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This study aims to explore the alignment between strategic plans of the Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs) and their perception of the integration of sustainability in education and curricula.

The strategic plans from 15 institutions were selected for content analysis; data about the integration of sustainability in education and curricula, from these HEI, were collected with an online questionnaire (self-report survey). Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed.

Strategic plans of the Portuguese public HEIs seem to not be sufficiently aligned with self-assessment integration of sustainability in education and curricula.

The classifications used in the content analysis were constructed and revised by the authors to reduce coder interpretation issues and subsequent bias in the results. However, some subjectivity could remain. The analysis of strategic plans and self-report surveys answered by top management, or a technician, does not assess the practices and sustainability implementation in education and curricula.

This study allows the self-report of already-implemented practices to be compared to the planned strategy of HEI governance in Portugal as stated in their strategic plans.

An analysis and respective insights on the lack of connection between strategic planning and self-report practices about sustainability implementation, using Portugal as a case study.

Encouraged by the State, the Brazilian public organizations practice sustainable procurement as one of the strategies to promote sustainable development. Performing them requires understanding to manage stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to identify and categorize the stakeholders of Brazilian public organizations’ sustainable procurement system.5

Preliminarily, the stakeholders were identified in the literature and by interviews with experts. Later, in a multi-case study, it was categorized by the model of stakeholder salience.

In general, governmental and intra-organizational stakeholders were classified as more salient. However, some stakeholders considered important by literature and experts have been categorized as less salient by organizations.

The proposed categorization is useful for the system comprehension and will serve as a basis for the development of future works, notably those who propose to understand or evaluate the sustainable public procurement (SPP). Additionally, this work aims to enlarge the knowledge and the better practices of SPP in a large emerging South American country, giving its contribution to the transition to more sustainable societies.

Corporate social responsibility became a core topic in the management and activity of banks. Being a bidirectional, permanent, updateable and universal access communication channel, the internet contributed to transform the way the organizations report social responsibility to stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to understand how the banks use their web sites to disclose their social responsibility concerns and activities.

The globe was divided in 11 regions, according to geographic and cultural criteria. Information was gathered from the corporate web sites of the ten major banks in each region, and their contents were analyzed. Geographic patterns and the correlation to universal development indicators were studied.

The banks disclose on their web sites information on environmental management and socioeconomic programs. Other recurrent themes are the support to education, fight against corruption, workers’ welfare, corporate ethics and the existence of codes of conduct. There are geographic patterns in the quantity and detail of the information provided, as well as in the themes mentioned. The banks located in Europe, the American continent, and Oceania, are those who disclose more information. This confirms that the disclosure of social responsibility by the banks is larger and more detailed according to the development indexes of the country where they operate.

The work studies the disclosure on the internet of information on social responsibility by the banks, being the first work to do it at the world level. This way, it provides a significant contribution to identify the themes that are more often disclosed and to establish comparisons between geographic areas.

Sal Island has been the object of strong tourism development in the last decades, to the point that Cape Verde is now the African country with the highest relative weight of tourism in employment and economy. This study aims at knowing: the perceptions of Sal residents towards the environmental, cultural, social and economic impacts of tourism activity; the opinion of the people regarding public information and participation; and possible divergences with the “official” discourse present in governmental strategic plans.

A survey was carried out among a sample of residents and descriptive statistics, t‐student and Pearson correlation were computed to study the existence of relations between the impacts and the demographic characteristics of the respondents (age, education, gender and years living in the area). The most relevant plans concerning tourism activity were object of content analysis.

Negative social impacts and positive economic ones are well perceived by the residents, especially the improvement of women's situation. There is a lack of public participation in the decision‐making processes. In general, the population supports tourism development, but there are wearing signs that ought to be taken into consideration by planners and decision makers.

It is the first study about the perception of the resident population concerning the tourism development on Sal Island. The information may be relevant to planners and public policy makers to substantiate future decisions.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

Sustainability is understood as a complex and integrating area, involving the most diverse areas and fields of knowledge. Because of the innumerable socio-environmental challenges in the current scenario, a sustainable development that finds the necessary changes and advances for communities, industry and the various stakeholders involved is required. In this process of promoting sustainable development, universities stand out for being institutions capable of taking an analytical and questioning look at the directions of the society in which they are inserted and not just helping them to pursue them, serving as a model and living laboratory for the implementation of greener practices in cities. One of the actions that contributes to the consolidation process of a more sustainable university and the development of the green campus is the use of green marketing, understood as a set of all the practices that involve conventional marketing, focused on the search to reduce the negative impact or promote positive effects on the relationship between the institution and the environment. This paper aims, based on the balanced scorecard (BSC), to propose a strategic management tool as support for green marketing strategies, thus promoting, more quickly, the promotion of sustainable development in higher education institutions (HEIs).

Four universities were chosen, from the literature, in terms of best practices for sustainable development, where the main dimensions used by green marketing were mapped. Based on them, the BSC structure was adapted to enhance its strategies.

To achieve the objective of this work, this paper proposed an adaptation of the original BSC for better management of green marketing strategies for universities, based on four dimensions: community members, university members, product and strategy.

