No abstract

Nowadays, and more than never, businesses´ stakeholders are demanding Social Responsibility (SR) and innovation. In this situation, any business is concerned about how to implement social and innovative practices in creating economic and social value at the same time. This chapter analyzes the relationship between SR and innovation in cooperatives. On the one hand, even acknowledging that the degree of implementation of SR is still different in companies, cooperatives seem to be responsible by nature. However, on the other hand, traditionally innovation has been not a visible strength in the cooperative enterprises. The focus is centered on a specific place: the olive oil cooperatives in the south of Spain and we will describe the cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystem created around this territory, demonstrating how SR and innovation are important features related to competitiveness and success. Cooperatives are strategic business models able to foster development in traditional rural areas, so we can define them as an entrepreneurial ecosystem in smart territories.

PurposeThe purpose of this research objective was to analyse social reporting within MERCO Business companies both from the point of view of the quantity of information disclosed and the references about their quality. This approach constitutes a novelty with respect to previous literature on the subject.Design/methodology/approachThis paper assesses how social reporting is being carried out by the companies included in the MERCO Corporate Reputation Business Monitor, MERCO Business, during the period 2014–2016. The methodological design include the construction of a weighted index based on two unweighted indexes related to the quantity revealed and the quality detected. In addition, this study integrates intellectual capital and social responsibility approaches in order to deep into these voluntary disclosures.FindingsWhile social reporting is considerable from a quantitative point of view within MERCO Business companies, they do not reach very high levels of quality, which is good to counteract the final value of the quantity–quality index that the authors' propose.Research limitations/implicationsIn MERCO Business companies, quantity is not a proxy for quality within social reporting. In this sense, only considering both dimensions it will be possible to assess these disclosures in a more complete way.Practical implicationsThis study allows a more accurate and comparable view of social reporting than those studies that only focus on how much information is disclosed. Besides, it involves an important advance in the identification of the relative quality of social reporting, opening a new line of research that will be key to comparing this type of disclosures in a more homogeneous way. Likewise, the results can be applied in future studies in the intellectual capital field given the complementarity between both types of disclosures.Social implicationsLikewise, these results will be of interest for future actions aimed at regulating the improvement of the quality of social reporting in the hands of managers, investors and regulators.Originality/valueThe authors have tested the value of quality in social reporting using a weighted index amongst the most reputable companies in the Spanish scenario. These disclosures have been compared with and without the use of it in order to deduce its value to obtain valid conclusions about social reporting.

Nuestro estudio analiza el papel de la innovación en el logro de un mejor posicionamiento estratégico de almazaras cooperativas a través de su reputación. La necesidad de diferenciación en la industria del aceite de oliva se considera una cuestión fundamental en su futuro. Lo anterior justifica nuestro objetivo de diseñar una escala de medida para abordar la medición de la innovación cooperativa al entenderla fundamental para mejorar la reputación de estas empresas y, por extensión, para diferenciarse en un mercado tan complejo como el del aceite de oliva. La metodología utilizada ha incorporado dos fases. La revisión bibliográfica ha sido fundamental para la creación de un modelo conceptual que vincule a estos dos activos: innovación y reputación. Como segunda etapa metodológica, la técnica Delphi con expertos del campo de la innovación y del ámbito cooperativo, nos ha permitido la adaptación de la literatura previa al caso concreto que nos ocupa. Nuestros resultados han validado una escala basada en indicadores mayoritariamente de tipo no financiero para abordar la medición de las variables innovación y reputación permitiendo a través de la misma tanto ayudar a una más adecuada gestión de la innovación por parte de los gerentes de almazaras como aprovechar el máximo beneficio en términos reputacionales.