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With the increasing awareness of sustainability and its importance around the world, corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Africa also requires attention. Based on the stakeholder theory, this study aims to determine the relationship between CSR information received by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and CSR's diffusion and the mediating role of environmental awareness in Angola as a country representative of the African context.

The empirical study analyzes managers' perceptions of 131 SMEs in Angola. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is the method to assess the relationship between CSR information and its diffusion and the mediating role of environmental awareness SMEs in Angola.

The authors found strong evidence that CSR diffusion, and disclosure as one of CSR's related actions, heavily depends on the information received and managed by the firm. The authors also confirmed that environmental awareness puts pressure on SMEs to increase the SMEs' diffusion efforts.

The study points out the role of managers in promoting a responsible orientation of businesses in Angola for preserving the environment and improving the competitive success of SMEs.

The social, economic and legal contexts of Angola are vulnerable. The findings raise concerns about whether governments and regulatory efforts improve the development of the strategies toward social responsibility of African firms and whether these firms also increase the role of SMEs in producing positive outcomes through CSR.

The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the features of the strategic orientation of SMEs in Angola, necessary to enhance CSR and protect the environment. The conclusions highlight the potential role of managers in promoting a culture of ethics, social innovation and successful competition change in businesses.

Corporate social responsibility orientation (CSRO) is considered a crucial strategy to enhance long-term competitiveness around the world, and it is starting to be a broader issue in Africa. Based on recent works addressing the CSRO–performance relationship in countries outside the African continent, this paper aims to assess CRSO in North-West Africa.

In this study a questionnaire was distributed among 122 managers in two countries in North-West Africa: Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast. Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to assess the path or relationships for the North-West African context.

The results show that there is a generally positive perception of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of CSRO, although special emphasis is laid on the economic and social issues, mainly when they are related to human resources. The study also revealed the important role of innovation as mediator between CSRO and firm performance.

The study points out the role of managers in promoting a culture of social innovation by focussing on the CSR philosophy for improving the competitive success of African businesses.

The social, economic and legal contexts of Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast are vulnerable. The findings raise concerns about whether governments and regulatory efforts improve the development of the strategies towards social responsibility of African firms and whether they also increase the role of the firms in producing positive externalities to the market through CSRO.

Very few studies have investigated CSRO in Africa. Aiming to switch from the current CSRO in developed countries to an African perspective of CSRO, this paper contributes to filling the existing gap through the study of managers’ perceptions about CSR in two countries in North-West Africa: Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast.

Intellectual capital (IC) has been shown to play a crucial role in promoting competitive success among cooperatives as well as in other types of organizations. However, cooperatives are rarely included in this line of research. This paper aims to analyze how IC in agrifood cooperatives influences their prominence by fostering responsible research and innovation (RRI), reputation and performance.

A theoretical model was developed based on a literature review, and a quantitative study was conducted, including a representative sample of the current most prominent Spanish agrifood cooperatives. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the validity of constructs, path relationships and recent advances in the predictive model assessment.

This study’s findings show the specific role of human capital (HC) for enhancing social and structural capital in cooperatives. It was concluded that there is a need to revise and reconsider the role-played by IC in the cooperative movement.

The main practical contribution is to offer a specific vision of IC for agrifood cooperatives in order to maximize their market prominence. Since the study was conducted in Spain and based on a cross-sectional research approach, even though the new methodological tool partial least squares (PLS) predict was used, the authors cannot affirm whether IC will have the long-term expected effects as assumed in this research and in all contexts of the agrifood industry.

This is the first empirical study that has examined IC in agrifood cooperatives in Spain, with attention focused on the role of HC as a predictor of market success.

The purpose of this paper is to address a theoretical and methodological framework to validate a model for explaining social responsibility in cooperative societies.

A qualitative methodology based on the assessment and agreement of an expert panel has been used. More exactly, a Delphi technique will help achieve agreement about the set of indicators previously defined and to get a single and agreed definition.

