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This study aims to understand whether entrepreneurial alertness is a relevant determinant in creating opportunities in the context of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

To this end, qualitative research was undertaken, specifically the case study method. The study context was formed of four SMEs (cases) located in an inland region of Portugal. The data-collecting instrument was an individual interview held with the owners managers of the chosen firms, and the data treatment technique was content and thematic analyses.

The results obtained reveal that entrepreneurial alertness is always present in the SME entrepreneurs/business people’s daily lives and clearly creates good business opportunities not yet observed by the competition.

This study seeks to help SME owners managers to understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurial alertness and understand the importance of this determinant for their firms’ success.

This study is innovative as it helps to characterise and understand entrepreneurial alertness by showing its importance for SMEs in creating valuable opportunities and achieving success.

This paper addresses the evaluation of traditional wooden floors, based on (1) visual strength grading (VSG) techniques adopted for ancient wooden structures; (2) a new approach to biological damage and (3) structural safety analysis. This assessment includes complex concepts. Therefore, the study presents a highly needed practical tool to help technicians make a preliminary assessment whereby many of the timber elements in our heritage can be saved from removal.

A simple and effective procedure was developed for each step. An inspection and diagnosis datasheet was drawn up, and the structural analysis presented by the Eurocodes was summarized. This methodology was then applied in a case study to demonstrate the complete procedure. During the assessment of this sort of structures, the drilling technique was a relevant method utilized as it provided essential and clear information about the beams' conservation.

The case study results indicate that 70% of the beams of the analysed structure exceed strict minimum performance criteria. This shows that other similar buildings can have their wooden elements saved from demolition, which is not the current regular refurbishment approach.

The current reality shows that the technicians' lack of capacity for a pragmatic assessment of the timber members’ structural capacity promotes their disinterest in them. To avoid that, this text presents a process for evaluating wooden floors using a simple and clear approach. This will prevent the demolition of wooden elements and instead encourage their preservation.

This work explores the potential benefits of aligning the strategic planning process with a BPM program in a clinical research center (CRC). The purpose of this paper is to define a process for executing strategic planning oriented towards the promotion of a BPM program.

The method applied is action research. This allowed the solution of a practical problem and at the same time the proposition of a new approach to promote BPM in alignment with strategy, which was synthesized in the model presented.

The analysis and structuring of the strategic planning process, with the assessment of the as-is situation, were adequate as a preparation step for the first cycle of a BPM program in the CRC. Based on lessons learned along the research project, a model was proposed for the strategic planning process oriented towards promoting BPM.

The model was conceived from a single application at a CRC, through a cycle of action research. This is one of the limitations of this work. The model was not yet sufficiently tested in other contexts. This represents opportunities for future research.

The evaluation step in the action research cycle revealed that the organization in focus was satisfied with the results. New management practices in the organizations in focus were implemented as a result of this work.

Process improvement initiatives are a novelty in the CRC context, and this work may serve as a reference for CRC managers seeking to improve overall performance. The proposed model in this work indicates that a BPM program should start with strategic planning. An initial assessment of the as-is situation of the organization in focus was performed based on the analysis of the undesirable effects in the organization’s management practices, using a technique of the Theory of Constraints. The use of this technique facilitated the identification of solutions to the root causes identified in the assessment. The level of the assessment was deeper in comparison to results obtained with traditional tools used in strategic planning processes. The assessment supports the definition of actions oriented to solving the majority of the management dysfunctions of the organization in focus.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

