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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) clustering processes initiated from the bottom up. In particular, this paper seeks to tackle the major setbacks encountered by a group of Spanish SMEs with long tradition in the chemical sector on their way to setting up a cluster.

The authors propose a collaborative action research approach. The fact that the study was carried out within the framework of the EU‐FP7 CADIC project made this approach particularly suitable. The intervention strategies along the cluster development cycle are especially focused.

Collective and distributed leadership, collaborative culture, communication, dynamic relational capabilities, and a shared vision or purpose are all necessary and critical, though not sufficient elements, for the success of SME bottom‐up clusters. The timeframe of the strategic interventions and the roles of the partners are equally fundamental.

The practical implications are to enhance SMEs' clusters management capacity and collaboration readiness; to promote more business‐grounded and effective cluster policies; and to contribute to enlighten the discussions about the opportunity/appropriateness of cluster evaluation frameworks/policies addressed to enact collaboration, when the focus is the SME.

This study suggests that misalignments in the triad roles‐purpose‐culture among the cluster partners could bring about dysfunctions and lead the cluster to a prolonged “projectism” and early degeneration. Particularly, it highlights the fundamental role of the “roles” displayed in the cluster in achieving success. These roles are dynamic and emergent mechanisms of adaptation of the cluster to the internal and external environmental changes.

This introduction paper to the special issue on “The twenty‐first century knowledge‐based value drivers of innovation and sustainable development” aims to focus on such relationships between knowledge, learning, capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage in different forms of organization: businesses, clusters and regions. The purpose is to point out the conceptual pillars and contribute to the ongoing debate on: how knowledge assets impact organizational performance, what are the characteristics of such value‐generating processes, what factors affect the process of building organizational capabilities and distinctive competences, and how organizations translate specific capabilities into sustainable competitive advantages.

The article is based on a thorough analysis of the management literature addressing the nature, role and relevance of knowledge, organizational capabilities, learning and knowledge management for organization competitiveness. The conceptual background sets the foundations for a better understanding of the strategic importance of knowledge‐based value drivers for innovation and sustainable organizational value creation.

As knowledge management is establishing itself as a research discipline, it is fundamental to define the conceptual pillars grounding the application of knowledge management initiatives for innovation and business performance improvements. This paper provides a framework summarizing the key assumptions at the basis of understanding the strategic relevance of knowledge‐based value drivers for growth and competitiveness.

In addressing some of the questions posed, this article provides some implications for future research that build on different perspectives and emphasize the importance of adopting multi‐disciplinary approaches to disentangle the complexities of how organizations convert knowledge resources to a long‐lasting competitive advantage.

This editorial presents the key conceptual pillars explicating the role of knowledge resources as building blocks of organizational capabilities and how firms can develop and maintain their competences by promoting and nurturing learning processes. The value of this paper is the definition of a conceptual framework outlining the relationships between knowledge management, organizational capabilities, organizational learning and competitiveness.

This chapter deals with the development of banking in the Crown of Aragon from the end of the thirteenth century through the establishment of money changers, which followed similar patterns as in other Western European territories. It starts with a review of existing literature and follows with an explanation on the different banking services provided by money changers and the specific legal framework that supported such activities. It then examines the geographical distribution of private banks in cities and towns within the domains of the kings of Aragon, as well as their evolution throughout the fourteenth century. After that, it offers an analysis of the most common professional profiles among these bankers and financers. Finally, drawing on a heterogeneous pool of unpublished data, it seeks to shed light on the diversity of investors and clients of these establishments, a crucial proof of their role in integrated financial markets.

The main objective of the research is to examine whether the possession and the consumption of the service of a mobile telephone by the families of rural zones has improved their wellbeing in the last 10 years (2007–2016).

A quantitative analysis of panel data is proposed in order to analyze the effect of the use of the mobile telephone in rural zones by region of Peru during the last 10 years and capture the unobservable heterogeneity during the said period. In this manner, it is hoped to investigate the effect of the increased use of said technology in Peru.

The results obtained show that the increase in the acquisitions of mobile telephones in rural zones has had a positive impact on the wellbeing of households. Continuous business innovation driven by citizens’ needs and the greater accessibility of mobile telephones are the main reasons based on the Peruvian context under study.

In Peru, there has been an explosive increase in users of mobile telephones in the last 10 years. The use of this technology may be arriving in rural households before other basic services, provoking individual and social changes and creating new employment and income opportunities. This would support the recent recognition of the mobile telephone as an essential tool for development, especially in underdeveloped countries.

The issue of linguistic autonomy is a central one on the agenda of Catalan politics within the Spanish state. In the transition from Francoism, virtually all political groups in Catalonia supported a statute of autonomy (1982) which declares that “Catalan is the official language of Catalonia, as is Castillian, the official language of the entire Spanish State.”