The main contribution of this paper is to propose a BSC as a strategic management system focused on the green marketing of universities to accelerate the promotion of sustainable development in HEIs.

This paper aims to show which factors influence the perception of human resources professionals about managers over 50 years old and which factors guide the age management practices adopted in the surveyed companies.

To this end, a survey was conducted with 140 companies accessed from a database of a human resources association. Through the answers obtained through the online questionnaire, an exploratory factor analysis was made with the aid of Software R.

Thus, it was possible to identify four factors that explain the work posture of professionals 50 years of age and older (company expectations, performance, morality and knowledge and professionalism) and three factors that guide the adoption of age management practices in organizations (recruitment & selection and integration, retention and continuity in the company, adaptation to the needs).

The results suggest that, even considering the high performance of older managers, perceived by HR professionals, the adoption of age management practices is still insufficient, making it difficult for these professionals to enter and remain in organizations. Moreover, it can be inferred that such posture indicates biases of discrimination and age stereotypes.

This paper seeks to analyze the relationship between China and the Northeast region of Brazil, aiming to identify how the renewable energy sector is being developed.

The authors analyzed secondary data from the official databases from China-Brazil chambers of commerce to establish the main points related to renewable energy in Brazil's Northeast.

It is possible to notice the main investments, highlighting the wind energy as a more prominent source recently. The authors also point the huge influence from China on Brazil's Northeast energy sector.

It is difficult to identify the amount of Chinese capital due to the large number of mergers and acquisitions that has been taking place in recent years.

Identification of regions that have been receiving investments and the main interests of Chinese investors in the renewable energy sector.

Demonstration of how the renewable energy sector has taken an important turn in Brazil due to Chinese investment.

To evaluate a regional consortium, analyzing its strategies for partnerships with China to help each other in global questions, as is the case of renewable energy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the suitability of linen in garments for atopic dermatitis (AD) wearers.

In total, 60 garments were tested with four boys (five to eight years old): two with AD and two healthy kids using circular knitting occlusive structure (OS) 28-gauge and non-occlusive structure (NOS) 12-gauge with cotton, polyester staple and linen yarns. Air and water vapor permeability fabric results were analyzed using ANOVA method and occlusive levels correlated with thickness and UPF rates. Skin irritation levels were evaluated with Patient-Oriented SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (PO-SCORAD) self-assessment tool and for body temperature measurements infrared cameras were used. The authors standardized hygiene products; laundry procedures and soaps were previously identified and measured for their pH and skin irritation history with wearers.

Lower skinbody temperature (−2.6°C-−2.8°C) and PO-SCORAD values (16.1-22.8) during use by AD volunteers suggest promoting both wear tolerance (WT) and NOS preference. Air permeability of 3,222 l/m²s with NOS knitted linen as at least 48 percent higher than tested fibers indicating AD volunteers preference during hot climate (24°C to 37°C and 54 to 69 percent RH). Control healthy volunteers were less sensitive to NOS (−1.3°C-−1.6°C) and hot feeling polyester was detected in use. UPF confirms open loops of NOS (NOS UPF 10-5 vs OS UPF 25-15). Thickness (0.6 to 1.0 mm) and RET values (3.1-3.8) were both without significance for this study.

Due to the experimental character of this study with a reduced group of two AD volunteers, wear test conclusion is limited to these specific boys. Work extension aiming at broad AD wears statistics significance should consider more volunteers.

The study provides specific answers to opening new possibilities for AD wear other than cotton or polyester, both fibers with more availability in the Brazilian garments retail industry that sometimes did not meet their routine needs. This study provides practical daily understanding of correlations of WT and air permeability level of NOS knitted applied to garments in direct contact with the skin in subtropical climates.

Both academically and socially, the results can contribute to increasing information related to textile process and practical knowledge of knits to better accomplish AD clothing in subtropical climates. The practical wear test results with AD volunteers also indicate guidelines to parents who were having trouble identifying base layers, fundamental textiles and options for their kids in search of possible relief and well being mainly on hot days.

Circular knitting jersey linen study in direct contact with sensitive skin in a subtropical climate city like São Paulo is unique. The study also considered helping parents of a six-year-old AD boy in attendance to a doctor’s suggestion to find better options of clothings to be used during his daily routines.

Despite all recent changes in families, and maybe because of them, the birth of a child remains an event of intense expectation, investment, and symbolic meaning. In this chapter, we offer a simultaneously new, innovative, and contemporary perspective on the social construction of the family through the lens of family rituals, specifically directed to the postnatal hospital visit following the birth of a child. The raw data were collected through episodic interviews carried out to Portuguese middle-class men and women. A qualitative content analysis of their detailed descriptions was then conducted making use of software NVivo (©QSR International). The sociological perspective we used allows us to conclude that the moment of the birth of a child is a quintessential time–space for the social construction of the family. Around the baby, for the task of rocking the cradle, men and women join and take on their old and new roles. While the postnatal hospital visit allows the presentation of the newborn family member for the extended family and friends, it strongly underlies the strategies and senses of belonging to one particular family, thereby serving the purpose of its social construction.