María del Mar Miras-Rodríguez

Se trata de un recurso de Realidad Virtual donde los estudiantes tienen que ir superando pruebas relacionadas con la economía de la empresa y la contabilidad para conseguir salir de una sala. De esta forma, tienen que calcular un punto muerto, resolver un balance o determinar la duración óptima de un proyecto a contrarreloj. Con este recurso, se pretende que los estudiantes, a través de la gamificación, interactúen con conceptos económicos y financieros aprendiendo de forma autónoma y sencilla. Este recurso didáctico está dirigido, principalmente, a estudiantes universitarios de las asignaturas Introducción a la Economía de la Empresa y Fundamentos de Contabilidad que se imparten en la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales y son comunes en los distintos grados que se imparten en la facultad (Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas, Grado en Economía, Grado en Marketing e Investigación de Mercados, Doble Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas y Derecho, y Doble Grado en Derecho y Economía). Se trata de dos asignaturas obligatorias de 1º curso con una carga de 6 créditos cada una. Este recurso didáctico representa una iniciativa pionera en la incorporación de metodologías activas y tecnologías inmersivas en el aula universitaria, permitiendo al alumnado aprender contenidos de Economía y Finanzas de forma lúdica, práctica y significativa. Además, consideramos que el uso de la realidad virtual no solo moderniza la experiencia de aprendizaje, sino que también amplía el alcance y la accesibilidad del recurso, superando limitaciones que presenta el formato presencial.

El propósito de este estudio es analizar si las prácticas de divulgación sobre sostenibilidad son sustantivas o simbólicas respecto al desempeño de sostenibilidad. Para ello, hemos analizado 69 empresas brasileñas cotizadas en la Bolsa de São Paulo en el periodo 2010-2023, para determinar si en efecto el aumento en las prácticas de divulgación de información sobre sostenibilidad experimentado en los últimos años está provocando que las empresas sean cada vez más sostenibles. Tras realizar el análisis estadístico con datos panel, nuestros resultados indican que la propia publicación de un informe de sostenibilidad, la adopción de GRI y someter el informe a verificación son prácticas sustantivas, mientras que la adhesión al Pacto Mundial de las Naciones Unidas no afecta el desempeño. Asimismo, se aprecian comportamientos diferentes cuando se analizan las distintas dimensiones del desempeño: ambiental, social y de gobernanza. Así, se contribuye a la literatura al analizar esta cuestión en un país emergente, considerando las dimensiones ambiental, social y de gobernanza; asimismo, se aborda cómo influye la adopción del Pacto Mundial de Naciones Unidas al desempeño de sostenibilidad. Por último, la evidencia proporcionada resulta de utilidad para los reguladores brasileños que deberían considerarla de cara a la decisión de adoptar de forma obligatoria el marco IFRS para 2026.

The impact that environmental practices have on companies' performance has often been analyzed in the literature, and the findings are inconclusive. Several researchers argue that further evidence is needed to better understand this relationship, and in particular, the effect that some variables could have on it. Consequently, the main aim of this research was to analyze whether company reputation, the institutional environment, and industry affect the impact of environmentally friendly practices on financial performance. The research found its theoretical foundation in eco-efficiency, trade-off, institutional, and agency theories. The sample comprised 198 high-performing manufacturing companies across 9 countries. Data were collected using a specific questionnaire designed to capture managers' perceptions of the relevant variables and analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that environmentally friendly practices positively influence companies' financial performance. However, contrary to previous evidence, company reputation does not appear to mediate this relationship. Instead, the institutional environment as well as the subsector in which a company operates play a moderating role. These findings are particularly valuable for managers since they reinforce the rationale for adopting proactive environmental strategies. This research contributes to previous literature, providing new insights about the impact of environmentally friendly behaviors on financial performance within the context of manufacturing companies, as well as the roles that reputation and institutional environments play in this relationship.

