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When the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL) was developed, one of the hopes was that the exchange visits among international sites would stimulate the development of collaborative working relationships. This article reviews one such collaborative project, the development and implementation of a comparative study of assertive community treatment teams, or assertive outreach teams as they are called in the UK and New Zealand.

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.

The case describes the efforts of a small Brazilian publishing house to export its products to foreign markets. In fact, after several years of losses, the firm has undergone substantial restructuring and hired a new CEO, reaching modest profitability. The challenge faced by the new management team includes, in addition to keeping the firm financially healthy, to develop an international orientation, to mobilize the resources, and to develop a new strategy to go international.

The case uses primary and secondary sources, including articles from business magazines and newspapers, company site, and data from Brazilian trade organizations, Brazilian federal government, International Trade Center, International Publishers Association, and an interview with the new CEO of the firm, in charge of developing its international activities. The use of different sources permitted triangulation.

The case is designed for use in undergraduate and graduate programs in courses related to international marketing, international business, entrepreneurship, and international entrepreneurship.

The case can be used to discuss the role of networks in the internationalization of the firm and the issue of distance to foreign markets (Ghemawat, 2001), using Ghemawats CAGE model. The case can also be utilized to examine barriers to the internationalization of smaller firms (Leonidou et al., 2007; Kahiya, 2013).

The text is the result of research carried out at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. This think-box corresponds to a collection of ideas and reflections debated in a roundtable that discussed issues related to access and career limitations for women, especially for black women. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to present, analytically, data that demonstrate the unequal conditions by gender and race.

The selected approach was qualitative in a critical perspective.

The discussion elicits important social markers to establish difference, and thereby promote exclusion. Reflection on these issues needs to go beyond academic boundaries and reach the business community, perhaps worldwide, sensitizing them to the urgent need to revise biased methods and procedures that are crystallized. It is necessary to create conditions for a more balanced and humane look at women, especially black women. And, in this way ensure fairness in the treatment of people in all aspects, especially in educational spaces and the labor market.

The difficulty in identifying some systematized data limits the condition of broadening our view to points that have been discussed in the text, such as where are the 6 percent of black executive women.

It is hoped that this paper may elicit reflections on the current social exclusionary context, and subsidize practices on a more equitable basis observing gender and race.

Socially speaking, it is hoped that this discussion could guide actions to eliminate or reduce the gap, mainly through specific public policies to address the issues of women in Brazil.

It is the parallel discussion of gender and race in the business sector, where the subjects were scarcely explored, and the critical theory was used as a basis of analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the chemical and functional composition of acerola, guava and cashew freeze-dried pomaces.

Fruit pomaces were obtained from the pulp juice industrial sector and submitted to freeze-drying. Samples were analysed for composition (macronutrients, micronutrients, moisture and ash), technological attributes (morphological, hygroscopicity, retention of oil and water and solubility), bioactive compounds (total phenolics, flavonoids, proanthocyanins, anthocyanins, carotenoids and ascorbic acid), antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Total phenolics, brown pigments and antioxidant activity of thermally treated samples were evaluated. Results were presented as mean and standard deviation, and submitted to Shapiro–Wilk normality test, and ANOVA statistical significance follows by Tukey’s post hoc test (p<0.05). Also, Pearson correlation coefficients were used to test the relationship between selected parameters.

Guava pomace had the highest insoluble fibre (40.6 per cent), protein (13.8 per cent) and lipid (9.3 per cent) contents and acerola higher soluble fibre (14.2 per cent) and water and oil holding capacity (12 and 5.4 g/g, respectively). Cashew pomace had higher solubility (45.3 per cent) and hygroscopicity (11.2 per cent). Acerola pomace had the highest phenolic content (5,331.7 mg AGE/100 g), DPPH and oxygen radical absorbance capacity antioxidant activity (63.3 and 756.6 µmol TE/g). Despite of that none of extracts showed antibacterial activity. All pomaces presented good antioxidant activity retention after thermal treatments (> 70 per cent), which might be correlated to thermally induced brown pigments.

This investigation was motivated by the large amounts of pomaces produced by the fruit pulp and juice processing industries, which represents a waste of residual phytochemicals and cause potential environmental problems. Overall, it was demonstrated that freeze-dried acerola, guava and cashew pomaces are promising ingredients for multiple food applications.

Starting from the knowledge-based view as a theoretical perspective, this study aims to examine how an emerging market multinational enterprise (EMMNE) engages in reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) processes and how such processes are managed by headquarters. Therefore, this paper captures the perspective of top management concerning RKT and the processes used to create, transfer and integrate knowledge.

The study uses a longitudinal design based on the case method of investigation. The case selected for the study was a Brazilian company theoretically sampled for being a domestically, regionally and globally important, information-rich company that operates in an industry in which technology plays a crucial role. The company was also selected for having had asset-seeking motives in at least some of its foreign market entries and for having successfully absorbed foreign-acquired capabilities.

The study provides counterfactual evidence to the springboard perspective, considering timing and speed of the internationalization and catch-up processes and the size of acquisitions. The study also highlights differences to other emerging market multinational enterprises, concerning the internationalization trajectory and catch-up moves, and to traditional MNEs, regarding RKT challenges and practices.

The main limitations of the study relate to the case study method, which does not allow for statistical generalization, although it does support analytical generalization.

