Vol. 12 No. 3 (2018)

In the first article, Allison Manoel de Sousa, Rafael Martins Noriller, Cristiane Mallmann Huppes, Antônio Carlos Vaz Lopes and Rodrigo Malta Meurer (FACE-Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, Brazil) research the relationship between macroeconomic indicators and Share Return (SR) in publicly-owned companies in the finance and insurance sectors in Latin America. The data were analysed from 2010 to 2017 by means of a dynamic panel analysis via the generalised method of moments (GMM) with two approaches: Arellano-Bond and System. The authors state that the results point to the fact that Share Return showed a positive relationship with Exchange Rate, but a negative relationship with Gross Domestic Product. Therefore, they concluded that macroeconomic variables interfere in shareholders’ returns in companies in the finance and insurance sectors.

The fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s has a product line, a given kind of service and an aesthetic in its restaurants that is unchanging worldwide. M. Eugenia Rodríguez-López, Juan Miguel Alcántara-Pilar and Asma Ahmed-Laroussi (Universidad de Granada, Spain) try to identify whether the cultural factor of McDonald’s customers affects how the value of the experience is shaped. To do so, they distinguished between four different nationalities: Spanish, Turkish, Bulgarian and Italian. According to the authors, the results shed light on McDonald’s business approach in terms of the allocation of resources and strategies that provide a better service to younger customers in the different countries addressed in this study.

With the decentralization of public health management in Brazil, municipalities became the main healthcare managers. Marta Chaves Vasconcelos (Universidade Federal do Paraná - UFPR. Brazil) and Christian Luiz da Silva (Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná - UTFPR. Brazil) analyse the efficiency of Brazilian capital cities in terms of care in the Single Healthcare System (abbreviated SUS) during the period from 2008 to 2015. The authors used the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to measure the efficiency of the capitals and the logistic regression technique to analyse the impact of the variables. The study concludes that there are significant differences in the level of efficiency among the Brazilian cities and that the tendency during those years is a decrease in efficiency.

In the next article, Cristina Bastida-Riaza and Esther Ortiz-Martínez (Universidad de Murcia, Spain) analyse the characteristics of the companies that joined the LBG (London Benchmarking Group) Spain initiative in 2016, as a voluntary framework of reference regarding the disclosure of non-financial information on the contribution to local development. This initiative establishes a standard methodology for publishing information on the investments made in community development. The authors developed a database comprised of the information published by LBG Spain from 2012 to 2015, and based on its main characteristics, they concluded that the majority of these initiatives are associated with the business or sector and that, according to the information published, the non-monetary contributions and the spheres of action are determined by the sector within which the company operates.

Professors Henry Caicedo Asprilla and Carlos Hernán González-Campo (Universidad del Valle – Cali-Colombia) use the social network analysis method to establish the differences in the technology transfer process between the Regional Innovation Systems (abbreviated SRI) in developed and developing regions in order to find political implications for regions with a lower capacity for innovation. The authors try to describe the innovation systems in the developed and developing regions and propose a battery of political instruments to stimulate the networks and the indirect effects so that the developing regions can strengthen their innovation systems.

In the last article, Ketty Herrera-Mendoz, María Ramírez-Ordóñez, Marcela De La Hoz Álvarez and Mónica Acuña Rodríguez (Universidad de la Costa-CUC, Colombia) predict the intention of carrying out environmental practices by workers in a chemical supply company located in the city of Barranquilla (Colombia) based on the theory of planned behaviour. The authors conclude that there is a moderate positive correlation between environmental practices and the variables of the model. Attitude and subjective norm predicted intention better, while behavioural control was not a significant variable in predicting workers’ behavioural intention.

Once again, we want to thank everyone who helps make this journal run smoothly: members of the Advisory Board, the Editorial Board, the editors, the associate editors in each area, reviewers, authors and above all readers.

Editor in Chief