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The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the interactions between logistics operators and government stakeholders in cross-border logistics operations with a specific focus on the UK and Brazil.

The research builds on supporting literature. The comparative cases of the UK and Brazil are examined by reference to an extensive series of focus group workshops as well as a series of interviews with key informants. Care was taken to make sure that comprehensive engagement the respective business and government communities were in place, and that there were opportunities to feedback on the analysis.

Suggestions were provided on how to improve the business–government interactions in cross-borders logistics operations. The analysis considered transaction costs and scope for trade facilitation. The research also helped produce a descriptive model of business–government interactions in cross-border logistics operations.

The paper points to new directions in the understanding of how businesses interact with government agencies, and the kind of issues they face in cross-border logistics operations. However, the research only looked at two countries and there is significant scope for further enquiry within the logistics literature.

Reduced transaction costs at the border and subsequent economic opportunities for the UK and Brazil.

A list of practical reform recommendations informed by the business communities of the UK and Brazil.

This paper’s original contribution to the literature is its framework for the analysis of transaction costs associated with the business–government interactions in cross-border logistics operations. In addition to the resulting findings in Brazil and the UK it may serve as a template for research elsewhere.

This research uses theoretical perspectives from public choice and public policy to establish and test theory of the combined effects of institutional environments and bureaucratic corruption on international delivery performance.

A panel archival dataset is assembled from multiple public databases to test hypotheses based on public policy, public choice and supply chain theory using a fixed effects model.

The authors' theory demonstrates that institutional environments as constituted by the level of regulatory trade barriers and legal system effectiveness combined with bureaucratic corruption can influence the timeliness of international deliveries.

This research extends public choice and public policy with the insight that regulatory institutions' bark is not bad without the bite of effective legal institutions. The research uses archival data collected in mass surveys with data aggregated at the country level that can be unduly affected by selection effects, perceptual data, and unobserved underlying mechanisms.

The results of this research can be used to inform supply chain managers working in trade compliance to be aware of the costs and effects on logistics performance that result from encountering different institutional environments and the concomitant corruption.

This is the first investigation of the complex and significant interaction effects of institutional environments and corruption on international delivery performance.

The objective of this work consists of highlighting some benchmarking practices in management by presenting a case study conducted in a company in Brazil. The company was awarded with the Brazilian National Award some years back and it still can be considered as a benchmark of manufacturing enterprises. This paper focuses on the criteria of the National Foundation for Quality Award in Brazil by outlining the award process and presenting the core values and performance excellence criteria. Then, some current management practices in the studied company are presented. Finally, it is expected that the company is going to apply for the prize once again, expecting to be successful.

This chapter assesses the trauma that media professionals experience as eye-witnesses of the disturbing and intense events associated with their everyday working routine. In particular, this chapter examines recent profession-based reports on journalistic trauma to explore affective labour in media ecosystems of crisis-ridden countries and the impact of covering traumatic events on media professionals. Based on qualitative research, this chapter aims to reconceptualise journalism as a primarily affective profession in the crisis-ridden countries of SE Europe.

This study aims to investigate the motives for and the benefits of authorized economic operator (AEO) certification in the supply chain. Also, whether there are significant differences in the perception of the AEO status as a necessity or privilege among cargo owners and service providers.

The research design includes an international survey of 159 AEO-certified companies from four European Union (EU) countries performing various roles in the supply chain. The data are analyzed using quantitative methods, including factor analysis and analysis of variance.

Based on factor analysis, the research reveals the motives for and benefits of AEO certification. This reveals significant differences between two distinct groups of supply chain participants, namely, cargo owners and service providers. Service providers are mainly driven by the need to gain or maintain their competitive advantage and treat AEO certification as a standard that is required by customers. Cargo owners are relatively more focused on the improvement of internal processes and treat AEO certification as a privilege that helps them achieve a high level of efficiency.

The study fills the existing literature gap as it focuses on the differences between two distinct groups (cargo owners and service providers) in terms of their perception of the AEO certification. As empirical research in this area is scarce, especially at the cross-country level, this study also significantly complements knowledge on AEO certification in the EU.

The purpose of this paper is to propose to expand the political economic understanding of a “fix”, that is, capital’s ability to overcome crises of profitability through a displacement of its crisis tendencies, to include an analytical attention to the gendered, sexualised and racialised unwaged and underpaid (caring) labour that reproduces labour power within a capitalist economy.

A “care fix”, the author argues, involves attempts to manage a crisis of care in ways that do not resolve but merely displace the crisis, perpetuating the systemic imperative of capital to off-load the cost of social reproduction and care, thereby constituting a crucial dynamic of capitalist development and restructuring and resulting in the reorganisation of gendered and racialised class relations and historically contingent regimes of reproduction.

