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Being awarded world heritage status is a distinguishing factor when it comes to promoting tourism in a city. Tourism in these cities should be developed in a way that does not compromise either the city’s heritage or the inhabitants' quality of life. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of a European city achieving world heritage status on the subjective quality of life of its citizens.

First of all, we classify European cities according to whether or not they have been declared world heritage sites. Then, we analyze the effect of this classification on the main aspects used to measure the residents' perception of quality of life that are available in the Flash Eurobarometer 419.

The results show that achieving world heritage status has a negative effect on residents' perceptions of the noise level, air quality and feeling of safety. However, it does not affect their perceptions of public transport or cleanliness. In addition, world heritage status positively affects residents’ perceptions of the cultural activities in the city and their ease of finding a job. Residents report high levels of happiness in both world heritage and non-heritage cities, although levels are somewhat higher in non-heritage cities.

Residents' perceptions of the influence of tourism on their quality of life are undoubtedly of major importance; however, due to a lack of available data, few studies have examined this subjective quality of life at the city level.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the affordability and sustainability of residential water consumption in Ecuador, a developing country.

To determine affordability, the authors assess water consumption and its distribution across different income levels of the population in the three main cities: Cuenca, Guayaquil and Quito. The authors then simulate the effects of a pricing policy on sustainability by deriving demand elasticities through a quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS).

Results show that Ecuador has low water tariffs with respect to other cities in Latin America, which points to its affordability. However, sustainability might not be guaranteed since consumption is overall higher than the level suggested by the World Health Organization. From an economic point of view, this could be motivated by the low tariffs. Indeed, the simulation of a pricing policy shows that higher prices can significantly reduce demand for most of the sample. However, in low-income households this reduction may compromise vital consumption.

This research has important implications in terms of stimulating the discussion of how water affordability and sustainability can be achieved. For the case study, Ecuador, the results indicate that sustainability may not be guaranteed and that policies need to be designed to encourage it. Another implication is that population income levels should be considered to avoid negative effects for the most vulnerable groups. The main limitations of this study are methodological. First, the QUAIDS model is based on a conditional demand model (Zhen et al., 2013), which does not take into account spending on other goods. Second, data availability is limited and prevents a deeper analysis.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to analyze these issues in Ecuador, a country that recognizes the human right to water at the constitutional level.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of features of personality such as self-confidence and fear of failure on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of university students enrolled on entrepreneurial education courses.

Variables related to risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, as well as those related to self-confidence and fear of failure, are taken into account. Using linear regression, the authors investigate how self-confidence and fear of failure affect the EO of university students.

As pointed out by results, both self-confidence and fear of failure are determinants of the EO of university students. Self-confidence has a positive and consistent effect on the three dimensions of EO, whereas fear of failure has a negative effect on EO.

It is not possible to assure that, in the medium and long term, individuals more prone to taking risks, innovating and proactivity will in fact become entrepreneurs. Also, even though it does not affect the relevance of the findings, it must be highlighted that this study has been carried out with a specific sample of students and results may vary in different contexts.

This study offers a new insight relating individual’s self-perceptions and their impact on EO. Equally important, the findings of this paper offer relevant information for the design of academic programs aimed at strengthening students’ personal aspects to promote self-confidence and tolerance to fear of failure as predictors of the EO in this collective.

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo identificar el impacto de las características propias de la personalidad tales como la autoconfianza y el miedo al fracaso en el constructo Orientación Emprendedora (OE) de los estudiantes universitarios matriculados en cursos de educación emprendedora.

A partir de la información obtenida a través de encuestas aplicadas en diferentes programas educativos en la ciudad de Medellín, se consideran variables relacionadas con la asunción al riesgo, la capacidad de innovación y la proactividad, así como variables relacionadas con la autoconfianza y el miedo al fracaso. Usando el modelo de regresión lineal, investigamos como la autoconfianza y el miedo al fracaso afectan la OE de los estudiantes universitarios.

Tomando en consideración nuestras hipótesis de investigación, los resultados indican que tanto la autoconfianza como el miedo al fracaso son determinantes de la OE de los estudiantes universitarios. La autoconfianza tiene un efecto positivo y consistente en las tres dimensiones de la OE, mientras el miedo al fracaso tiene un efecto negativo sobre la OE.

Este trabajo es un estudio exploratorio que investiga la relación de ciertas características de la personalidad con el desarrollo de la OE de estudiantes universitarios en el presente. Por lo tanto, no es posible asegurar que, en el mediano y largo plazo, los individuos más propensos a asumir riesgos, a innovar y a ser proactivos, se conviertan en empresarios. Por otro lado, se debe resaltar que este estudio se realiza con una muestra específica de estudiantes y los resultados pueden variar en diferentes contextos.

Este estudio ofrece una nueva visión que relaciona las autopercepciones individuales y su impacto en la OE. Por otro lado, destaca la necesidad de una mayor investigación que colabore en la comprensión del fenómeno emprendedor utilizando los hallazgos para crear un entorno que respalde la actividad emprendedora en las universidades. Adicionalmente, ofrece información relevante para el diseño de programas académicos orientados a fortalecer los aspectos personales de los estudiantes, con el objetivo de promover la autoconfianza y la tolerancia al miedo al fracaso como predictores de la OE de este colectivo.

