Purpose This article explores the critical role of financial literacy in advancing women's economic empowerment in emerging economies, where systemic barriers such as gender inequality, limited education and cultural restrictions persist. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review of 68 peer-reviewed articles indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases was conducted to examine the intersection of financial literacy and women's empowerment. Findings The findings reveal that financial literacy significantly enhances women's economic outcomes, improving entrepreneurship, savings behavior and access to credit, while reducing psychological barriers like low risk tolerance and limited retirement planning. However, a persistent gender gap in financial literacy is driven by entrenched social norms and institutional inequalities. Promising initiatives include financial education programs, fintech solutions and gender-sensitive financial products. Digital financial literacy, in particular, emerges as a key enabler, especially in rural and low-income contexts. Yet, challenges remain, such as the lack of culturally sensitive approaches and standardized metrics for evaluating financial literacy. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by offering a comprehensive synthesis of research on financial literacy and women's empowerment in developing economies. It emphasizes the transformative potential of financial knowledge to foster gender equality and inclusive development. The review calls for multi-stakeholder efforts, from policymakers, financial institutions and educators, to design inclusive financial systems and eliminate structural barriers, ensuring broader participation of women in the economy.

Purpose This study examines how sustainability strategies contribute to sustained competitive advantage in small restaurants, using an integrated framework that combines the Resource-Based View (RBV), Stakeholder Theory and Dynamic Capabilities (DC). Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods study of 128 restaurants in Barcelona assesses environmental and social sustainability commitments and analyzes how restaurant size, responsible practices and certifications relate to competitive advantage. Findings Despite limited resources, small restaurants achieve sustainable competitive advantage by strategically leveraging stakeholder trust and eco-certifications as DC, reconfiguring resources and relationships to adapt to evolving sustainability demands and market conditions. Research limitations/implications The study is context-specific to Barcelona, limiting generalizability to other regions. Practical implications Restaurant owners can strengthen sustainability performance by developing adaptive capabilities that convert certifications and stakeholder relationships into strategic assets. Policymakers should simplify eco-certification schemes and tailor them to SME needs. Social implications Strengthening stakeholder relationships can foster community engagement, promote fair labor practices and enhance social cohesion in the hospitality sector. Originality/value This study advances a hybrid framework integrating the RBV, Stakeholder Theory and DC, showing that small restaurants achieve sustainable competitive advantage from the strategic orchestration of key resources in response to evolving stakeholder and environmental pressures.

Purpose Over the past two decades, various exogenous shocks pushed companies to enhance their organizational resilience capabilities. This study aims to identify mechanisms used by Brazilian companies to reduce the impact of exogenous shocks and antecedents contributing to the development of organizational resilience. Design/methodology/approach The study particularly examines the influence of ESG performance and disclosures on organizational resilience, which, as a latent construct, was measured using long-term growth and financial volatility and stressed by an ordinary least squares regression with random effects and robust standard errors. Findings Our results demonstrate that ESG performance reduces the financial volatility of Brazilian non-financial listed companies and that ESG disclosures have a significant impact on long-term growth and the reduction of financial volatility during periods when companies are exposed to exogenous shocks, thereby contributing to their resilience. Research limitations/implications Our study was limited to the long term. Future studies investigate the impact of ESG performance and disclosure on the trade-off between short and long-term growth in emerging market countries. Practical implications The practical implications of the study are to observe how managers, investors and regulators can use ESG practices as a mechanism for building organizational resilience and managing crises. Social implications The study demonstrates the impact on building resilience in the communities and regions in which they operate by using ESG practices to build their resilience. Originality/value This study, therefore, corroborates the influence of ESG performance and disclosure in the development of proactive and reactive organizational resilience capabilities.

Purpose The objective of this study is to analyze the long-term impact of globalization on Ecuador’s economic development during the period from 1990 to2021. Design/methodology/approach The techniques of fully modified least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and canonical cointegration regression (CCR) were used to assess how globalization, measured by the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) index, influenced Ecuador’s Human Development Index (HDI). Key control variables such as financial development, health expenditure, gross fixed capital formation, renewable energy and the impact of COVID-19 were included. Findings The results show that globalization has had a positive and significant impact on economic development, aligning with the neoclassical growth theory. Additional findings indicate that financial development, health expenditure and capital formation positively contribute to economic development, whereas renewable energy exhibits non-significant effects and COVID-19 has a negative impact. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature by providing updated empirical evidence in the context of a developing country and offers recommendations for future research on the differentiated effects of globalization.

Purpose The functional, emotional and social dimensions of consumer perceived value (CPV) – which results from the consumer’s evaluation of perceived quality, price and reputation – are critical assets in today’s highly competitive market. Legitimacy, understood as the social perception that an organization’s actions are appropriate and acceptable, plays a key role in this context. Analyzing the impact of perceived value on legitimacy can lead to greater consumer purchase intention, thereby generating both economic benefits and improved customer retention for companies. Design/methodology/approach Using data collected through an online survey of Spanish supermarket customers (n = 1,200) and analyzed via partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), this study demonstrates that all three dimensions of perceived value significantly influence both legitimacy and purchase intention. Findings The findings suggest that a consistent and coherent communication strategy emphasizing the functional and social dimensions of CPV enhances perceived legitimacy, which in turn increases purchase intention. Originality/value The primary contribution and novelty of this research lies in its examination of the relationship between CPV, legitimacy and purchase intention. To date, the literature has not explored how the different dimensions of CPV affect legitimacy. This study reveals that not all dimensions exert the same level of influence, providing valuable insights into which strategies companies should adopt to be perceived as more legitimate and to strengthen consumers’ purchase intentions by fostering greater social acceptance.

