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Since the dawn of the civilizations that olive has been playing a critical role on both the society and the economy. Indeed, one can argue that olive and olive oil were as critical as they shaped a form of culture, a seminal pillar that supported the Mediterranean civilizations and that has since then spread worldwide, influencing others. As waves and tides, the use of olive and olive oil has certainly met low points, to the extent that its use even became to be considered old fashioned more recently, when the traditional Mediterranean food and culture started to be jeopardized by very different modern ways of living. Nevertheless, despite defying challenging conditions, stubbornly as always, the Mediterranean diet not only continues to prevail, but keeps granting the admiration of diverse strands of the society and science, being notoriously evident the set of recent research that points to its health benefits, having olive oil as the cornerstone, a vegetable fat, considered to be highly healthy, as it enhances the control of important health indicators, such as the bad cholesterol, serving for nutritional and therapeutic uses, and preventing the occurrence of a number of diseases, including cardiovascular problems and some forms of cancer.

Taking into consideration this framework, the research presented in this book is focused on the examination of the main trends on olive and olive oil in the Iberian Peninsula, from production to retail and consumption, by analyzing several data sets covering recent decades. In terms of findings for more recent years, it was possible to conclude that despite the increasing recognition of the benefits of olive and olive oil by the society, and despite the increase in olive production, the consumption of olive oil has been decreasing internally, being replaced by increases in exports. This is most probably due to the economic conditions that have deteriorated due to the 2008’s financial crisis, which, together with an increase in olive oil prices, has prevented a considerable portion of the population to have financial conditions to access to the consumption of such an important component of the Mediterranean diet.

The present study seeks to answer the following research question: what is the profile of the academic production related to the interorganizational networks in the period between 2006 and 2016? Thus, this study aims to characterize the academic production about the subject interorganizational networks available in national journals with Concept “A” (Qualis Capes), in the period between 2006 and 2016.

This paper uses national journals with Concept “A” of the Qualis classification (2016) for journal selection. In total, 12 “A” concept journals were identified. However, it was decided to analyze ten of them. The procedures suggested by Crossan and Apaydin (2010) for conducting bibliometric studies were adopted. It has been identified that 77 articles were published in eight journals. The R 3.3.2 and R Studio 1.0.136 software were used. The IGRAPH 0.5.5-2 extension (package) was used to analyze graphs and co-authorship networks (Csárdi and Nepusz, 2006). This extension is able to manipulate networks with millions of vertices and edges and provides a series of functions to analyze the properties of social networks, such as subnetworks, intermediation, centrality, among other characteristics (Csárdi and Nepusz, 2006). Correspondence analysis (CA) was also performed. CA is a multivariate exploratory technique that converts a data matrix into a graphical representation, so that rows and columns are represented by points in a graph (Greenacre and Hastie, 1987). This extension is dedicated to the multivariate analysis of data and allows the manipulation of different types of variables (quantitative or categorical). In the present research, multiple CA (MCA) was applied – indicated when the elements are described as categorical variables (Lê et al., 2008). The characteristics considered for carrying out MCA were the “main term”, “research approach”, “type of research”, “constructs” and “research strategies”. By using the FactoMineR 1.34 extension, the hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC) function was used (Husson et al., 2007; Lê et al., 2008). This function allows creating clusters from the characteristics of the articles analyzed and highlights the justifications for the groupings created. The function allows forming as many clusters the researcher wishes, being of its attribution to analyze a division that best represents the characteristics of the data (Husson, Josse, and Pagès, 2010). Husson et al. (2010) suggest that an analysis should be performed from the hierarchical tree, thus the number of clusters can be defined considering the overall appearance (or shape) of the tree formed. At last, a word cloud was created using the Wordcloud 2.5 extension (Fellows, 2013). The noticed advantage of using this extension is that it does not separate the terms that form a keyword when generating the cloud. It has been used for the keywords of the 77 articles analyzed; however, it has been decided to keep those that presented frequency greater than or equal to two. By avoiding occasional terms, a more intelligible cloud was obtained.