The extant literature provides much-needed support to understand marketing accountability and how marketing actions are related to financial performance (FP). However, we have limited understanding of the relationships between marketing actions and firms' social performance (SP) and environmental performance (EP). Understanding these links is critical to enhancing sustainable FP, SP, and EP. Moreover, the literature provides limited understanding of the measures by which SP and EP may be operationalized, or the data necessary to reach a conclusion. This study bridges these gaps by extensively reviewing the extant literature to offer a set of measures and data sources to operationalize SP and EP, and empirically show their relationships with marketing actions. We find that greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, environmental disclosure score, waste reduction, energy consumption, and recycling are prominent measures of EP, and that social disclosure score, philanthropy or community spending, and diversity of gender and race are prominent measures of SP. The KLD, ASSET4, and Bloomberg are prominent sources of data that can be used to operationalize SP, to which CDP may be added for EP. We also show that marketing actions positively affect EP and SP. This study contributes to the extant literature on SP and EP by identifying measures and data sources and linking marketing actions to both performance types. It contributes to policy development by identifying the importance of EP and SP and how marketing actions can help achieve such performance.

This study draws on the natural resource-based view to analyze the effects of technologies, managerial commitment, and firm strategy on sustainability performance, in terms of both environmental and social profits. It also examines how the effect of green technologies on sustainability performance can be triggered by a managerial commitment to sustainability issues, and by the adoption of a prospector strategy. Multiple linear regression was used to test research hypotheses on a sample of 426 Spanish tourism firms. The results provide important insights into the importance of the adoption of explorer strategies fostering the strategic exploitation of green technologies to obtain new efficient processes, organizational procedures, and products. This research also shows the contingent moderating effect that managerial commitment exerts on the strategic implementation of green technologies for sustainability performance.

Brand equity has been highlighted as a crucial element in differentiating products and achieving competitive advantage. Recent studies reflect the gradual rise in interest in the importance of building brand equity linked to the store. However, empirical evidence about the antecedents of store brand equity is still scarce, particularly on the retailer’s corporate social responsibility behavior. This chapter aims to analyze the influence of the retailer’s commitment to sustainable development (RCSD) and the credibility of the retailer’s communications on the overall store brand equity. Focusing on two samples of hypermarket customers in France and Spain, the findings provide evidence on the importance of the RCSD regarding employees, society, and environment, as well as the effectiveness of credible communications to generate store brand equity. Results are consistent for France and Spain.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of social capital within a community on the adoption of consumer eco-behaviour or environmentally sustainable behaviour of consumers. The authors draw on the behavioural perspective model (BPM) of consumer behaviour and social capital theory in arguing that social capital shapes a consumer’s knowledge of environmental issues and pro-environmental attitudes, which in turn influence a consumer’s perceived capability to engage in eco-behaviour.

This study uses partial least squares approach to structural equation modelling of survey data involving 1,044 consumers in the Philippines. It involves testing of a measurement model to examine the validity and reliability of the constructs used in the study. This is followed by testing of the structural models to test the hypothesised relationships of the constructs.

The results suggest the substantive influence of social capital on environmental knowledge, pro-environmental attitudes and eco-capability. Both knowledge and attitudes have positive effects on eco-capability, which in turn positively shapes eco-behaviour.

Future studies can examine how social capital as a multi-dimensional construct impacts context-specific consumer behaviour.

Social and environmental marketing may focus on social network activation to encourage eco-behaviours of consumers.

Findings highlight the role of social capital within one’s community as a resource channel to encourage environmentally responsible consumer behaviour.

The study extends the BPM by offering a social capital view as a more nuanced explanation of consumer eco-behaviour.

Although companies are increasingly embracing the sustainability discourse in their external reporting and disclosures, little is known about how management control systems support sustainability within organizations. This is unfortunate, given the important role that properly designed Sustainability Control Systems (SCS) may play in helping firms to better face their social and environmental responsibilities. Starting from these premises, the aim of this essay is twofold. On the one hand, we present a review of the emerging stream of research on sustainability and management control mechanisms, in order to identify and discuss the link between the two. On the other hand, we try to illustrate the main unaddressed issues in this literature as a premise to exploring one possible way to advance research in this area. Specifically, we make a call for a more holistic approach to the study of SCS, which considers also their organizational and cultural dimensions in addition to their technical properties. A framework for informing future work on the topic is proposed, based on the concept of ‘control package’ (Malmi & Brown, 2008; Sandelin, 2008) complemented with notions from the complementarity-based approach developed in organizational economics (Grandori & Furnari, 2008; Milgrom & Roberts, 1995). By enhancing our understanding on how SCS operate as a package, the application of our framework should allow researchers to develop better theory of how to design a range of controls to support organizational sustainability objectives, control sustainability activities, and drive sustainability performance.