Purpose The theory of organizational learning (OL) has been present in organizational studies since the 1970s, providing an explanatory framework for organizational effectiveness and, recently, as one of the pillars of the emerging strategy. However, there are obstacles to its promotion and application, generating barriers to OL and depriving organizations of opportunities to improve their performance. An instrument is designed to characterize the barriers, and a pilot test is applied in an organization in the central region of Colombia. The information is analyzed using descriptive statistics, which is the main finding of the presence of barriers to OL. It is concluded from the evidence that the organization must pay special attention to intervening in the actions that cause them. If you propose to advance in this line of research to adjust the instrument, collect more information that allows for a more robust statistical analysis. Design/methodology/approach The scope of the research is descriptive, applying an instrument to identify and characterize the barriers to OL. It is applied in a financial organization in a city in the central region of Colombia. A quantitative approach is followed with statistical analysis and visualizations in the Power BI program. As an instrument for collecting information, a questionnaire was designed with twenty-one questions following a five-point Likert scale, with 1 being “Disagree” and 5 being “Totally agree.” Findings People consulted state that the organization is highly saturated with activities in their work, preventing them from participating or contributing to improvement projects other than the contracted work. The above is evidence of the “I am my position” barrier, which is a defensive behavior to protect oneself in the security of the position and thus avoid participating in different activities, depriving the organization of intellectual capital that can add value in a situation of mismatch. Complementing the above, those who use their job as an excuse to not contribute in any other way to the organization, deceive themselves under the idea that their contribution lies in limiting themselves to doing what is stated in the contract. Research limitations/implications Findings of the case study conducted in a company in the financial sector in Colombia are presented, in which 142 responses to the instrument were obtained. Since this is a pilot study, the findings characterize the barriers to OL in this specific organization but cannot be generalized to the economic sector as a whole. As the instrument is applied to a larger number of organizations in different sectors, advanced computer development is suggested to facilitate the integration of databases and allow for more in-depth cross-analysis. This would contribute to informed decision-making and organizational intervention. Likewise, the study has the potential to broaden its scope through statistical analysis to establish the relationships between sociodemographic variables and the presence (or absence) of barriers to OL. Practical implications The possibility of characterizing the barriers to OL allows decision-makers to overcome Model I, which restricts significant learning and therefore creativity and innovation, to move toward Model II, of considerable learning and useful knowledge generation. Eradicating organizational barriers should not be the primary goal of top management. Instead, the focus should be on minimizing their impact on professional effectiveness. This can be achieved by identifying and characterizing these barriers, as demonstrated in the case study. Originality/value OL research has traditionally been conducted under qualitative methods, while a quantitative approach is rare. Thus, this paper aims to perform a pilot test on a real organization of a survey that has been designed to characterize the presence or absence of barriers for OL, following a 5-point Likert scale. What is shown as original here is the application of a quantitative instrument for data gathering.

Purpose This study sought to analyze online content's effect on fashion brands for Generation Z consumers. Hedonic expectations (HE) were added to the model to provide a deeper understanding. Design/methodology/approach A total of 203 valid questionnaires were collected from Generation Z respondents. The data analysis used partial least squares-structural equation modeling to clarify the relationships in the proposed model. Findings While increased brand awareness (BAW) is created through firm-created content and user-generated content, brand loyalty (BL) and perceived quality (PQ) are mainly influenced by company-generated content. In addition, Generation Z's HE associated with brands are crucial to these consumers' BAW and PQ. Practical implications Fashion brands are trying to reach Generation Z but are having difficulty engaging these individuals and determining how to reach this target and which online content to develop. The results provide insights into ways to overcome these challenges. Depending on brands' objectives, different strategies need to be used. For more BL, direct-to-consumer communication should be emphasized, while for BAW, the best strategy is to combine airing branding videos that communicate emotions and surpass expectations with organic posts. Originality/value The findings update researchers' understanding of brand equity to incorporate current online communication scenarios including diverse content's effects on this equity's different components. HE are shown to be a key factor affecting brand equity.

Purpose University research is crucial for societal development, particularly in developing countries, where universities are the primary generators of knowledge. Understanding how to enhance research performance in academic institutions is essential, and some theories suggest that corporate governance characteristics can affect organisational outcomes. Thus, this study aims to classify the research performance of Chilean universities based on the attributes of their university corporate governance (UCG) during the decade 2010–2019. The analysis examines the production of scientific articles indexed in the Web of Science (WOS) per full-time PhD academic across 43 Chilean universities. Design/methodology/approach This work adopts a quantitative approach. Data on research output were sourced from the National Council of Education of Chile, while UCG attributes were derived from an analysis of each university's statutes. A regression tree analysis was employed to categorise university performance. This method enables the construction of predictive models based on available data. One advantage of this method is that it does not require assumptions of normality. Through the nodes of the regression tree, universities were grouped according to shared characteristics and similar research performance, as predicted by this technique. In addition, non-parametric tests were applied to validate that there are significant differences in research performance between the groups or nodes generated by this technique. Findings Four UCG attributes were analysed, but only the number and diversity of UCG members were found to be significant. Based on these two factors, universities were classified into three groups. Additionally, significant differences between the five-year periods were also observed, revealing a consistent increase in research performance across the Chilean higher education system. Originality/value The findings suggest that corporate governance attributes play a crucial role in influencing the performance of organisations, in this case, university research performance. Consequently, public policies should consider these attributes when designing university support and regulatory frameworks.