According to the official educational curricula, formal financial training in Spain has been and still is limited. Consequently, the level of financial competences of Spanish students in their last year of high school remains below the average level of OECD’s countries. This research aims to highlight the importance of complementing the formal high school education with non-formal activities. Such non-formal activities could help in the acquisition of economicfinancial knowledge and skills at an early age. Specifically, an activity based on a game denominated “Ranoka” was designed and implemented to contribute to enhancing the financial literacy levels of young people. Therefore, our challenge is to increase the level of financial competence in a fun way to capture the attention of these young students when faced with content that might be tedious or unattractive for them. The activity was carried out in 2021 in the Southwest of Andalusia. Five different educational institutions and a total of 224 students from the last course of mandatory high school in Spain participated in the activity. The participants valued positively the proposed activity with an average score of 8.4 points out of 10.

Previous research on the effects on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is inconclusive and academics have increasingly discussed the credibility of CSR reporting. Our research analyses the influence of CSR reporting on corporate reputation by considering different scenarios based on companies' CSR consistency, which reflects the coherence between their CSR reporting and CSR commitment. Theoretically, CSR reporting initiatives could be perceived by stakeholders as a substantive or symbolic strategy. Our findings highlight that corporate reputation tends to be negatively affected by CSR reporting, which is generally identified by stakeholders as an impression management strategy (particularly gaining an ‘in accordance’ Global Reporting Initiative level and assurance), although the relationship between CSR reporting and corporate reputation depends on the CSR consistency of a firm. This evidence has direct implications for academics to refine theoretical frameworks as well as for companies and regulators to better understand the effects of CSR reporting.

Forecasting copper prices has been the objective of numerous investigations. However, there is a lack of research about the price at which mines sell copper concentrate to smelters. The market reality is more complex since smelters obtain the copper that they sell from the concentrate that mines produce by processing the ore which they have extracted. It therefore becomes necessary to thoroughly analyse the price at which smelters buy the concentrates from the mines, besides the price at which they sell the copper. In practice, this cost is set by applying discounts to the price of cathodic copper, the most relevant being those corresponding to the smelters’ benefit margin (Treatment Charges-TC and Refining Charges-RC). These discounts are agreed upon annually in the markets and their correct forecasting will enable making more adequate models to estimate the price of copper concentrates, which would help smelters to duly forecast their benefit margin. Hence, the aim of this paper is to provide an effective tool to forecast copper TC/RC annual benchmark levels. With the annual benchmark data from 2004 to 2017 agreed upon during the LME Copper Week, a three‐model comparison is made by contrasting different measures of error. The results obtained indicate that the LES (Linear Exponential Smoothing) model is the one that has the best predictive capacity to explain the evolution of TC/RC in both the long and the short term. This suggests a certain dependency on the previous levels of TC/RC, as well as the potential existence of cyclical patterns in them. This model thus allows us to make a more precise estimation of copper TC/RC levels, which makes it useful for smelters and mining companies.

Although several studies have analyzed the role that specific corporate governance mechanisms have on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting practices, their findings have not been conclusive and the evidence from developing countries is scarce. The theoretical support for this relationship in the previous literature is found in Stakeholder, Agency, Legitimacy, and Good Management theories. Undoubtedly, as the institutional environment has an important impact on CSR reporting practices, it would be relevant for this field of research to analyze this relationship in companies from emerging countries. It is suggested for the sake of convenience to consider different levels of corporate governance mechanisms together due to the high interdependence among them. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to analyze whether different levels of corporate governance mechanisms (at the institutional, group, and firm level) are determinant factors of the CSR reporting practices in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The final sample was composed of 281 companies. On the basis of our results, we conclude that institutional corporate governance mechanisms influence the company’s CSR reporting strategy and that both CSR disclosure practices analyzed are affected by group-level corporate governance mechanisms in companies from family-based societies. Our findings support the appropriateness of separately analyzing this issue in emerging countries.