J. Martinez

We highlight how Corporate Social Responsibility can be strategically used against the negative perception from earnings management. Using international data, we analyse the effect of CSR and EM on the cost of capital and corporate reputation. Results confirm that CSR strategy is positively valued by investors and other stakeholders. Contrary to EM, CSR has a positive effect on corporate reputation and lowers the cost of capital. In addition, we also find that the favourable effect of CSR on cost of capital is consistently more intense in firms that show signs of EM indicating that the market does not identify when CSR practices are used as a strategy to mask EM. We also demonstrate how institutional factors influence the above relationship.

This research focuses on examining the relationship between some attributes of assurance providers and the level of sustainability assurance. By using the propensity to issue negative conclusions in the assurance statement as an indicator of the level of assurance, we examine whether the brand name and industry specialisation of the practitioners have an impact on the assurance opinion issued. Using an international sample of 1233 firm-year observations over the period 2007–2014, the findings document the impact of the brand reputation and industry specialisation of assurance providers on the level of assurance. The probability of detecting material errors and omissions in a sustainability report is higher if it is verified by a Big 4 auditing firm and by an industry expert as an assurance practitioner. The greater experience in providing audit services and the relevant skills and training provided by Big 4 firms, as well as the greater knowledge and experience of industry experts, increase the propensity to report more accurate opinions about a sustainability report. The findings are robust for alternative measures for the level of assurance and the industry specialisation.

This paper explores the link between the case for indeterminism in an epistemological fashion and methodological individualism in the thought of two defenders of both stances: Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek. The relation between these issues has not received much attention before and even less so with regard to these two thinkers. First, Popper’s defence of indeterminism from an epistemic viewpoint and Hayek’s views about the indeterminism of action are studied. Second, their positions about methodological individualism are considered. Finally, several comparative questions are aired.

Ŷābir b. Aflaḥ al-Išbīlī, conocido como Geber filius Afflay Hispalensis en la Europa medieval, fue un matemático y astrónomo teórico que probablemente floreció en Sevilla durante el primer cuarto del s. XII. Ŷābir b. Aflaḥ es un astrónomo medieval importante gracias a su obra principal, IIṣlāḥ al-Maŷisṭī, traducida al latín y al hebreo. Con el IIṣlāḥ al-Maŷisṭī, su autor pretende reescribir el Almagesto a la vez que introduce algunas correcciones. En 1984, A.I. Sabra, en su importante artículo «The Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy» llama la atención sobre un grupo de filósofo andalusíes, contemporáneos de Ŷābir b. Aflaḥ o que florecieron poco después que él —como Ibn Baŷŷa, Ibn Ṭufayl, Ibn Rušd, Maimónides y al-Biṭrūŷī —, quienes criticaron, desde un punto de vista cosmológico, los modelos astronómicos descritos en el Almagesto al no ser coherentes con la física aristotélica. La finalidad de este artículo es describir el tipo de críticas que hace Ŷābir b. Aflaḥ a Ptolomeo con el objeto de dilucidar si cabe considerarlo uno de los miembros de la rebelión andalusí contra la astronomía ptolemaica. La conclusión final es que las críticas de Ŷābir b. Aflaḥ no son de carácter cosmológico —si bien puedan tener consecuencias cosmológicas—, sino que son de carácter matemático y técnico. Así pues, no cabe considerarlo un miembro de la rebelión andalusí contra la astronomía ptolemaica.

Resumen Este artículo examina el papel de la ficción como laboratorio mental, que ayuda al filósofo a plantear y discutir los diferentes análisis creados en el campo de la filosofía de la mente. De manera particular se enfoca en algunos de los cuentos que Daniel Dennett ha contado acerca del problema de la conciencia. Es por eso que este artículo también intenta responder preguntas como: ¿Cuál es la relación entre la conciencia y el Centro de Gravedad Narrativo propuesto por Dennett? ¿La mente está hecha de historias? ¿Puede haber un uso semántico en el habla de una inteligencia artificial que no posee experiencia corporal del mundo? Palabras clave: ficción; cuerpo; mente; conciencia; self; creencias; semántica. Fiction, Body and Mind: The Dennett CaseThis paper examines the role of fiction as a mental laboratory that helps the philosopher to pose and discuss the various analyses created in the philosophy of mind. It focuses particularly on some of the tales that Daniel Dennett has told about the problem of consciousness. That is why this paper also attempts to answer questions such as: What is the relation of consciousness to Dennett’s Center of Narrative Gravity? Is the mind made of stories? Can there be a semantic use in speech of an artificial inteligence that does not have a bodily experience of the world? Keywords : Fiction; Body; Mind; Consciousness; Self; Beliefs; Semantics

Resumen. El siguiente artículo conceptual muestra un análisis de la literatura con respecto a larelación entre la Efectividad Organizacional y los planes de Remuneración a los empleados sobretodo en su perspectiva variable. Se encontró la existencia de esta relación durante el análisis dediversas investigaciones en contextos diferentes al mexicano, por ello se propone profundizar más enel estudio de la misma en un contexto de empresas mexicanas debido a los pocos estudiosencontrados a este respecto.Palabras claves. Remuneración variable, efectividad organizacional, bono de productividad, bonopor cumplimiento de objetivos, premios a grupos y equipos, remuneración por méritos, remuneraciónpor competencias.. The follow conceptual article shows an analysis of the literature about the relationshipbetween the organizational effectiveness and the employee’s remuneration plans, especially in itsvariable view. It founded the existence of this relationship during the analysis of several studies indifferent contexts from the Mexican´s, therefore it propose to investigate more about the study of thesame relationship in Mexican companies due to the few studies founded in this regard.Keywords. Variable remuneration, organizational effectiveness, productivity bonus, individualincentive plans, team/group incentive plans, merit pay, competency based structure

