En los últimos años, la desfavorable evolución de la coyuntura económica ha provocado intensos cambios estructurales y espaciales en la creación de empresas que cuestionan la validez de algunos supuestos básicos sobre dinámica emprendedora y desarrollo territorial. Por ello, el objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la existencia de patrones espaciales de creación de empresas de economía social en España y estudiar su evolución temporal durante dos etapas de intensos cambios: una de crecimiento (2002-2007) y otra de profunda crisis generalizada (2008-2013). A partir de la definición de un índice de agrupación de empresas de economía social aplicamos técnicas estadísticas basadas en econometría espacial (índice de Moran y LISA). Para tal fin se tomaron datos longitudinales del número de empresas creadas en España, durante el período 2002-2013, bajo las fórmulas de economía social y mercantil comparándose posteriormente a nivel autonómico. Su dinámica se analiza conjuntamente con el PIB regional como indicador del contexto económico. Los resultados más generales apuntan a que el patrón de expansión de la dinámica emprendedora en empresas de economía social es negativo y regionalmente heterogéneo, mostrando la existencia de algunas concentraciones espaciales, en lo que podrían denominarse Clusters de Empresas de Economía Social. A la vista de esos resultados y patrones se evidencia una erosión en la influencia de determinados factores de tipo contextual (tradición, cultura y normativa) en esa actividad emprendedora. Nuestras contribuciones tienen implicaciones para la academia y para los decisores de políticas públicas de apoyo a la creación de empresas y la economía social.

Since the pandemic situation was officially declared, part of society was immersed in searching desperately for solutions to combat it. Textile firms addressed with uneven effectiveness the challenge of creating products that helped medical and civil professionals (e.g., personal protection equipment, masks, sanitary material, etc.). To do this, they had to face supply problems, lockdown, and make a significant innovative effort. This work aims to analyze the strategic response of the companies belonging to the Valencian Textile Cluster (VTC) (Spain) to the coronavirus crisis and the territorial factors that influenced it. We carried out a content analysis of the news in the main newspapers during February–July (2020). Our analysis revealed that, on average, VTC firms responded to the challenge more quickly and effectively than other Spanish textile firms. The most influential location-specific factors were the clustering developed, institutional support, and a deep-rooted tradition in producing technical-home textiles, although we also detected that social media collaborated in the process of transferring value information. The influence of all these factors was more intense in the epicenter of the cluster (Ontinyent). Consequently, our results highlight the cluster effect and offer lessons that can help manage unexpected future events more effectively.

Firm survival, bankruptcy, and turnaround are of great interest nowadays. Bankruptcy is the ultimate resource for a company to survive when it is affected by a severe decline. Thus, determinants of firm turnaround and survival in the context of bankruptcy are of interest to researchers, managers, and policy-makers. Prior turnaround literature has broadly studied firm-specific factors for turnaround success. However, location-specific factors remain relatively unstudied despite their increasing relevance. Thus, this paper aims to evaluate the existence of spatial dependence on the outcome of the bankruptcy procedure. Economic geography and business literature suggest that location matters and closer companies behave similarly to further ones. For this purpose, we designed a longitudinal analysis employing spatial correlation techniques. The analyses were conducted on a sample of 862 Spanish bankrupt firms (2004–2017) at a regional level (province). For overcoming the limitations of the broadly usually logistic model employed for the turnaround context, the Moran’s Index and the Local Association Index (LISA) were applied with gvSIG and GeoDa software. The empirical results show that the predictors GDP per capita and manufacturing specialization are related to higher bankruptcy survival rates. Both characteristics tend to be present in the identified cluster of provinces with better outcomes located in the North of Spain. We suggest that location broadly impacts the likelihood of the survival of a bankrupt firm, which can condition the strategic decision of locating in one region or another. Our findings provide policy-makers, managers, and researchers with relevant contributions and future investigation lines.

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