Lidia Sanchez-Ruiz

B Corp companies have become a benchmark for sustainability and corporate social responsibility today. However, it is striking that of the more than 285,000 companies that use the B Impact Assessment (BIA) to measure their performance, only around 9400 have managed to achieve certification. This phenomenon raises questions about the barriers that prevent many companies from taking the final step towards certification. This study aims to shed light on the main barriers that companies face during the certification process. Data was obtained from 52 Spanish B Corp certified companies, and Rasch Measurement Theory was used for the analysis. The results reveal that the most relevant barriers appear before starting the certification process, highlighting the need for training and counselling to facilitate access to certification. This paper provides a comprehensive view of the barriers to B Corp certification and offers practical recommendations for promoting corporate sustainability globally.

Purpose: This article aims to analyze whether the B Corp certification process is homogeneous for all companies, regardless of their size and sector. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted among B Corps in Spain, and Rasch measurement theory was applied to analyze the data. Findings: The results indicate that the motivations and barriers to certification are similar among companies of different sizes and sectors. Also, the spillover effects of certification do not vary significantly across sectors. However, firm size influences one of these effects, with larger firms experiencing a significantly greater positive impact on the working conditions of their employees. Practical implications: The findings provide useful insights for policymakers and organizations looking to improve support mechanisms for companies undergoing B Corp certification. Understanding the common challenges and benefits can help in designing tailored sustainability policies. Originality/value: This research contributes to the literature on business certifications by providing empirical evidence on how company characteristics influence the B Corp certification process.

Family businesses move the Spanish economy and are the main job generators in the country, adapting to changes where it is necessary and useful to incorporate Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for good business and commercial management. Taking this into consideration, this research aims to carry out a protocol to subsequently develop a systematic literature review on these topics: family businesses and ICTs.This protocol introduces some reflections about the issues of family businesses and ICTs, which gives threads to understand their importance. Likewise, the objective is to give answer to a group of research questions that will be answered along the literature review process. A methodology section is also included. It clearly shows which inclusion and exclusion criteria have been used in the search strategy under the Scopus and Web of Science databases, making visible the total number of scientific articles until reaching a filtered sample of 106 final articles for later review. Finally, a code´s tree is elaborated based on the research questions and a working plan. It ends by including a list of bibliographical references of all the work prior to the development of the protocol.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyse the nature of the facilitators of continuous improvement (CI), proposing a classification of them and identifying the different profiles of companies based on them.Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this objective, first, a literature review was done in order to identify the main facilitators; second, some of them were included in a survey based on experts' opinions; third, a survey was conducted amongst people responsible for implementing CI; and finally factorial and cluster analysis were applied.Findings: Based on the results, three main factors were identified: “cultural facilitators”, “tactical facilitators” and “human resources involvement facilitators”. Additionally, five clusters were defined.Practical implications: As many companies still struggle when implementing CI, the results of this study can help all them to focus on the most important aspects in order to guarantee the sustainability of the CI system.Originality/value: From a theoretical point of view, this work contributes to the CI field by analysing the nature of the main facilitators companies can find when implementing these initiatives. Thus, not only does this study provide a hierarchy of the most important facilitators, but also classifies them. As far as authors are concerned, this is the first attempt to categorise CI facilitators.

Resumen A pesar de que la interacción en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje es un fenómeno muy investigado, en el ámbito universitario no existen instrumentos para medirla. Teniendo esto en cuenta, este artículo tiene como objetivo validar el cuestionario "Instrumento de Medición de la Interacción en la Educación Superior (cuestionario IMIES)", que consta de 35 ítems tipo Likert. La validación se ha realizado con una muestra de 2.170 estudiantes universitarios de diferentes Grados y Másteres Oficiales de todos los cursos académicos en una Universidad del norte de España Según nuestros resultados, el cuestionario ha mostrado buenas propiedades y buenas medidas de fiabilidad en siete factores clave. Se puede concluir que el IMIES es una herramienta que contribuye a iniciar y mejorar la evaluación de los procesos de interacción en la enseñanza universitaria. Consideramos que es un instrumento útil tanto para el profesorado, como herramienta de autoevaluación, como para las universidades en su conjunto como herramienta de diagnóstico general para fomentar la interacción en sus aulas.

A business may adopt a strategy for sustainability and may implement its strategy in its practice. Our question is, how are strategy and practice coupled and shaped by entrepreneurs and businesses embedded in national eco-systems in the Middle East and North Africa and around the world? Businesses were randomly sampled and surveyed in 2021, and national conditions were assessed by experts in ten countries in the Middle East and North Africa and in Spain and other countries around the world, as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Strategy and practice are found to have a loose coupling but are tighter in the Middle East and North Africa than in Spain. Strategy is promoted by support from businesses and governments, but support depends on national wealth. Strategy and practice by entrepreneurs and businesses are promoted by the entrepreneurs’ human and social capital and the value of making a difference in the world and continuing a family tradition. Findings contribute to understanding business engagement with sustainability, specifically in the Middle East and North Africa, as compared to Spain and in a global perspective.

Lean Management method has been applied in several fields before its implementation in healthcare area. Among the different techniques associated with Lean, in this paper, we are focused on Kanban system, which is a method that presents several benefits such as inventory holding reduction or improvement of the employees' satisfaction. Our main objective is to carry out a literature review focused on Kanban methodology applied to health care. In this sense, this study can serve as a script to improve hospital management in pandemic periods, such as the one currently lived on COVID‐19. We carry out a literature review searching in four different databases. We combine several terms to achieve our objective. We identify several articles which describe Kanban methodology applied to health field. More specifically, we present in what areas (nursing or pharmacy, among others) this method has been applied. In addition, we show all the barriers as well as benefits caused by the implementation of this system. There are a few studies focused on analysing how Kanban is applied to health care. Therefore, we can affirm that this topic is still recent.

This work develops a systematic literature review on the B Corp movement. Fifty articles were identified in the Web of Science and Scopus databases until 2020. Results show that it is an incipient field with great potential. There are two topics repeatedly addressed in the analyzed publications: the motivations of companies to be certified, and the economic and social effects that occur after certification. Sustainability is currently the reference journal in the field, since it has published a total of five articles. Finally, several lines of future work are proposed, such as the contribution of B Corp companies to the SDGs; the development of case studies on the certification process itself; and the development of methods for measuring social impact.

Given the importance that environmental management is acquiring, the main aim of this work is to know what the state of the field kaizen and green practices is at present. A systematic narrative review is conducted in accordance with the PRISMA Statement. Two databases (Web of Science and Scopus) were searched. Finally, after applying the defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 19 documents were analyzed. Based on the results, it might be concluded that, despite the growing interest in the relationship between kaizen and green practices, this is a topic in the early stages of development, with a clear predominance of case studies. It is, therefore, necessary to develop more research on this kaizen and green issue as improving environmental management is undeniably becoming a must in today’s competitive environment. For instance, more research is needed on the application of kaizen tools as results obtained so far seem not to be conclusive. Additionally, more academic and rigorous studies should be developed on this topic as many of the analyzed papers seem to be clearly created for dissemination among practitioners, some of them lacking the traditional academic structure and scientific method during their development.