Does it pay to be socially responsible? Evidence from spanish retail banking sector

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of strategic competition in retail banking when some of the financial firms are non-profit organisations that invest in social activities. Banking literature about competition is fairly large, but the strategic interaction between profit maximizing and non profit maximizers has not been extensively analysed except for Purroy and Salas (1999). In this paper, a completely different approach is taken. An adaptation of Hotelling’s two stage model of spatial competition is developed to take into account consumer perceptions respect to the two different types of financial institutions. The empirical analysis confirms that consumers take into account other features different from the price, such as social contribution or closer service to make a deposit or mortgage decision. These conclusions are of interest in the debate about a firm’s social or ethical activities. It is shown that if consumers value social activities, firms can improv

Modelling the Human Values Scale from Consumers Transactional Data Bases

The main objective of this paper aims at developing a methodology that takes into account the human factor extracted from the data base used by the recommender systems, and which allow to resolve the specific problems of prediction and recommendation. In this work, we propose to extract the user's human values scale from the data base of the users, to improve their suitability in open environments, such as the recommender systems. For this purpose, the methodology is applied with the data of the user after interacting with the system. The methodology is exemplified with a case study

Reliable entertainment: Spanish consumers' preferences regarding a film's country of origin

This article contributes to the study of cinema audiences in Europe by analyzing the actual behavior of Spanish moviegoers and their level of satisfaction. We modeled moviegoers’ choice of film by country of origin (U.S.A., Spain, and other countries) according to a set of determinants: (1) consumers’ interpretation of several sources of information, (2) motivations and (3) choice rules. We found three clear consumer stereotypes related to each type of film: (1) U.S.A. films were preferred by almost everyone (especially families and younger audiences); (2) Spanish films had audiences composed of middle-age and middle-class moviegoers; and (3) European productions were preferred by a social or intellectual elite. U.S.A. films dominate the Spanish market for the reason that they provide most of what moviegoers prefer, namely, familiar, reliable entertainment in Spanish; three characteristics that are not satisfied by Spanish and European films. Additionally, we discuss the implications for the European cultural policy

Didactics–promoting collaborative work and personal learning environment. Critical, creative and autonomous roles in a competitive society

School has evolved from a place where knowledge is provided to a place where learners are helped to develop their professional and social skills. Consequently, education must evolve through big challenges in order to face the changes of society in the XXIst century

El Consum de mitjans de comunicació i el consum cultural dels joves a Catalunya: una aproximació social

L’estudi analitza alguns aspectes clau per entendre les diferències entre els joves i adults pel que fa al consum de mitjans de comunicació i als consums culturals a Catalunya. Aquest tipus d’estudi s’emmarca habitualment en els estudis de mercat, i són motivats principalment per la pròpia indústria de la comunicació i la cultura, que veu en els joves un gran públic objectiu i el públic que mostra les noves tendències del mercat. Aquest estudi es basa precisament en les dades del Baròmetre de la Comunicació i la Cultura, que és un gran estudi de mercat, però busca una interpretació més social de les dades per analitzar alguns aspectes que han estat d’interès social els darrers anys. Entre aquests temes, l’estudi mostra que el centre del problema no és si els joves ja no llegeixen, si els consums culturals dels joves són baixos en general, o si entre els joves ja no es consumeix cultura i comunicació en català. El veritable problema és que darrera aquests tòpics i aquests estereotips, s’amaga una realitat més crua. I és que ja entrats en el segle XXI i després de 30 anys de democràcia, encara es mantenen fortes diferències d’accés a la cultura i a la comunicació per motius de gènere, nivell d’estudis i classe social. I l’exclusió cultural és una crua forma d’exclusió social