The present study was not able to verify if the journals analyzed by Andrighi et al. (2011) have influenced others to publish on the subject, as suggested by the Bradford’s Law. The standard “success breeds success”, suggested by the Bradford’s Law, was not confirmed. The so-called nuclear zone (Brookes, 1969; Novaretti et al., 2015) is composed of the journals Brazilian Administration Review (BAR), Revista de Administração Contemporânea (RAC), Revista de Administração Pública (RAP) and Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios (RBGN). The journal RAC stands out for having been the one that has increased its annual average of publication in relation to the theme, when compared with the findings of Andrighi et al. (2011). The journals BAR and RBGN stand out because they are in the nuclear zone, even though they were not considered in the work of Andrighi et al. (2011). It should be noted that all the analyzed journals have in common the fact of addressing the themes of management and administration and, more specifically, making room for the “competitiveness” and “cooperation” constructs. These constructs are related to the theme of networks and were the most recurrent in the articles analyzed. “Cooperation” (29), “competitiveness” (27), “knowledge” (12), “learning” (6) and “trust” (3) were the “constructs” used to compose the 77 articles analyzed. In turn, “network” (49), “alliance” (18) and “cluster” (9) were the “main term” most used in the articles. This implies that the topic of cooperation is more linked to a vision of strategy. As occurred in the research of Andrighi et al. (2011), the term “network” is the most recurrent; in addition, the growth of space obtained by the term “alliance” stands out. The terms “network” and “alliance” were the most used by the articles, being predominant in 87 per cent of the research. In the present research, the predominance of the term “network” may have occurred because its concept is broader and it is used in the literature in different ways, even in contradictory ways (Andrighi et al., 2011; Schommer, 2001). In turn, the term “alliance” may have been recurrent because it has a wide dispersion of published issues, such as governance structure, cooperation, knowledge transfer and trust (Lima and Campos Filho, 2009). By using the HCPC function of the FactoMineR extension, the articles were grouped according to their characteristics, and then three clusters were formed. By analyzing the generated results, it is assumed that the division into three clusters was the one that best represented the data. Cluster 1 is characterized by descriptive, quantitative, half documentary and half survey research studies, being “cluster” the main term. Cluster 2 is characterized by exploratory case studies with qualitative–quantitative analyzes. Cluster 3 is characterized by theoretical tests. The Zipf’s law points out that a small group of words occurs many times; however, when considering the most recurrent words Networks (9), Strategic Alliances (8), Cooperation (8), Interorganizational Networks (8) and Alliances (6) show that they were present in only about 10 per cent of the works. Lotka’s Law, which states that few authors publish much and many authors publish little, was not confirmed. The authors who presented the highest number of publications, T. Diana L. v. A. de Macedo-Soares (6); Jorge Renato Verschoore (6); Alsones Balestrin (5); Douglas Wegner (4); Humberto Elias Garcia Lopes (4), participated in less than 10 per cent of the works. Thus, the authorship was characterized by many researchers publishing few works, what can be an effect of the behavior of these authors, who prefer to publish in network. The centrality of the relations between the authors was analyzed and, in addition, the intermediation points of the network were identified. The present study also analyzed all the references used by the 77 articles that compose the study. The main author of each of the references used was identified. Among the 30 identified authors, Yin and Hair Jr. stand out for books related to fundamentals and research methodologies. Borgatti and Eisenhardt developed research on the topic of interorganizational networks and also created works for methodological foundations. Powell was the most frequently mentioned author (28) and had more different works referenced (9). Powell stands out for the production of articles published in periodicals, not books. Porter’s situation is the opposite. Most of the quotations made to the author come from his books, especially the work “Competitive strategy” (Porter, 1980). All authors identified are foreigners, with the exception of Balestrin. Marshall, Polanyi, Granovetter and Williamson are authors of works considered seminal, being them, respectively, “Principles of economics” (Marshall, 1890), “Personal knowledge: towards a post critical philosophy” (Polanyi, 1958) and “The strength of weak ties” (Granovetter, 1973) and “Markets and hierarchies, analysis and antitrust implications” (Williamson, 1975).

Like all research, it has limitations. The first one derives from the selection criteria of the periodicals to be analyzed. The cut referring to the journals of greater impact excludes most of the national articles. These studies may contain important contributions to the knowledge of the national publication profile. In addition, the choice to analyze the journals disregards other types of work, such as books, scientific events, dissertations and thesis and reports. The choice of articles published in journals is based on the fact that these are a “certified knowledge”, as the studies are peer-reviewed, and in the case of the Qualis “A” stratum, a review of exogenous quality is supposed on this production. Despite its flaws, this system can be considered reliable to evaluate scientific knowledge (Bedeian, 2004; Shugan, 2007). The analysis of the most recent articles may have been hampered by a temporal issue. In addition, the choice of keywords, a necessary step, leaves out other studies. Another limitation refers to the fact that the articles have been analyzed and classified by the authors, which presupposes the use of their value judgments, at least to some extent. Other limitations refer to the bibliometric techniques employed. The main authors referenced in the studies were demonstrated, that is, those authors who have been used as a theoretical reference for studies of interorganizational networks. However, the circumstances under which these citations occurred were not analyzed. For example, an author may be quoted to use the contribution of his/her study, to be criticized or just to be another reference in the text. The lack of this analysis can be considered a fragility of the study.

