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The purpose of this paper is to investigate time management as a source of social sustainability in a Brazilian cooperative based on the principles of the solidarity economy, guided by democracy and self-management. This type of organization which is founded on self-management and management of working hours can permit flexibility in the work schedule, an aspect that the literature shows to be one of the indicators of social sustainability. The focus of this study is the female workforce.

The research was qualitative, using case study methodology. With respect to the temporal perspective, this is a longitudinal project. The result of this contact was a field diary in which observations on the functioning of the cooperative and its activities were recorded. In addition to these observations transcribed in the field diary, interviews were conducted with members. These were guided by a script to raise issues related to work routine and project management.

The results showed that self-management of working time allows flexibility, which can indeed be seen as a source of social sustainability that can provide working women with possibilities for meeting the various, conflicting demands they face from both work and family. This was seen to be a positive factor because many women in Brazil are heads of their households and are uniquely responsible for work, family and other responsibilities.

The qualitative meaning of working time is what may be linked to social sustainability because it is connected to self-management of working hours.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how consumer engagement practices shape the dynamics of a soccer club virtual brand community.

A netnographic approach was employed. Using a Python script, more than 7,000 tweets about São Paulo FC soccer club on Twitter were collected and analyzed using the Virtual Brand Community Engagement Practices typology.

The dynamics of engagement relies on two types of practices: those that comprise the actions of tweeting, retweeting, replying to, mentioning and liking messages from and about the São Paulo FC soccer club profile and those derived from the proposition of Hollebeek et al. (2017). Given the dynamics of Twitter, some practices have performed differently than the original proposal, resulting in a slight adaptation of the framework.

Given the length and the netnographic nature of this study, its findings should be considered exploratory. Future studies can build upon the ideas presented here by researching different contexts and focal objects of engagement.

This paper provides the refinement of social media strategies and content development to make them more efficient and to establish a relevant communication channel with audiences. This knowledge can contribute to a better understanding of goals and metrics.

This paper is based on the behavioral nature of engagement in virtual brand communities, which is an increasing topic of interest. To date, few studies have examined online engagement using a practice approach specifically in the sports marketing context.

Based on the conceptual model of consumer engagement in a virtual brand community, this study aims to investigate this phenomenon and gauges the validity of the model’s assumptions in the context of a Facebook fan page.

The interactions between L’Oréal Paris Brazil and the members of its virtual community were collected for three months using a netnographic approach. The data of these interactions were evaluated using content analysis techniques.

The dimensions, processes and sub-processes of the conceptual model of consumer engagement, as proposed in the literature, were confirmed. Furthermore, the results reinforce the perspective that simple participation or involvement does not presume engagement, which reflects a complex psychological state dependent on the context and requiring previous and subsequent processes to manifest.

The findings were based on an examination of a high-end beauty product brand’s Facebook page. Nevertheless, these findings are not necessarily limited to high-end context consumers. Larger scale research (i.e. involving wider product categories) could endorse the underlying theoretical model of engagement.

The study contributes to understanding the dynamics of how brands build relationships with consumers through social media and confirms the dynamics of the engagement concept and its role as a tool to increase brand value and competitive advantage.

This study contributes to the field by bridging the knowledge gap concerning consumer engagement in a social media context with practical and empirical evidence.

Service robots are now an integral part of people's living and working environment, making service robots one of the hot topics for service researchers today. Against that background, the paper reviews the recent service robot literature following a Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) approach to capture the state of art of the field. In addition, building on qualitative input from researchers who are active in this field, the authors highlight where opportunities for further development and growth lie.

The paper identifies and analyzes 88 manuscripts (featuring 173 individual studies) published in academic journals featured on the SERVSIG literature alert. In addition, qualitative input gathered from 79 researchers who are active in the service field and doing research on service robots is infused throughout the manuscript.

The key research foci of the service robot literature to date include comparing service robots with humans, the role of service robots' look and feel, consumer attitudes toward service robots and the role of service robot conversational skills and behaviors. From a TCCM view, the authors discern dominant theories (anthropomorphism theory), contexts (retail/healthcare, USA samples, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) settings and customer focused), study characteristics (robot types: chatbots, not embodied and text/voice-based; outcome focus: customer intentions) and methodologies (experimental, picture-based scenarios).

The current paper is the first to analyze the service robot literature from a TCCM perspective. Doing so, the study gives (1) a comprehensive picture of the field to date and (2) highlights key pathways to inspire future work.

This chapter aims to reconstruct the trajectory of comparative education in Brazil using the timeline concept to identify structural elements in the emergence and reconfiguration of this field of study. The timeline historical perspective allows us to use two additional features: (a) the reconstruction of the scenario in which emerge the intellectual productions; and simultaneously (b) identify how themes, issues, and research objects appears, whether in a homogeneous association or not. These elements allow us to associate comparative and historical methods to recognize the supranational and supraregional influence, determining the configuration of what is meant by comparative education in Brazil. The text distinguishes seven different moments for the Brazilian comparative educational area, which are: (1) the study of the structure and functioning of European and North American systems education; (2) the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) pioneering influence on the production of annuals; (3) the prioritization of educational practices; (4) the influence of supranational relations; (5) the focus on educational public policies; (6) new cycle of supranational influence; and (7) (re)definition of the theoretical, methodological, and epistemological anchorage of comparative education. In the last quarter century, it can be said that there is a resurgence of Comparative Education in Brazil and the region, which may be associated with strong historical influences, here reconstructed by periodization.

Soft total quality management (TQM) aspects are the facets of TQM that mainly concern with the management of human resource in a way to achieve the results of employees' job satisfaction. Based on this approach, the objective of this research is to examine the relationship between the most popular five soft TQM aspects and employees' job satisfaction in “ISO 9001” certified Sudanese oil companies.

Data were collected through questionnaires from employees across a total of five Sudanese oil companies owned by the government, and adopting an ISO-9001 quality program. The total population of the study consists of 1,505 permanent employees, while the sample size was 253 employees, determined by adopting a stratified random sampling technique. The multiple regression model was adopted for data analysis.

The results showed that the construct of soft TQM aspects including “top management commitment”, “employee empowerment”, “teamwork”, “training and education” and “employee involvement” explain 74% in the variance of employees' job satisfaction. Results showed positive association between soft TQM aspects and employees' job satisfaction at the 5% significance level. It was also found that each individual variable of the five soft TQM aspects has a significant positive association with employees' job satisfaction. Meanwhile, the results indicated that the most important soft TQM aspect in explaining the variability of employees' job satisfaction was the “employee empowerment” with the highest correlation coefficient (β) of (0.189).

The study recommends that in order to achieve their primary goal of employees' satisfaction, HR practitioners within organizations adopting total quality programs should align their practice in such a way to enhance soft aspects of TQM. Policy makers and top management in order to gain long-term infrastructural benefits obtained from employees' job satisfaction should show a visible support to TQM programs and allocate necessary resources to train their staff in the quality management system that enhance their empowerment and involvement. The study also recommends that since soft aspects of TQM raise their job satisfaction, employees should support and conform to quality management systems within their organizations.

The paper focuses on soft TQM aspects’ practical implementation. The findings make a significant contribution by using ISO-certified governmental Sudanese oil companies and tested the hypothesized model entails the impact of soft TQM implementation and employees' job satisfaction.