This chapter investigates sidewalk sociability and neighborhood use, by focusing on the regular encounter of a group of retired men to play cards on their neighborhood’s main…
Abstract
This chapter investigates sidewalk sociability and neighborhood use, by focusing on the regular encounter of a group of retired men to play cards on their neighborhood’s main street. Direct and ethnographic observations were used on one Lisbon suburban working and lower middle-classes residential district.
Sidewalk card-playing is understood as “focused gathering” (Goffman, 1971a) and this concept discloses the social organization of a public gaming held encounter and the specific rules created to regulate interactions between players and their audience. The sidewalk sociability effects produced by card-playing are interpreted as originating from “triangulation stimuli” (Lofland, 1998; Whyte, 2002) and “sociability pillar” construction (Charmés, 2006).
Card-playing encounters are discussed in detail as a practical and symbolical neighborhood-use (Blokland, 2003) enacted by an elder-men peer-group. Research underscores the relationship between the elderly peer-group members’ practices and the neighborhood’s public space appropriation, their public characters’ attributes (Jacobs, 1972) and behavior, and social construction of a sidewalk small social place. Among aged peer-group members, sidewalk card-playing accounts for an increase in social and psychological benefits, ranging from social contacts to memories self-expression, derived either from the gaming situation or from its pervasive sociability.
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João Nunes and Luiz Montanheiro
In recent years, Portugal has followed the example of other Western countries, first by regulating access of private initiative into a variety of economic activities starting with…
Abstract
In recent years, Portugal has followed the example of other Western countries, first by regulating access of private initiative into a variety of economic activities starting with banking in 1985 and lately, selling state‐owned companies in 1989. Privatization has been seen as a key issue in the former Portuguese Prime Minister Cavaco Silva's reforms to enable Portugal to achieve a better socio‐economic performance. These reforms started before 1986, the period of European Union membership, having as main goals: economic growth, modernization of economic units, and increase of competitiveness within the European context. Indeed, within many of the privatization objectives, it is partly recognized that privatization played an important role in the Portuguese government's strategy, which was complemented by price liberalization, taxation, and financial system reforms.
Cristina Estevão, João Ferreira and Sara Nunes
The competitiveness of tourist destinations has been the subject of great research interest in recent decades. Nevertheless, and despite the diversity in the literature, studies…
Abstract
The competitiveness of tourist destinations has been the subject of great research interest in recent decades. Nevertheless, and despite the diversity in the literature, studies focusing on the empirical validation of tourism destination models of competitiveness have still to be completed. Hence, this research project seeks to contribute to filling this shortcoming through the identification and evaluation of the factors underlying tourism destination competitiveness in Portugal. The study methodology adopted requires primary data that were sourced from a questionnaire deployed as a structured research instrument based upon the variables put forward by the Dwyer and Kim model (2003). Through recourse to structural equation models, the results report the existence of significant relationships between resources, supply and tourism destination management as the core and essential factors to the competitiveness of a particular tourist destination.
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The classic case for competitiveness as a force driving change was made by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species by Natural Selection (1859). Adaptation, the ability to react…
Abstract
The classic case for competitiveness as a force driving change was made by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species by Natural Selection (1859). Adaptation, the ability to react successfully to a changed environment, accounts for multiplicity in the world of nature. Long billed birds are better able to dip beneath the surface of shallow lagoons for their food; the sharp, hard, short beaks of certain finches allow them to crack nuts and seeds. Darwin's reading of nature, so immediately popular and at the same time so controversial, fit well within the goals of nineteenth‐century scientific thought. Tracing the causes of change to fixed, logical patterns allowed scientists to remove non‐objective elements from their equations for evolution. Such issues as value, valor, or virtue held no place in a system of analysis unless they had survival value.
DIMITRIS PSYCHOYIOS, GEORGE SKIADOPOULOS and PANAYOTIS ALEXAKIS
The volatility of a financial asset is an important input for financial decision‐making in the context of asset allocation, option pricing, and risk management. The authors…
Abstract
The volatility of a financial asset is an important input for financial decision‐making in the context of asset allocation, option pricing, and risk management. The authors compare and contrast four approaches to stochastic volatility to determine which is most appropriate to each of these various needs.
Barbara de Lima Voss, David Bernard Carter and Bruno Meirelles Salotti
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…
Abstract
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.
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Ana João Santos, Baltazar Nunes, Irina Kislaya, Ana Paula Gil and Oscar Ribeiro
Psychological elder abuse (PEA) assessment is described with different thresholds. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the prevalence of PEA and the phenomenon’s…
Abstract
Purpose
Psychological elder abuse (PEA) assessment is described with different thresholds. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the prevalence of PEA and the phenomenon’s characterisation varied using two different thresholds.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants from the cross-sectional population-based study, Aging and Violence (n=1,123), answered three questions regarding PEA. The less strict measure considered PEA as a positive response to any of the three evaluated behaviours. The stricter measure comprised the occurrence, for more than ten times, of one or more behaviours. A multinomial regression compared cases from the two measures with non-victims.
Findings
Results show different prevalence rates and identified perpetrators. The two most prevalent behaviours (ignoring/refusing to speak and verbal aggression) occurred more frequently (>10 times). Prevalence nearly tripled for “threatening” from the stricter measure (>10 times) to the less strict (one to ten times). More similarities, rather than differences, were found between cases of the two measures. The cohabiting variable differentiated the PEA cases from the two measures; victims reporting abuse >10 times were more likely to be living with a spouse or with a spouse and children.
Research limitations/implications
Development of a valid and reliable measure for PEA that includes different ranges is needed.
Originality/value
The study exemplifies how operational definitions can impact empirical evidence and the need for researchers to analyse the effect of the definitional criteria on their outcomes, since dichotomization between victim and non-victim affects the phenomenon characterisation.
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Andressa Kelly da Silva Nunes, Sandra Naomi Morioka and Ivan Bolis
This study aims to analyze the challenges startups face in implementing business models for sustainability. In particular, the research question of this study is: How do the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the challenges startups face in implementing business models for sustainability. In particular, the research question of this study is: How do the challenges faced by startups affect business models for sustainability in the context of an emerging country?
Design/methodology/approach
Startups are increasingly incorporating ways to thrive in a competitive environment with innovative sustainable business models, a key factor for competitive advantage and corporate sustainability. This paper analyses startups’ challenges in adopting business models for sustainability through a case study in two startups, using the sustainable value exchange matrix (SVEM) tool through workshops, to carry out the diagnosis of these challenges.
Findings
The barriers and challenges of business models for sustainability in startups were found in different categories, where the main barriers are linked to the institutional category, the organizational and the market and sales culture. Thus, the authors concluded that there is a need to reformulate public policies and to have greater participation of the actors involved.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of the research is the number of case studies (only two), which makes it difficult to generalize the results.
Practical implications
The research presents two major contributions. First, through the case studies, it is possible to verify that the barriers and challenges in business models for sustainability have relevance for startups. The second contribution is the adaptation of SVEM in conducting the debate by incorporating the barriers and challenges in value creation and delivery system.
Social implications
This study contributes to the business models for sustainability literature to better understand the challenges startups face in practice and can serve as insights to help overcome them. As this is an empirical study, the information gathered can help create metrics and public policies to achieve the United Nations sustainable development goals.
Originality/value
The present research has as originality the analysis of the challenges in startups in implementing business models for sustainability and their relationships with the value proposition, capture and creation, as well as and delivery (adapted to the challenges found in the literature) applying the SVEM tool proposed by Morioka et al. (2018).