This text was started talking about the dispersion of the studies on networks in the country. Previous work has been used, theoretically and empirically demonstrating this fact. Zipf’s Law applied to bibliometrics, as described by Guedes and Borschiver (2005), Novaretti et al. (2015) and Pao (1978), was not confirmed in this study, which seems to be an indicative fact that the research on this theme in Brazil presents fragmentation as an intrinsic characteristic. That is, it must remain fragmented, as this would be its own way to evolve. This is evident especially when comparing the study of Andrighi et al. (2011) and its results. With several but continuous temporal cut-outs, and the same keywords, the maintenance of this dispersion is evident. This is also a contribution of this study.

The study contributed to updating the research profile, mainly after the triennium 2013-2015 of Qualis Capes’ evaluations. It also added to the mapping of recent Brazilian academic production related to interorganizational networks, completing studies by Alves et al. (2013), Andrighi et al. (2011), Balestrin et al. (2010), Cunha and Carrieri (2003) and Mascena et al. (2013). Thus, it is believed that the research reached the proposed objectives, despite its limitations.

The present research is also justified by helping to understand the subject being useful for researchers, educators and students, in general, in the task of demonstrating gaps and opportunities of future researches and collaborating with the elaboration of a research agenda (Baumgartner and Pieters, 2003). The work has updated bibliometrics on the subject and allows comparisons with previous bibliometric studies (Alves et al., 2013; Andrighi et al., 2011; Balestrin et al., 2010; Cunha and Carrieri, 2003; Ferreira et al., 2014; Lima and Campos Filho, 2009; Mascena et al., 2013). It is believed that the present study differs from the others because of the analysis performed, the way the data were treated, with techniques that are rarely used simultaneously, going beyond the descriptive statistics.

This research investigated the impact that environmental disasters have on the volume of socio-environmental disclosure and investments of Brazilian companies from 1997 to 2012. News on environmental disasters was collected through a search engine, the companies responsible for the disasters were identified, and the research technique of content analysis was used to analyze the research data, which included the sustainability reports, annual reports, and management reports of the companies responsible, and also of other enterprises belonging to the same economic sector, dating from two years before and two years after the accident. The sentences were categorized according to the methodology used by Deegan, Rankin, and Voght (2000). The Mann–Whitney test was used in order to set the level of socio-environmental disclosure and investment before the occurrence of the accident and then compare it to the level of disclosure and investment after the accident. As a result, it was shown that the companies reported a higher volume of socio-environmental disclosure in the two years after the occurrence of the accidents – with statistical significance of 2.9%. Statistically significant variations of 8.2% and 0.7% were found in the totals of contributions to society and in environmental investments, respectively. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant variation in the internal social indicators. The relevance of this research is the study of events to understand how environmental disasters can influence voluntary disclosure practices of Brazilian companies, through the lens of the legitimacy theory.

From the perspective of housing affordability, Portugal is an interesting case study, considering that Portugal ranks 5th in terms of price-to-income ratio and has experienced, since 2015, a significant increase in real estate prices.

The provision of housing is a critical social development factor. With the growing worldwide urbanization and the demand pressure over real estate in many cities, the problem of affordability has gained increase attention by policy makers. Housing affordability is hardly a new topic from a literature perspective, but the recent post-pandemic worldwide inflation growth has re-centered affordability as key topic in the housing agenda. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on past literature and a detailed analysis on the Portuguese market at the municipal level, by analyzing the changes in housing affordability in recent years.

Despite this growth, overall, affordability has improved. The study also shows the importance of municipal-level analysis, given the significant geographical differences. The authors' study confirms that many municipalities, outside metropolitan areas, exhibit low levels of affordability. Nevertheless, markets with higher average real estate values tend to exhibit even lower affordability, outpacing the higher levels of income.

Previous studies have focused on affordability issues on a national or highly aggregated level or focusing only on the two largest metropolitan areas in the country. This paper provides a deeper understanding on the inequalities of housing affordability between Portuguese municipalities.

This study aims to propose a causal relationship between the level of students’ human flourishing (HF) and their entrepreneurial intention (EI) and the mediation role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE).

The study uses a sample of 5,035 first-year university students who graduated from 950 different upper secondary schools in Mexico and abroad. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results reveal that HF increases EI and ESE; ESE positively impacts EI; and the student’s ESE partially mediates the HF-EI relationship.

These findings may improve educational strategies in upper secondary schools and higher education institutions’ management programmes to impact graduates’ HF and EI. To the knowledge, the authors are the first to measure how HF in upper secondary school graduates contributes to increasing their EI.

Recommendations are made to increase Latin American students’ HF and EI.

The authors propose an inverse relationship between HF and EI, as HF can be enhanced in upper secondary education to boost EI later in students’ lives.