ALBERT

Notes: This paper shows the results of a survey to Spanish employees about labour mobility and its determinants. Job non-related factors are more significant than job related factors to explain the employees' labour mobility. The employee's perceptions about job satisfaction, pay fairness, and work-family conflict are more explanatory of labour mobility than traditional job-related factors like pay or social benefits.

Notes: Human resource managers are prime decision-makers in the adoption of teleworking. This paper shows the results of an empirical study of the perceptions of HR managers about the feasibility of teleworking within their organizations. Teleworking feasibility is significantly explained by the percentage of tasks suitable to teleworking, the employees' involvement in task design and programming, the percentage of salespeople in the workforce, the degree of work-location sharing for teleworking, the use of information and communication technologies, and the degree of innovation. HR managers in small companies perceive a greater feasibility than HR managers in large companies.

Notes: Develops and tests an integrated check-list to assess manufacturing changes towards lean production. Using the results from a survey to manufacturing plants located in the Spanish region of Aragon, analyzes which lean production indicators are more used to assess the company's improvements in their production systems, and the determinants on the use of these indicators.

Notes: Shows the results of a survey about the antecedents of work-family conflict in a sample of Spanish employees. Analyses and discusses the influence of job-related and non-related factors. The results indicate that both groups of factors are antecedents of work-family conflict. Even though gender is not a significant variable to explain work-family conflict, the empirical study found differences at the time to explain the antecedents of men and women's work-family conflict. A few family-domain and work-domain perceptions had a strong influence on work-family conflict such as the gender roles, importance of family, job flexibility and job mental and physical requirements. Some of these perceptions suggest the influence of a culture where traditional gender roles still prevail and family as an institution is very strong. Functional mobility and educational level are also antecedents of work-family conflict. However, job category level, marital status, and social benefits do not have any influence on work-family conflict in the multivariate analysis, but the bivariate analysis showed that they have indeed an influence on the work-family conflict according to the hypotheses developed in the research framework.

Notes: Purpose - To explore the relationship between the dimensions of supply chain flexibility and firm performance in a sample of automotive suppliers. Design/methodology/approach - Empirical survey of a representative sample of 126 Spanish automotive suppliers during the months of September and October 2003. Data gathered through a mail survey to purchasing managers by using a structured questionnaire. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to analyse the relationship between the different supply chain flexibility dimensions, between supply chain flexibility dimensions and firm performance dimensions, and between supply chain flexibility dimensions and environmental uncertainty dimensions. A multivariate analysis studied the determinants of supply chain flexibility. Findings - The research has found a positive relation between a superior performance in flexibility capabilities and firm performance, although flexibility dimensions are not equally important for firm performance. On the other hand, the results show that companies enhance more the basic flexibility capabilities (at the shop floor level) than aggregate flexibility capabilities (at the customer-supplier level). However, aggregate flexibility capabilities are more positively related to firm performance than basic flexibility capabilities. Thus, companies might miss opportunities to improve competitiveness by underestimating customer-supplier flexibility capabilities. Finally, the results indicate that flexibility capabilities are enhanced in supply chains with higher environmental uncertainty, technological complexity, and mutual understanding, but with lower interdependence among the agents involved in the supply chain. Research limitations/implications - There are other factors not included in the model that could impact the relationship between flexibility, supply chain characteristics and firm performance. On the other hand, the research has used cross-sectional data, which are limited in order to explain causal relationships. Another limitation of the research is that we did not use any secondary data (like manual financial reports) to crosscheck firm performance. Practical implications - The results of the research contribute to a better understanding of the forces and constraints that companies face with flexibility capabilities. Originality/value - The paper analyses the relationship between supply chain flexibility dimensions and firm performance. The model provides a framework of supply chain flexibility dimensions that may be used as a test base for further research.

Notes: This paper analyses the environmental impacts of teleworking. Some empirical studies indicate a positive relationship between the use of teleworking and the reduction of commuting and pollution. The article discusses the variables that impact on the use of teleworking in urban environments, and shows a case estimation for a Spanish city.

Notes: This paper anayzes the differences of male and female human resource (HR) managers' perceptions on the benefits, barriers and feasibility of teleworking adoption in a sample of Spanish companies. The results indicate that teleworking is seen as more feasible where there are a large number of female employees, and that female HR managers perceive teleworking differently than male HR managers. Women tend to be more positive about the potential of teleworking.

Notes: This paper analyzes the results of a survey about labor mobility of a sample of 1,182 Spanish employees. The results indicate that women have lower mobility than men, and that the mobility of men and women is explained by different factors. The employee's perceptions about job satisfaction, pay fairness, and employment stability are also more explicative of job mobility than traditional job-related factors, such as wages or training. These results have managerial implications for the segmentation of men and women in the labor market.

Notes: We study resonant tunneling in B-δ-doped diodes grown by Si-molecular beam epitaxy. A Thomas–Fermi approach is used to obtain the conduction-band modulation. Using a scalar Hamiltonian within the effective-mass approximation we demonstrate that the occurrence of negative differential resistance (NDR) only involves conduction-band states, whereas interband tunneling effects seem to be negligible. Our theoretical results are in very good agreement with recent experimental observations of NDR in this type of diode. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The author has investigated the role played by project selection methods in defining a firm's technology strategy, as exemplified by a sample of innovative companies in Spain. The information was collected by a combination of questionnaire and interview with key personnel.The author was able to classify strategies into four groups: (1) a planning strategy, essentially a negotiation comprising top-down and bottom-up elements; (2) an economic strategy in which a large number of economic criteria set in advance by top management are used to evaluate projects; (3) a market strategy in which R&D is seen more or less as an adjunct to the Marketing function, which defines the products needed and negotiates the programme with top management; (4) a technical strategy, used in circumstances in which technological innovation is essential and in which, therefore, economic factors take a subsidiary place.The author's data show that in companies operating a planning strategy project selection methods of various, perhaps ad hoc kinds play a key role in reaching a company consensus. For those using an economic strategy the selection criteria are predetermined and selection methods inflexible. In the case of the market strategy, evaluation methods are used solely to help to rank projects prior to selection. Firms employing the technical strategy clearly base their decisions purely on the technical merit of the various projects put up for implementation.The paper includes information on the types of selection method used, broken down by company size and other similar criteria, and comparisons with practice in the USA, France and some other countries.