The globalisation of financial markets has been based on several factors that have enabled their integration. Two of them are financial deregulation and free movement of capital. Especially relevant to this change has been technological progress regarding the connection between markets. This has encouraged and standardised systems for settling and compensating transactions, speeded up trading with integrated services from different markets, and improved the risk-benefit ratio for investors.

As a result of such big change in the economic environment as well as the financial system and its communication patterns, new innovative financial products have been developed. Their aim is to provide protection from growing volatility and increased risk in all financial transactions.

The negative side of globalisation and the high interconnection between markets is the contagion effect of financial crises. The most recent example is the sub-prime crisis that sparked off in the United States in 2007. This caused a drop in liquidity on the global credit market, which in turn affected the economy of several countries, and showed the weakness of the global financial system and its regulatory framework.

Social media play a relevant role as the basis to most processes related to information transfer as well as knowledge creation and transfer. In order to optimise those processes in organisations, knowledge management needs to take into account essential functions of social media. In this article, we describe some of the specific mechanisms by which a social media structure influences the effectiveness of information transfer and knowledge creation and transfer. Based on this, we put forward some considerations on the most suitable features of social media to meet organisational objectives. Knowledge management must be able to use existing social media and, if possible, to have those media adopt the most adequate structure.

The Economic Monetary Union project was founded with the expectation that a greater level of macroeconomic stability would help to improve living conditions for the European population, especially in countries with lower incomes. Labour productivity is one of the main indicators of an economy's international competitiveness, and is also a measure of a society's capacity to improve its wellbeing. Analysis of the project's evolution demonstrates how possibilities for convergence in productivity are conditioned by the economic growth model in place, and also by the strategy used in response to the financial crisis.

In its editorial page, the journal introduces the dossier of the second Oikonomics issue. As social media are a current topic, the dossier includes five contributions by experts suggesting different approaches to how social media relate with economics and business, in order to provide more detailed information on their use and opportunities. The idea is forwarded from different perspectives (information management, marketing, business organisations, financial markets, social change…) in an environment where opportunities and challenges posed by online social media have a significant impact on the global economy. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) stimulate innovative dynamism and have become one of the main foundations of the radical change experienced by the economy and social structures in the last decade as they are becoming a massively used resource affecting all economic and social stakeholders.

UOC lecturer Albert Sangrà is considered a leading international expert on the use of information and communication technologies in education and training. In this interview, he reflects on key aspects of e-learning, including its conceptual foundation, modalities and influence on traditional campus-based universities. Dr Sangrà also addresses topical issues in this area, such as the development of massive open online courses (MOOC), development and assessment of competences in virtual environments, application of e-learning in companies, and collaboration between business and universities. The main conclusion drawn in the interview is that institutions that opt to focus on e-learning, whether or not they are universities, should do so in a strategic way. They also need to understand that e-learning is not just a matter of content development: it requires a specific teaching methodology and long-term planning. Also, despite the distance that has grown between companies and universities recently, he thinks they have no choice but to work together in this area.

The paper analyzes the role of e-vocational training in the achievement of new employability conditions that require the emergence of networking, knowledge economy and knowledge society. Under the analytical framework of skill biased technological change (e-SBTC) and from the results of three empirical analysis, four main conclusions have been obtained. First, e-vocational training is not yet strong enough to break the training gap. That is, e-vocational training of workers occurs mainly in more educated and digital skilled-based workers. Second, e-vocational training is revealed as a qualified instrument to improve employability, particularly on the dimensions of acquired skills and satisfaction with the educational design, but less with the training labour applicability. Third, the vast majority of firms, with no structural change, has a problem of relative over-education. That is, they don’t meet the association between a higher educational level and a higher wage. And fourth, although e-vocational training has made considerable progress as a tool to improve workers employability, it actually shows two major weaknesses: 1) the need to enlist more collectives of workers; and, 2) the need to promote e-vocational training as a lever on structural change in firms (complementary with organizational change and ICT uses).

This paper is part of the study on the validity, after a decade, of the transversal competences included in the design of the new degrees of the EHEA. It is based on a survey conducted among students, graduates and employers and on depth interviews with four CEOs of head hunters companies involved in the area of administration and management. The main resulting views are: there is a general consensus in considering the evaluation of all transversal competences as the axis of selection processes. Experts agree with considering both the teamwork and the development of international skills as predominant. They also show skepticism about the role of universities in the development of these abilities. Finally, they were particularly receptive to the importance of online learning, not only because of its advantages in terms of accessibility and compatibility with the profession, but also because it includes the development of skills, such as autonomy, the ability to critically analyze information, to organize work and for time management

Entrepreneurship has been from several years on the political agenda in many countries, since it is considered one of the main engines to promote, among others, innovation, competitiveness and job creation. In this sense, both public and private institutions offer training programs to increase entrepreneurship in general and specific programs for entrepreneurial population.

This article is a brief review of the current state of entrepreneurship education, with special emphasis on the situation of Spain compared to Europe. In order to achieve this goal and based on secondary sources, we present data regarding the percentage of training in entrepreneurship, the type of training and the levels of education in which this training is done. Then, we analyze the specific situation at university and the role of distance education.

The main results show that entrepreneurship training is widespread in both the general population and in the entrepreneurial population. Moreover, there is an overlap between the formal and informal training systems. Regarding the level of education, the school level and post-school level also overlap. Finally, we point out the heterogeneity of methodological approaches and content att universitiy level that influence the perceived low quality of the university and the concentration of training in economics and business faculties and business schools.

This article concludes that efforts must be made to adapt methodologies to a competencies approach in training programs, specifically at college level and expand education and training in entrepreneurship beyond the disciplines of Economics and Management. In this sense, distance education can help in increasing this training for other groups who so far are not sufficiently covered and contribute to increase the quality of training.