There are strong links between astrobiology and environmental concern. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe—including Earth. Understanding life, and in particular the basic conditions for life, is important for our ability to create a sustainable future on Earth. The connection goes both ways, however. The preservation of biodiversity and of pristine environments on Earth is of the greatest importance for our ability to study life, its origin, distribution and future. Of special interest from an astrobiology perspective is the preservation of areas with conditions that can serve as analogues to extraterrestrial environments, areas with conditions similar to those under which life originated on Earth, and in general environments where extreme adaptations can be studied. Astrobiology also presents some direct environmental challenges that need to be considered, namely in the form of forward and back contamination. Both issues need to be approached from a technical perspective, but also from a societal perspective. And both must be understood within a broader context of ensuring the sustainability of practices, both scientific and commercial.

During the last decade, Network Science has become one of the most active fields in applied physics and mathematics, since it allows the analysis of a diversity of social, biological and technological systems [24]. From the diversity of applications of Network Science, in this Opinion paper we are concerned about its potential to analyse one of the most extended group sports, Football (soccer in U.S. terminology) [29], since it allows addressing different aspects of the team organization and performance not captured by classical analyses based on the performance of individual players. The reason behind relies on the complex nature of the game, which, paraphrasing the foundational paradigm of complexity sciences “can not be analysed by looking at its components (i.e., players) individually but, on the contrary, considering the system as a whole” or, in the classical words of after-match interviews “it’s not just me, it’s the team”. The recent ability of obtaining datasets of all events occurring during a match, including the position of the players and the interactions between them has opened the door to new kind of studies where it is possible to analyse and quantify the behaviour of a team as a whole, together with the role of a single player [17]. Under this framework, the organization of a team can be considered as the result of the interaction between its players, creating a network based on passes. In this way, we can create passing networks, which are directed (i.e.,...

The present study aims to verify the psychometric properties of the Spanish versions of the Social Roles Questionnaire (SRQ; Baber & Tucker, 2006), Modern Sexism scale (MS) and Old-fashioned Sexism scale (OFS; Swim et al. Swim & Cohen, 1997). Enough support was found to maintain the original factor structure of all instruments in their Spanish version. Differences between men and women in the scores are commented on, mainly because certain sexist attitudes have been overcome with greater success in the current Spanish society, while other issues, such as distribution of power in organizational hierarchies or distribution of tasks in the household, where traditional unequal positions are still maintained. In all cases, it was found that men showed greater support for sexist attitudes. The correlations between the three instruments were as expected in assessing sexist attitudes that tend to relate to each other. Eventually, we found no empirical evidence for the postulated link between sexist attitudes and traditional gender stereotypes. Our results call for the validity and effectiveness of the classic theories of gender psychology, such as gender schema theories (Well, 1981; Markus et al., 1982) and the notion of a gender belief system (Deaux & Kite, 1987; 2001).

¿El conflicto armado ha transformado los roles de la mujer en Colombia? En este artículo se quiere evaluar la diversidad de escenarios y roles que las mujeres adquirieron durante el conflicto armado en Colombia. Para dirigir el rumbo de esta investigación y la posibilidad de evaluar alguno escenarios de posacuerdo, este texto se propone: realizar una consideración epistemológica por parte del feminismo latinoamericano que tenga en cuenta la pluralidad de relatos violentos en Latinoamérica analizar relatos de mujeres partícipes en la guerra que permitan evaluar el rol de la mujer más allá de su simple victimización; examinar la situación de la mujer dentro de los conflictos bélicos colombianos y presentar cómo se diferencia de las situaciones de guerra ocurridas en Europa. Todos estos puntos permiten evaluar cómo la guerra en Colombia ha sido fundamental para contemplar los roles de las mujeres más allá del de víctima, como, por ejemplo, las mujeres activistas que han participado en la reconciliación y el ejercicio de memoria histórica durante el acuerdo de paz y el posacuerdo. Dicho logro promueve un porvenir del feminismo que abre nuevos espacios de acción para la mujer, los cuales, debido a la limitación de este trabajo, quedan aún por explorar.

The key problems and challenges connected with the Covid-19 pandemic in the field of education in sub-Saharan Africa are described in this paper. The study is based on the information collected from teachers and parents during the lockdown. The main problems connected with the organization of distance learning, such as the availability and accessibility of electricity and stable communications, were described. The main questions connected with the support of e-learning such as unequal access to distance education platforms and tools and readiness of teachers of public and private schools were described. Key social and demographic challenges and threats to sustainable e-learning, such as critical overload of teachers, child mobilization for domestic tasks, age, ethnic and gender-based harassment and violence were analyzed. It was found that the main risks are the rapid and uncontrolled commercialization of education and the decline of public schools, which leads to a decrease in the quality of education and increasing inequality. It was concluded that pandemic-induced risks in education are non-linear and heterogeneously spatially, temporally, and socially distributed. The successful strategy of these risks reduction aimed at sustainable education should be based on transition plans, which must include not only the development of sustainable education but also the fighting against inequality.

En el presente artículo buscamos reflexionar sobre las bases filosóficas que sustentaron el surgimiento del constitucionalismo e inspiran su evolución. Separación de poderes, democracia representativa y participación directa de la ciudadanía en la gestión de los asuntos públicos, garantía de las libertades individuales y los derechos sociales...son premisas que pueden desprenderse de un análisis coherente y extensivo de los valores que han inspirado el fenómeno constitucional, y que paulatinamente han ido materializándose de forma cada vez más concreta en los textos constitucionales y en el discurso de la doctrina iusfilosófica a lo largo del siglo XX