The maceration of the Fordist regime of reproduction under neoliberalism has given way to a new post-Fordist arrangement that, having exhausted its care fix, is now once again in crisis. A new care fix is currently under way, while at the same time it is being contested and redirected by the contemporary struggles over social reproduction, care and democracy.

Consequently, the author discusses the emergence of the notion of “caring capitalism” and contrasts this with proposals for democratising care, in turn investigating these developments in the context of an ongoing crisis of political representation in Europe and offering a notion of “care municipalism” as a possible way forward.

The practical implications concern the possibility of democratising the care sector.

The social implications pertain to the questions of how social, political and economic institutions shift when care is placed on their agenda.

The value of this paper is to make a theoretical contribution to the analysis of changing configurations of care, social reproduction and society in relation to questions of democracy.

Creating a new product or service promotes the status quo changes, seeking economic value and solving customer's urgent problems. Entrepreneurs play an important role in this changing process through start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), considered one of the leading forces driving an economy’s innovative and competitive power. However, despite the importance of entrepreneurs, public policies to foster entrepreneurship ecosystems could be ineffective in emerging countries. Therefore, action research proposes the qualification of entrepreneurs for the structuring of new businesses through remote orientation, connecting the country's main economic centers to emerging areas.

The study is qualitative research comprising two phases. The first phase consisted of four-month action research, connecting two researchers and three groups of specialists (from Sao Paulo), with three groups of entrepreneurs (located in Manaus in the Amazon region), through a remote orientation in entrepreneurship, lean start-up, lean product and process development (LPPD). The second phase, conducted by a third researcher, regards a case study grounded on interviews and data collection with the entrepreneurs to capture the outcomes of the remote orientation process.

The remote orientation helped shorten the geographical distance of Amazonas to approach the integration of business, research and knowledge exchange of such distinct areas in the same country. If a remote orientation program was established as public policy, it could enact subsequent cycles of the lean start-up model. Furthermore, the remote orientation could be an alternative to compose the training subsystem in the entrepreneurship ecosystem proposed by Isenberg (2011). On the other hand, a remote orientation could fail to shorten the distance of human values and beliefs, which cannot be neglected when facing a rich territory like the Amazon.

Because of the chosen research approach, a qualitative and exploratory study based on a combination of action research, interviews and case studies, the results may lack generalizability. However, further studies can replicate the remote orientation process conducted in the region of Manaus – Amazon, to obtain distinct results regarding the advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness of remote orientation as entrepreneurship ecosystem’s human capital dimension development.

The outcomes of this research have the potential to start discussions regarding the adoption of remote orientation as a public policy to develop entrepreneurship skills in emerging regions, not only in Brazil but worldwide. The Brazilian case could be a relevant benchmark due to the large territory and economic and social disparities impacting education and entrepreneurship.

Through start-ups and SMEs, entrepreneurship has innovation potential and is the most solid way to bring economic development. For emerging countries, it can be real game-changer in the economic order. The development of entrepreneurship skills through this remote orientation experience can help reduce the economic and social gaps in countries with relevant disparities like Brazil and other emerging countries.

This paper fulfills an identified need to “move the needle of entrepreneurship in the right direction” (Isenberg, 2010) by creating local solutions for global challenges. Policymakers and leaders need to continue the experiment and learn how to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem. In this sense, the action research approach, combined with the remote orientation, proposes an alternative to promote changes in how human capital dimension can be developed in this challenging ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors underlying gender preference of domestic servants (DS). Children in domestic service constitute the most common form of urban child labour. Literature has shown that domestic service employment has a gender face with the girl-child more susceptible. This is the gap this research fills.

The study employed both quantitative and qualitative strategies selecting respondents and analysing the study. The respondents were employers of DS and were mainly women. Qualitative data were generated from 15 employers reached through the snowball method. The stratified purposive sampling technique was used to identify private and public organisations in the selected localities where copies of a questionnaire were administered.

The results showed that factors considered for employing DS are linked to traditional conception of household tasks. Consequently, girls (86.4 per cent) were preferred for performing domestic chores, providing emotional support for employers’ children and were viewed as receptive, “mouldable”, and hardworking to male (11.4 per cent). Not minding these functional roles they perform, some employers reported that female DS could “snatch” their husbands, influence their children negatively, and may be spiritually possessed and physically “unclean”. Male servants were considered foul, repulsive, and revolting to correction; besides, they sexually assault female children of employers; hence they were least demanded.

Because of the size of the sample which is small, the research results may lack generalisability. More expansive works are needed in this regard.

The paper includes implications for policy initiative concerning the plight of working women and security of DS.

The paper reveals the social factors considered in recruiting DS and their implications on family relations.

This paper fulfills the identified gap to study gender preference in domestic servitude.