The results consist of a consensus scale for each variable of the proposed model. This unanimity in the opinions about the final result will be the basis for further quantitative treatment of the proposed conceptual model.

Limitations derive from the initial state of the study and the need to practical analysis.

Cooperative societies could have a way to analyze their position related to social responsibility. In general, contributions to social responsibility have improved, in particular, in the field of these entities.

The paper contributes to properly measure the variables of the conceptual model. The main variable of analysis, called Orientation to Social Responsibility in Cooperatives (OSRCOOP), is not directly observable, and it is necessary to measure it through a set of indicators. Likewise, with the other strategic variables with which OSRCOOP is related to the model proposed (member satisfaction, innovation, quality of service and cooperative outcome or performance).

The purpose of the paper is to delve into innovation and happiness management linked to the definition of transcendence at work. The paper analyses in the context of innovation and happiness management the relation of the three dimensions taken from Khari and Sinha (2020: Sense of we-ness, self-connectedness and work as a service. The paper also proposed indicators to applied transcendence and moral competencies to the banking sector guiding behaviour toward successful experiences at work as an antecedent of both, transcendence and employees´ performance.

The article starts with a VOSviewer-based bibliometric analysis to examine the recent development of happiness management as an emergent topic of research. A co-word analysis served to identify that the main research theme related to the topic is transcendence at work. The theoretical framework serves for developing a conceptual model that is analysed by taking structural equations modelling (SEM) as the method and partial least squares (PLS) as the technique. To test the hypotheses, the authors employed a sample of 354 employees from the main banks in Spain in 2021 (Santander, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), CaixaBank, Bankia and Sabadell).

The results confirm that Innovation and happiness management is related to moral competencies, which refer to the set of knowledge, skills and abilities that facilitate ethical behaviour in the banking sector. Innovation and happiness management include individual attributes for good performance in each job; this research is in line with the prominent call in the literature to consider moral competencies in human resources management.

Originality lies on the answer of the question: what is the role of employee transcendence in the turbulent banking sector today? This paper seeks to approach and measure the relation of innovation, happiness and transcendence at work, Transcendence at work often arises when individuals connect their work to a higher purpose or mission, that connection is based on the idea that any effort to improve any of these three attributes provides successful solutions for the complex banking sector's performance.

This research aims to identify whether leaders' affective organizational commitment influences employees' affective commitment to both the leader and the organization. Additionally, the study explores the role of employees' emotional awareness in shaping these relationships.

Examining a sample of 154 leaders and 249 employees in multinational companies, this study adopts a multilevel approach.

The results reveal a positive influence between the two foci of commitment (leaders and organization) at both the leader and employee levels. Furthermore, it confirms that employees' emotional awareness plays a positive role in the commitment process.

This research highlights the significance of implementing internal policies and measures that consider the various foci of commitment. To foster employees' commitment, it is crucial to establish a robust alignment between human resources management and leaders.

This study delves into the exploration of two commitment foci to deepen our comprehension of the directional relationship between them in the workplace. More specifically, our research scrutinizes the impact of leaders' affective organizational commitment on employees' affective commitment to the organization, while also analyzing its reciprocal influence on employees' affective commitment toward their leaders.

This paper aims to review sustainability reporting understood as any type of social and environmental disclosures (SED) in its relationship with corporate reputation within the most reputed companies in Spain according to MERCO business monitor ranking (2014-2016).

To shed light on the relationship reputation-SED, two alternative models were tested, thought the use of structural equation model (SEM) and partial least squares (PLS), with longitudinal data.

Both models supported the hypotheses although the model linking reputation to SED was slightly better, questioning the use of SED by reputation leader companies.

The paper study the linkage, sign and causality, between reputation and SED by introducing two alternative models. SED and reputation are receiving considerable attention into the business scope, although their relationship is not agreed by previous literature. There are contradictory evidences that lead us to question the sense of this relation.

The contribution will be of interest to managers in terms of the value of this type of reporting from a strategic point of view. If reputation favours this type of disclosures, these will be issues to be taken into account to obtain a better competitive advantage through market differentiation.