The study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the process by which a Latin American multinational firm developed technological capabilities to compete globally, focusing on the symbiotic, self-nurturing relationship between internationalization processes and technology acquisition and integration processes. Moreover, the work provides novel theoretical insights regarding timing, location, size and execution of the RKT activities. Finally, the paper contributes to the understanding of the relational aspects of the RKT process by focusing on building human relationships as the major force behind knowledge integration and examining the resistance of the acquired companies from developed markets to adopt the parent company’s best practices, or to contribute to its integrated knowledge, when the parent company is an EMMNE.

This study aims to support electricity distribution companies on measuring and predicting customer satisfaction.

The developed methodology selects and applies machine learning techniques such as decision trees, support vector machines and ensemble learning to predict customer satisfaction from service data, power outage data and reliability indices.

The results on the predicted main indicator diverged only by 1.36 per cent of the results obtained by the survey with company customers.

Social, economic and political conjunctures of the regional and national scenario can influence the indicators beyond the input variables considered in this paper.

Currently, the actions taken to increase customer satisfaction are based on the track record of a yearly survey; therefore, the methodology may assist in identifying disturbances on customer satisfaction, enabling decision-making to deal with it in a timely manner.

Development of an intelligent algorithm that can improve its performance with time. Understanding customer satisfaction may improve companies’ performance.

Considering the importance of services and innovation for the modern economy and the peculiarities that differentiate services from tangible goods, the purpose of this paper is to better understand how, based on the capabilities approach, innovation takes place in services.

A qualitative multi-case study was conducted in five instances of innovation in the fitness market, using a semi-structured questionnaire as devised in Zawislak et al. (2014).

The results show that the traditional capabilities framework is limited in explaining service innovation, as there are many levels of intangibility and non-linearity in service provision. Cases show that it is not possible to think of capabilities linearly in the service context. The authors propose that capabilities overlap, and the results show that this is a more accurate way of describing service dynamics. An alternative framework is suggested based on field findings, and a set of propositions are made for future research.

For many years, services were perceived as non-innovative, complementary activities, geared mainly towards the production of goods. The value of this study is to investigate a topic (innovation) that is widely studied in the industrial sector in a service context, contributing to a largely unexplored field.

Considerando a importância dos serviços e inovação na economia moderna, e as peculiaridades que diferenciam serviços de bens tangíveis, este estudo visa entender melhor como se dá a inovação nos serviços baseado na abordagem das capacidades.

Foi conduzido um estudo qualitativo multi-casos em cinco ambientes do mercado de atividades físicas utilizando um questionário semi-estruturado baseado em Zawislak et al. (2014).

Os resultados mostram que a abordagem tradicional das capacidades é limitada em explicar a inovação em serviços, dado que existem diversos níveis de intangibilidade e não-lineariedade na provisão dos mesmos. Propomos que as capacidades se sobrepõem, e os resultados indicam que essa é uma forma mais acurada de descrever a dinâmica da inovação em serviços. É sugerida uma abordagem alternativa e uma série de proposições para pesquisas futuras.

Por muito tempo serviços eram percebidos como atividades complementares não inovativas direcionadas para a produção de bens. O valour desse estudo é investigar um tópico (inovação) já amplamente estudado no setor industrial, porém num contexto de serviços, assim contribuindo para um campo quase inexplorado.

The purpose of the article is to identify relevant criteria for decision support in the implementation of waste-to-energy (WtE)-based systems.

The methodology is a simple case study with a qualitative approach. Five experts involved in the project of a thermoelectric power plant qualitatively evaluated, on a Likert scale, a decision model with 15 indicators derived from recent studies. The research object was the first stage of a project to implement a thermoelectric plant employing municipal solid waste (MSW) in southern Brazil.

The study identified 15 criteria supporting the decision-making process regarding WtE implementation for MSW in a mid-sized city in southern Brazil. The study identified that compliance with MSW legislation, compliance with energy legislation, initial investment and public health impact are the most influential criteria. The study offered two models for decision processes: a simplified one and a complete one, with ten and fifteen indicators, respectively.

The study concerns mid-sized municipalities in southern Brazil.

Municipal public managers have now a methodology based on qualitative evaluation that admits multiple perspectives, such as technical, economic, environmental and social, to support decision-making processes on WtE technologies for MSW.

MSW management initiatives can yield jobs and revenues for vulnerable populations and provide a correct destination for MSW, mainly in developing countries.

The main originality is that now municipal public decision-makers have a structured model based on four constructs (technical, economic, environmental and social) deployed in 15 indicators to support decision-making processes involving WtE and MSW management.

Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) demonstrates relevance nowadays. Because of the wide competition between construction companies, it is necessary to be assertive, so satisfied clients bring new clients through communication amongst the users. This paper aims to assist a construction company, evaluating apartment owner’s perceptions regarding the built environment, the perceived quality of services, the satisfaction and the value in use, in the context of multifamily buildings.

This paper presents quantitative research of POE, applying confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression. These methods analyse how the attributes behave in each theoretical dimension and evaluate the relationship between the dimensions of the built environment and services including customer satisfaction and value in use.

The results demonstrate that the constructs associated with management aspects such as service, cause higher levels of satisfaction and, therefore, higher value in use. The results become guidelines for constructors, supporting management and project decision-making.

This study’s limitation is related to the number of questionnaires applied. The survey was applied to the apartment owners in all five buildings from a constructor, considered as the entire population of the research. For that reason, there were not used a sample. Further studies are required to improve the results, even more, using the present research in a larger sample, seeking a better generalisation. Also, future studies might evaluate other types of constructions and environments.

This paper used marketing constructs related to satisfaction, value in use and service, applied in the construction field of multifamily residential buildings.