From Toronto comes an equally impressive record. There, Drs. Tisdall, Drake and Ebbs have made a study of the effect of giving women, living on a nutritionally inadequate diet, supplementary milk, eggs, oranges, tomatoes, cheese and vitamins B and D during the latter part of pregnancy. The numbers of pre‐natal anæmias, toxæmic conditions, miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births all showed striking reductions. On this supplementary diet 90 per cent. of the babies born were judged as “good.” The control group scored only 62 per cent. No record in vital statistics is more striking than the fall in infant mortality that has occurred in the past quarter of a century. For this, we have to thank the growth of the infant welfare movement—with which you, my Lord Chairman (Lord Woolton) and your wife were associated as pioneers in its earliest days—and the introduction of dried and pasteurised milks. But the reduction in the incidence of infantile deaths has not been paralleled by a fall in stillbirths and neo‐natal deaths. In Toronto, for example, the former dropped 40 per cent. in the decade before 1939, whilst the latter fell only 7 per cent. They are believed to be much higher in hospital cases than in specialist practice. The evidence that the faulty diet of the mother is more often than not a causative factor appears to be growing. It can, I think, be safely assumed that what has been done and should be done during this war to enable the pregnant woman to get the nutriment she and her growing child require will form the sure foundation on which will be built a post‐war policy to abolish once and for all a hazard to which no expectant mother should ever be exposed because it is her misfortune to lack the means to purchase the foods which her condition demands. The child is born. To‐day, our nutritional policy has ensured that it obtains a good start in life, whatever may be the circumstances of its parents; milk for the mother if she is nursing; milk for the child if it needs artificial feeding. To this are added cod liver oil and orange juice, each of proven vitamin potency. In every home where these bottles of golden juice from the groves of Florida and California are found, they are a reminder of the heartfelt wish of the people of the United States that our babies should not suffer from grave deficiencies which might affect the whole of their later life. I believe this is something which has come to stay. I cannot see us reverting after the war to conditions which make it difficult to provide the fullest protection that can be given by proper diet to the health of every child during its early years. It is said of King Edward VII that he replied, when told that tuberculosis is a preventable disease: “Then why is it not prevented?” He could well have said this of malnutrition. What of the children of school age? How have they fared under war‐time conditions so far as their food is concerned? It is difficult to present a composite picture, for there are so many and so varied problems. Do not for one moment imagine it is only the child from the poor home who is in danger of being badly nourished. I have had in my hands records of the food of boys at exclusive public schools that sent shivers down my nutritional spine. The nutritional policy adopted for the war period has given strong reinforcement to those who wished to see the feeding of school‐children in our elementary schools carried out on a much wider basis and by more up‐to‐date methods. The days when necessity had to be proven before a child was entitled to a school meal will soon seem as remote as those when the proposal to give meals to necessitous school‐children was being vigorously debated. It is hard to credit that there was strong opposition to this project only thirty‐five years ago. Looking at the records of that lively controversy, one finds over and over again that curious concern for “parental control” or “parental influence.” Apparently this is gravely endangered by giving a child a nourishing meal at school. The fact that so large a proportion of those who so dogmatically expressed that view—and there still appear to be many such—had no compunction in packing their own children off to schools where they would be out of parental control for the best part of nine months of the year did not seem to weigh with them. Gone are the days when all that mattered was filling the bellies of the youngsters with something hot and stodgy. Menus for our elementary school kitchens are now planned to give meals appetising and nourishing in themselves, and also to provide over a sequence of days an intake of nutrients which ought to go a long way to make good deficiencies there are likely to be in the home diet. It is much the same principle as that on which Professor Schiötz based the “Oslo meal” and it is fundamentally sound. I do not need to refer in detail to active co‐operation between the Board of Education and the Ministry of Food on these plans for extending the provision of meals for children or to the striking progress that is being made to‐day, in spite of great difficulties arising from shortage of supplies, labour and equipment, to increase the number of good meals provided at school feeding centres. Already the numbers are approaching half a million. But expectations are that a much larger total will be achieved before the end of the year. We are often asked why, when it is so relatively simple a matter to prepare good, nourishing soups, we do not encourage this method of feeding children. I had many enquiries about this when I was recently in the United States, where interesting experiments are in progress in compounding soup‐base mixtures of high nutritional value.

Consumer trust plays a key role in the development and maintenance of long-term relationships in the tourism sector. This study aims to examine the antecedents of trust in the local accommodation sector, which faced a disruptive period due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also addresses the trust–loyalty relationship.

A survey was administered to a sample of rural accommodation tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse data; in particular, a PLS-SEM approach was used, followed by a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

This study confirms and reinforces the importance of a positive influence of affective evaluation, reputation, perceived security and the destination image on perceived trust. It also demonstrates the impact of trust on loyalty. Using fsQCA, it was found that perceived security is a necessary condition to achieve perceived trust. However, there are multiple paths to achieving high trust.

This article provides a practical and theoretical contribution to this phenomenon during the pandemic crisis. This study concludes that implementing specific measures to increase perceived security (e.g. clean and safe seal) was critical to increase trust and loyalty.

Although the decrease in visits has had a significant impact on economic activities, the nature of the context, in particular the rural context, proved that the combination of agricultural activities with tourism services offering also revealed to be a promising complementary strategy to help owners and minimize the lack of visitors.

This study is one of the earliest to understand trust and its antecedents and trust loyalty during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is an old saying to the effect that every one is destined to eat a peck of dirt before he dies. So much is probably inevitable, but by taking pains in the selection of our milkmen, butchers, bakers, and other purveyors, by refusing to buy jams, preserves, potted meats, and pickles manufactured by other than reputable firms, and above all by giving support to the various movements which have for their object the improvement of the law relating to adulteration of food, we can at least see that we are called upon to swallow no more than the maximum provided by the adage.

Portugal is a country with one of the highest seafood consumption per capita in the world. The purpose of this paper is to understand the Portuguese knowledge and attitudes towards seafood and relate it to consumers’ environmental conscious.

Using an internet-based survey the authors investigated the relation of socio-demographic variables to consumption frequency and how knowledge about seafood is associated with interest in different information when purchasing seafood products.

Results demonstrate consumption of a high diversity of species. Tuna and cod are the top species related to convenience and food traditions. There is a preference to consume seafood mostly at home and prepared grilled. Differences between higher and lower knowledgeable consumers’ related to seafood, show that the first ones have a more diversified use of species and high prevalence of small pelagic fish.

The findings are influenced by the sample obtained, which over-represents well-educated and higher income people. Moreover the self-reported consumption can be biased by individuals own perceptions and different seafood products. Better estimations of consumption frequency could result from asking more detailed information, as such as by species or meal occasions.

Portuguese consumers have high knowledge about seafood but it is not necessarily related to sustainable choices. To help in sustainable seafood choices it might be more effective to promote existing habits based on Portuguese traditions that still are good alternatives for the marine environment.

A higher consumer’s knowledge does not necessarily mean more sustainability.

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.