The results will be of interest for future studies and actions aimed at regulating the improvement of this type of reporting not only in the hands of academics and practitioners but also investors and regulators.

This study is an advance in the description of the SED-reputation relationship and contributes to this new line of research with new insights. Another contribution is the way to understand sustainability reporting. This paper analyses SED from the twofold point of view of the quantity of information and, the existing references about its quality and adding the lag effect between both variables.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of how corporate volunteering is actually put into practice in Spanish firms as part of their social responsibility strategy. The paper presents the notion and the basics of corporate volunteering (CV), with emphasis on its capacity to strengthen the bonds between the company and its employees.

With the intention of approaching the actual state of corporate volunteering, a survey was conducted of Spanish firms regarding their managers' perceptions of the main success factors and the potential benefits and costs of CV programs.

In the contemporary Spanish business environment, companies have incorporated volunteer initiatives as a key element of their corporate responsibility strategy. The importance of the practice of CV is interpreted as a symptom of commitment to a stronger socially responsible behavior in Spanish companies.

To stay well informed of employees' needs, to evaluate which NGOs to work with or human resource management responsiveness, the authors put forward recommendations for CV programs designed to increase both competitive sustainability and employee satisfaction and retention.

Reflecting the literature which highlights the importance of CV in Spain, the results indicate that while organizations strive to achieve corporate responsibility goals, it is expected that effectiveness will be greater among organizations using CV for this purpose. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time this relationship has been discussed and recommendations have been offered for practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the students’ opinion on their proficiency in one or more foreign languages, and the importance they attribute to their foreign language competence because the adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) implies the promotion of the mobility of teachers and students.

A qualitative and quantitative approach conducted at the University of Extremadura in Spain. The method used was to triangulate the data resulting from three quite different procedures: promoting the participating students’ awareness of the issue through a seminar on the importance of mastering other languages and their relevance for graduate employability; inquiring into the students’ impressions when receiving an English class with a focus group; and a questionnaire on their opinions about the importance of proficiency in foreign languages.

The findings highlight how teaching in English in European universities could bring real opportunities for the development of the EHEA. Furthermore, the development of foreign languages competences have to be a priority line of innovation in higher education in order to build a more meaningful relationship between education institutions and the European project.

The study is a first attempt to analyse the need to teach in English in European higher education institutions. Results are not completely generalizable because the study has been conducted in one university, in the field of social sciences in the branch of Economics and Business, and it has been examined only the views of students.

The paper draws attention to the need for, and suggestions on how higher education institutions can be more aware to the needs of developing studentś English competences when designing programmes in the EHEA.

The purpose of this paper is to present the first empirically tested model showing that internal marketing (IM) is a factor of success in new services development. It attempts to bridge internal market orientation (IMO) – the philosophical background of IM programs – with successful service innovations represented by new service performance (NSP).

To explore the link between IMO and NSP a structural equations model was designed considering service quality and time‐to‐market as mediator variables. Data were gathered from business service firms' senior managers in Spain and Portugal (74 service companies based on a questionnaire).

The results largely support the hypothesized theoretical relationship that organizational effort in the human resources area, supported by the marketing function and implemented through an IMO, is connected with increasing service quality and innovation success.

The results of this study are context specific. In addition, surveys usually present data collection problems such as composing questions properly, key informant bias and non‐response bias. However, the actions undertaken – such as pre‐testing coupled with personal telephone contact with managers and the good results obtained in verifying the representativeness of the sample – suggested that every effort was made to obviate the limitations.

The results suggest that managers must ensure that internal aspects of management, such as internal communication and employee commitment, are taken into account in order to implement successful new services. Managers need to be more proactive, trying to include the marketing function in human capital issues. Understanding internal clients' wants and needs and selling company goals internally would make external efforts in developing a new service much more likely to succeed.

Reflecting the literature which highlights the importance of the internal relationship between service employees and the company in service innovation, the paper pays particular attention to the role of IMO linkages and their effect on service innovation success. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time this relationship has been empirically tested.