Ramírez, Luis Cedillo-Chalaco, and María José Pérez-Espinoza (Universidad Metropolitana, Ecuador) analyze the influence of perceptions of innovation on CSR expectations among millennial consumers of financial services in Ecuador. According to the authors, the results demonstrate that perceptions of innovations in financial institutions have a slight influence on perceptions of CSR among millennial consumers in Ecuador’s financial sector. They conclude that the findings can be used to design strategies that contribute to creating value for stakeholders.
The objective of the next article is to analyze the determinants of implementing innovation actions with environmental impact in Chilean companies. For this purpose, Francisco Gálvez-Gamboa, Andrés Valenzuela-Keller (Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile), and Erik Muñoz-Henríquez (Universidad de Talca, Chile) use a logistic regression model based on data from the National Innovation Survey with a sample of 1,143 companies. The results show that innovation in processes and products determines innovation practices with environmental impact. The authors conclude that social innovation, networks with universities, quality improvement, cost reduction, and corporate incorporation are determinants of innovation with environmental impact.
Larissa dos Santos Pontes, Vinícius Costa da Silva Zonatto, Anderson Betti Frare, and Camila da Silva Gonçalves Werner (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria - UFSM, Brazil) aim to evaluate the influence of work engagement on the relationship between psychological capital and managerial performance of 166 controllers working in the budgetary context of various industrial organizations in Brazil. The results show that psychological capital, through the psychological capacities of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience, acts as an enhancer of work engagement, positively reflected in the vigor, dedication, and absorption of controllers in their work. The authors conclude that organizations that promote psychological capital and work engagement among controllers are more likely to enhance managerial performance.
Paulo Vitor Souza de Souza (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil), Gabriela Mel dos Santos Rêgo (Universidade Federal do Pará, Brazil), and Priscila Pontes Nunes (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil) investigate conditional conservatism in the regulatory and corporate accounting statements of Brazilian electrification cooperatives, using ANEEL data (2011–2022) from 36 cooperatives. The results showed some significant differences, with the regulatory standard presenting a more optimistic perspective, while the corporate standard was more conservative. The quality of accounting information varies according to the accounting standard, impacting perceptions of conservatism. According to the authors, the findings are useful for regulators and cooperativists, enhancing the understanding of the quality of accounting information in electrification cooperatives.
In the final article, Marco Amaral (Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal) seeks to analyze the effect of intangible resources, namely the efficiency of intellectual capital (IC), on the financial performance of the seven largest banking groups operating in Portugal, during the period from 2012 to 2023. The objective is to evaluate whether factors such as the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™), measured by the efficiency of human capital, structural capital, and employed capital, influence banking performance, measured by return on equity (RoE). The results show a significant positive relationship between the VAIC™ coefficient and RoE, as well as a significant positive association between performance and the variables of human capital efficiency and employed capital efficiency. According to the author, this suggests that RoE captures the intellectual value-added coefficient of both human capital and employed capital.
I would once again like to thank all those who have made this journal possible: members of the Advisory Board, the Editorial Board, Editors and Associate Editors, assessors, authors and, last but not least, the readers.
Editor-in-Chief