Cristina Marín-Palacios

Academic writing development in English Medium Education (EME) contexts is under-researched, particularly its longitudinal trajectory. This study, conducted in a private business university in Spain, compares the academic writing progress of students in EME programmes with those in non-EME (Spanish as a Medium of Education, SME) over the first two years of their academic courses. Using pre- and post-test holistic IELTS writing scores, the study involved EME participants who received 60 hours of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) training and SME participants who received 240 hours of English for Specific and Academic Purposes (ESP/EAP) courses. The study allowed for controlled comparison as the same content lecturers teach in both mediums, and the same language lecturers teach ESP/EAP. Findings indicated that initially higher-scoring EME participants showed limited improvement, whereas SME participants demonstrated substantial improvement in writing proficiency. Limited progress in EME students is linked to insufficient ESP/EAP support and a possible lack of linguistic feedback within content courses, as evidenced by assessment inconsistencies between English- and Spanish-medium programme academic guides. This study highlights the need for dedicated writing development in EME contexts, increased collaboration between EME content and ESP/EAP lecturers, and encourages greater attention to linguistic feedback in content courses to foster sustained writing development.

Introducción: El piñagate ilustra cómo las redes sociales amplifican comportamientos miméticos. Se analiza cómo deseos y comportamientos se replican digitalmente, destacando el papel de tuits y contenidos virales en su expansión. Este caso aporta nuevas perspectivas sobre la teoría mimética aplicada a fenómenos digitales y su impacto en la comunicación contemporánea. Metodología: El análisis se llevó a cabo mediante la recolección de tuits con “piña” AND “Mercadona” AND “ligar”. Tras la limpieza de datos en Excel y Google Colab se hizo un análisis de sentimiento con Pipeline (Transformers) para, posteriormente, extraer las palabras clave con NLTK y elaborar los mapas temáticos con VOSviewer. Resultados: Los resultados indican que el contenido de los tuits analizados tiene un tono positivo o una respuesta favorable de la comunidad analizada. Se identifican cuatro grupos: Contexto General de Mercadona, Estrategias para Ligar, Ambientes y Productos, y Momentos y Ocasiones. Discusión: La aplicación de la teoría mimética a las redes sociales ha generado tanto interés como críticas. Algunos argumentan que proporciona una explicación valiosa para entender el comportamiento en línea y las dinámicas de grupo. Sin embargo, otros critican que puede simplificar excesivamente la complejidad de las interacciones humanas y las motivaciones individuales. Conclusiones: El piñagate en Mercadona ilustra cómo la teoría mimética explica fenómenos virales en redes sociales, destacando cómo símbolos triviales, como una piña, se transforman en actos de comunicación interpersonal. Este estudio combina análisis de datos y lenguaje natural, mostrando cómo la cultura digital redefine normas sociales y percepciones comerciales.

Introducción: Este trabajo busca analizar, en la literatura existente, cómo la inteligencia artificial puede aplicarse éticamente para promover el desarrollo sostenible y la igualdad de género, identificando sinergias, desafíos y oportunidades. Metodología: Se realiza una revisión sistemática de un conjunto de 82 artículos obtenidos de una consulta en Scopus, y se identifican los grupos de discusión. Se utiliza Excel y VOSviewer. Resultados: Es un campo de investigación con 16 años de historia que inicia en 2007 y que a partir de 2018 crece exponencialmente. Destaca la revista Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Discusión: Destacan 4 grupos de investigación, igualdad de género, salud y bienestar; política global y deep learning; tecnología, educación stem e inteligencia artificial; machine learning y salud. Conclusiones: La colaboración y la cooperación en la toma de decisiones son cruciales para abordar desafíos complejos que puedan contribuir al logro de los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, especialmente en el contexto de la igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de mujeres y niñas en todos los países. Es crucial implementar estrategias específicas que garanticen la participación activa de las mujeres en la toma de decisiones y en la construcción de soluciones sostenibles, respaldadas por herramientas de inteligencia artificial.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the price management process is being applied in business practice and research to a variety of pricing use cases that can be augmented or automated, providing opportunities as a forecasting tool or for price optimization. However, the complexity of evaluating the technology to prioritize implementation is challenging, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and guidance is sparse. Which are the relevant stakeholder criteria for a sustainable implementation of AI for pricing purpose? Which type of AI supported price functions meet these criteria best? Theoretically motivated by the hedonic price theory and advances in AI research, we identify nine criteria and eight AI supported price functions (AISPF). A multiple attribute decision model (MADM) using the fuzzy Best Worst Method (BWM) and fuzzy combined compromise solution (CoCoSo) is set up and evaluated by pricing experts from Germany and Spain. To validate our results and model stability, we carried out several random sensitivity analyses based on the weight of criteria exchange. The results suggest accuracy and reliability as the most prominent attribute to evaluate AISPF, while ethical and sustainable criteria are sorted as least important. The AISPF which best meet the criteria are financial prices followed by procurement prices.

Counterfeiting has become a major social problem because of the consequences for consumers, businesses and governments. The objective is to describe the current state of counterfeiting research, define the main thematic areas, identify gaps and highlight key findings. A bibliometric analysis of the growing number of publications addressing the counterfeiting problem in the existing literature is conducted. The articles are taken from a search of the Scopus database. After excluding some scientific‐technological subareas, 1984 papers are analyzed, to which 23 outstanding papers were added at a later stage. In more recent years, most of the articles focus on the development of technologies. Four conceptual areas have been identified: technological development, social behavior, economic aspects and legal aspects. The latter two are the least studied. Also identified in the social area are two topics of interest that have been little addressed, namely, the effect of prior purchase experience and the development of theories describing consumer behavior towards counterfeits. The value derived from this research is the identification of new lines of research with the economic and legal area, it would be of interest to initiate a research program that studies what proportion of counterfeits are sanctioned, to which interest group the sanction is directed and if the sanction is proportional to the damage caused to society and the company. In addition, with regard to the study of counterfeit consumer behaviour, its development can provide information to guide the definition of public awareness strategies and help to adapt companies' marketing campaigns.

Purpose: The role of women entrepreneurs in family businesses is becoming increasingly important, a fact that is reflected in the scientific literature. The purpose of this study is to identify the key research areas that address this issue. To this end, a bibliometric analysis has been carried out to obtain a perspective of the current situation in this field of research and to identify the key areas of research in recent years.Design/methodology/approach: In this study, the analysis is performed using a literature review and bibliometric analysis techniques. The bibliographic source supporting this analysis resulted from a Scopus search of the terms gender, entrepreneurship and family business. VOSviewer was used to facilitate the analysis.Findings: This bibliometric analysis studies the evolutionary trend of publications on gender, entrepreneurship and family business and identifies current research trends. It also identifies authors, journals and countries with the highest impact levels to enhance collaboration and learning.Research limitations/implications: It would be advisable to conduct further research with a broader bibliographic base and with other search criteria covering other aspects related to the role of women entrepreneurs in family businesses. This work can serve as a valuable source of information for future research in this field and to assist in the development of effective equality policies to address existing social stereotypes.Originality/value: This research illustrates, using VOSviewer, the current growth of studies in the field of women entrepreneurship in family businesses.