Miguel Ángel Sastre-Castillo

In an increasingly volatile and competitive environment, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must cultivate strong entrepreneurial competences to adapt effectively to ongoing market changes. These competences, grounded in organisational learning, innovation, and customer orientation, are shaped by how firms manage their talent and structure their internal operations. This study proposes an integrated model linking talent management to entrepreneurial competences, identifying cross-functional teams, organisational commitment, and employee professionalism as key mediating factors, while also examining the moderating influence of environmental dynamism. Based on survey data from 1,721 CEOs of Spanish SMEs across major economic sectors, the results show that firms investing in the attraction, development, and retention of talent demonstrate stronger entrepreneurial competences. These effects are further reinforced when collaboration within cross-functional teams and high levels of commitment and professionalism are present—particularly in more stable environments. The findings highlight the strategic value of proactive human capital management, cohesive multidisciplinary teams, and the promotion of commitment and professionalism as essential drivers of innovation and sustained competitiveness in today’s dynamic business context.

Incorporating sustainability into a company’s strategy is crucial for long-term success. This involves considering environmental, social and economic factors when making strategic decisions. This study investigates how implementing a corporate sustainability strategy (CSS) affects the sales performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It focuses specifically on how innovation and sustainability performance individually and sequentially mediate this relationship. Furthermore, we analyse the moderating effect of ICT strategy on the relationship between CSS and innovation. We collected data from 1,113 surveys on managers of Spanish entrepreneurial SMEs and analysed them using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Our findings suggest that both innovation and sustainability performance mediate the positive relationship between CSS and sales performance. We confirm ICT strategy as a moderating variable, enhancing innovation to a greater degree in firms that are more concerned about sustainability.

INTRODUCCIÓN. En el contexto de la evaluación docente de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, se realiza un cuestionario a los estudiantes dentro del programa DOCENTIA. En programas de esta envergadura, el análisis de respuestas cualitativas a través de métodos tradicionales se enfrenta a limitaciones, como errores, sesgos y consumo de recursos. MÉTODO. En este estudio se utiliza una inteligencia artificial especializada en procesamiento de lenguaje natural para analizar los 27.290 comentarios de estudiantes en el cuestionario DOCENTIA. El proceso involucra limpiar los comentarios, lematizar palabras y aplicar modelos de espacio vectorial, seguido de técnicas de agrupación para categorizarlos en clústeres. RESULTADOS. Los resultados revelan tres clústeres significativos en las respuestas de los estudiantes. El “Buen profesor” representa el 14.2% de las respuestas y destaca cualidades como amabilidad, accesibilidad, competencia y pasión de los docentes. El clúster 1, llamado “Buena enseñanza,” comprende el 26.1% de las respuestas y refleja la percepción de los estudiantes sobre aspectos como la calidad de las explicaciones, motivación del profesor y estructuración lógica de la asignatura, entre otros. El clúster 2, centrado en la “ Objetivos y estándares claros de la asignatura” abarca el 59.7% de las respuestas y se enfoca en la calidad de los objetivos, la transparencia en la evaluación y las expectativas sobre el cumplimiento de las obligaciones docentes. DISCUSIÓN. Estos clústeres y sus términos asociados reflejan la percepción de los estudiantes sobre la calidad docente y su relación con los objetivos planteados en los estándares de la enseñanza del Marco de Desarrollo Académico Docente. El análisis automatizado de comentarios de estudiantes se muestra útil, pero se sugiere investigar en proporcionar detalles más específicos, como analizar el sentimiento de los comentarios, debido a la importancia que puede tener este tipo de análisis con los estándares de calidad educativa.

Purpose: The purpose of this literature review is, first, to understand how employees with disabilities in the context of COVID-19 have been studied under the talent management (TM) approach; second, to explore what we know about the predictors and outcomes that have been linked to TM practices in that area; and third, to identify gaps in our understanding and provide insights for future research.Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) based on 38 academic sources published in high-impact indexes from 2020 to 2023.Findings: The existing research shows COVID-19 as a crucial context that led organizations to more precarious and segmented TM practices, which had negative consequences for employees with disabilities, both at the individual level (reduced satisfaction and income, and increased health issues) and the organizational level (increased unemployment, turnover and discrimination as well as declining performance and productivity).Originality/value: This paper provides essential contributions to the field of TM in the relatively unexplored context of employees with disabilities since the emergence of COVID-19. Our literature review suggests there is significant room for developing and implementing adjusted TM strategies and practices to foster effective inclusiveness, accommodations and supportive work environments for employees with disabilities. From this evidence, a number of key avenues for future research and key implications for academics and practitioners are provided.

Despite the limited resources of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they can still manage to be competitive and survive in the current environment by implementing competitive strategies that lead to innovation and improve their market performance. The aim of this study is to examine and analyse the effect of business strategy on market performance in Spanish small and medium-sized entrepreneurial enterprises, and the mediating effect of innovation is explored as a solution to business crises. In addition, we analyse the moderating effect that the perceived risk of COVID-19 may have on this relationship, as well as whether the commercialisation capacity of SMEs exerts an impact and improves performance based on innovation. Taking 1,842 Spanish entrepreneurial firms with fewer than 250 employees as a reference and using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), our study shows that entrepreneurial SMEs that apply a competitive strategy can achieve enhanced innovation. Moreover, this innovation has a direct and positive effect on the market performance of SMEs, and this effect is greater under higher marketing capability. Our findings suggest a heterogeneous effect on the impact of the perceived risk of COVID-19 on the strategy-innovation relationship. In entrepreneurial SMEs that adopt a differentiation strategy, the perceived risk has an enhancing impact, while in entrepreneurial SMEs that follow cost strategies, the effect is negative.

Purpose: This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.Findings: We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.Practical implications: We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.Originality/value: Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

La evaluación del impacto de la pandemia sobre la calidad de la docencia se ha llevado a cabo utilizando un estudio estadístico de la variabilidad de las respuestas del estudiantado a algunas de las cuestiones utilizadas en el cuestionario online que utilizan los estudiantes en la valoración del profesorado en el Programa Docentia-UCM, que permite obtener miles de respuestas en poco tiempo y que pueden almacenarse y utilizarse en múltiples formatos. El cuestionario ha sido desarrollado para que los estudiantes evalúen las dimensiones del modelo relacionadas con Planificación, Desarrollo y Resultados. Dado que la encuesta se envía por correo electrónico a todos los estudiantes, no podemos considerar una muestra probabilística y tendríamos un marco muestral no probabilístico con una muestra de conveniencia en la que los respondientes son autoseleccionados. La distorsión de la muestra por la autoselección hace que los resultados se limiten al marco específico en el que se desarrolla Docentia-UCM, por lo que no son generalizables fuera del contexto evaluado. La comparación de medias entre los dos cuatrimestres del curso 2019-2020 se llevó a cabo mediante ANOVA. El estudio muestra que hay diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre los dos cuatrimestres, así como los indicadores que más han cambiado tras el inicio de la pandemia. En dichos indicadores se ha observado una polarización de las respuestas y una evolución de las mismas a valores más positivos, destacando los indicadores de accesibilidad de los docentes y el fomento del interés por la asignatura.

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues is a peer-reviewed journal which publishes original research papers and case studies