Is Purchase Behavior Different for Consumers with Long COVID?

COVID-19 has generated an uncertain environment, which has motivated changes in consumers' behavior globally. However, previous studies have not clarified if these effects are equally strong throughout the population. In this research, we want to analyze if there are behavioral differences between long-COVID consumers and others. For this purpose, we analyzed a sample of 522 consumers divided into three groups depending on their type of exposure to the disease: those with long COVID; ones that had recovered from COVID-19; and those that had never had COVID-19. The results show that the effect that COVID-19 has on purchase behavior differs depending on the type of exposure to the disease. In fact, those with long COVID experienced more pleasure when purchasing than other people, but they needed higher trust levels in the enterprises to purchase from them, since that reduces their perception of uncertainty. Furthermore, for long-COVID individuals, an organization's legitimacy level is even more important than for other consumer groups with less contact with the disease.

How sustainable human resources management helps in the evaluation and planning of employee loyalty and retention: Can social capital make a difference?

Researchers establish that the current challenges of human resources management to attract and retain talent are based on fostering and increasing the participation of relationships with employees and sustainably managing the organization and teams. The objective of this article is to evaluate the effect that sustainable human resource management has on social capital, and employee retention and loyalty programs. The information required to carry out the empirical analysis was obtained from an online survey to Spanish universities. Data processing was conducted by using the PLS-SEM technique. The results obtained show that social sustainability actions influence the social capital perceived by employees significantly and that social capital influences their loyalty and retention significantly. However, we found that social sustainability actions influence employee loyalty and retention significantly and positively only when it mediates between social capital. This research contributes to the management of organizations and suggests human capital managers to have a greater relational management of human resources in the connection, involvement and transparency of their social sustainability actions in order to achieve greater loyalty and retention ratios, better performance of the organization and, in general, a greater benefit for society.

Disclosure of gender policies: do they affect business performance?

Disclosure of gender equality policies and their effect on business profitability is a relevant area of research due to the existence of a gap in the academic literature and the need to decrease the gender gap in companies (5th Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations). To demonstrate the effect of disclosure of gender policies on business profitability, this study analyses the Social Responsibility Reports of 91 companies listed on the Spanish stock exchange for the period 2016-2018. Information on gender equality policies is extracted by using the content analysis technique. A positive association between disclosure of gender equality policies and the accounting profitability obtained by companies is confirmed by applying a panel data approach. Therefore, this research confirms that it is not only necessary to reduce inequalities, but it also has positive financial effects for companies and is a source of competitive advantage. The findings obtained have significant implications for business management.

Top business schools legitimacy quest through the Sustainable Development Goals.

An organization acquires legitimacy when it operates in an appropriate and desirable manner, satisfying the stakeholders' needs and expectations. Stakeholders claim to business schools sustainable and responsible management, knowledge transfer and research. In the last years, business schools adopted Corporate Social Responsibility as guideline of an integrated and holistic approach for their legitimation process. The aim of this research is to understand how business schools are reacting to the criticism that affects them and how they are reshaping their strategies in order to fulfill stakeholders' expectations, and to confirm which UN Sustainable Development Goals are the most cited in the sustainability reports of the best business schools in the world. We perform a content analysis of the latest sustainability reports published by the top 50 business schools, analyzing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. We highlight that business schools focus social responsibility strategies mainly to define the professional standards to train future leaders qualified to manage organizations with a social, economic and environmental positive impact for all the stakeholders and capable to shape a better world.