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The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world as far as climate-related and other forms of disasters (e.g., earthquake and volcanic eruption) are concerned (World Bank and NDCC, 2004; UNISDR, 2008a, 2008b). In 2004 alone, 25 weather disturbances hit the country, of which four occurred successively in November and the first week of December. These triggered massive landslides and flooding in Southern and Central Luzon, leading to damages in lives and properties (Duque, 2005). With this the country is considered as one of the most disaster prone, ranking 12th among the 200 countries most at risk to natural hazards in the 2009 Mortality Risk Index of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR, 2009).

The purpose of this chapter is to carry out a theoretical review of the state of the art in relation to Latin American Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) communication practices and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from 2009 to 2016. A range of recently published papers (2009–2016) is retrieved in a literature search of the Web of Science and Google Scholar under keywords such as ‘CSR’, ‘SME’, ‘Communication’, and ‘CSR in Latin America’. This chapter provides information about CSR in SMEs, indicating what can be found on this topic and how the management of CSR communication can help those firms. It also recognizes the lack of any real formation in SMEs to solve their problems in this area. This chapter emphasizes that, in general terms, SMEs are aware of CSR management opportunities but, because of the aforementioned constraints, their current CSR communications practices are absolutely basic and their management is still limited and short-term. Instead of a generalized exhaustive study, this is an approach to develop new studies in the future. It does not contain empirical results but rather practical information for reflections on CSR and communication in Latin American SMEs. A useful source of information for SME managers. CSR communications policies generate no value unless they have been taken into account in the overall design of corporate CSR policy, particularly if there is no clear vision of how new stakeholders may be more valuable strategically than operationally. This chapter fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers indications for future lines of research.

Service-learning (SL) is an innovative methodology aiming to improve learning while providing students experiences in the community. Consequently, students also develop social and emotional skills many higher education institutions promise to foster. However, few academic enrichment opportunities are implemented to develop these social skills and university teaching staff are limited in their knowledge of SL to promote active citizenship and civic engagement (Belando-Montoro, Jover, Ruiz de Miguel, Blanco, & Carrasco, 2015). This chapter presents an analysis of the presence of direct and indirect indicators related to social responsibility and SL in the degree programs of the Social and Legal Sciences area of the Complutense University of Madrid. These indicators include questions related to the social environment needs diagnosis and the design of projects that meet these needs, the environmental care, among others. The results indicate the lack of presence of courses on the direct indicators in the degrees offered. However, the focus on indirect indicators is relatively common. In particular, those common indirect indicators are related to critical thinking about social reality, the environment needs diagnosis, and the development of social intervention. The findings suggest universities increase their focus on social responsibility and community service in the university curriculum, providing training oriented toward socio-community intervention.

The resurgence of left governments in Latin America raised expectations for the reincorporation of popular sectors broadly writ into the political arena from which they largely had been excluded by governments committed to Washington Consensus policies. This was particularly true in cases where mobilization by broad-based, heterogeneous social movement coalitions set the stage for their election. In some cases highly contentious cycles of mass mobilization in the context of economic crisis and party system collapse opened opportunities for outsider left candidates and their new political movements and parties to sweep into office. This was the case of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and, partially, Argentina. In other cases institutional continuity prevailed but mass discontent with low average growth, increasing poverty and inequality, and declining opportunities drove the electorate to vote for more established left parties. Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile are the emblematic cases. In all cases, to a greater or lesser degree, there was an assumption of a closer alignment between left governments and social movements than before. This chapter tests such assumption in the case of Bolivia because it exhibited exceptionally favorable conditions for a close alignment of social movements and the government of Evo Morales, the country’s first president of indigenous origin.

Climate change is one of the major challenges confronting human society in the 21st century (Ericksen & O’Brein, 2007; Adger, Lorenzoni, & O’Brien, 2009). Mounting evidence attests that climate change is now happening in many parts of the world as evidenced by increasing mean temperature, changing precipitation patterns, rising sea level, and increasing frequency and growing intensity of extreme weather events (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2007). In many parts of Asia, these climatic changes have led to massive flooding, landslides, and droughts, resulting in extensive damage to properties, assets, and human life (Cruz et al., 2007). Climate change is also exacerbating water shortages in many areas, constraining agricultural production, and threatening food security and energy supply from hydroelectric source. It is likewise causing forest fires and degradation, damaging coastal and marine resources, and increasing the risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases. Regional climate studies indicate that the worse is yet to come as far as weather-related disaster risks are concerned. If not addressed effectively, climate change could seriously frustrate the region's sustainable development and poverty-reduction efforts (ADB, 2009).

Charles Arcodia <c.arcodia@griffith.edu.au> is Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith University, Australia. He has held leadership positions in a variety of educational and business service contexts. An experienced educator having taught and researched in the tertiary sector for over 15 years, he has broad research interests working primarily within the fields of event management, tourism education, and intangible heritage. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals and serves as the Editor of the International Journal of Event Management Research.

Purpose – We analyze the influence of the internationalization process of small and medium-sized enterprises on the adoption of a proactive environmental strategy.

Design/methodology – Using direct interviews with the CEOs of 106 Spanish export firms from the food industry, we tested our research question through ordinary least squares regression analysis.

Findings – We find that a high degree of environmental international diversification leads these firms to take advantage of different environmental competitive advantages from the different locations where they operate, and consequently integrate environmental proactive practices and programs within their organizational strategy.

Research implications/limitations – The result obtained in this work contributes to better understanding of the importance of firms’ internationalization process in the generation of valuable environmental knowledge abroad. The chapter also discusses implications for managers, scholars, and policy makers. Future analysis should include longitudinal data of export firms based in other countries.

Originality/value of chapter – We pay special attention to the environmental management undertaken by small- and medium-sized export enterprises. Specifically, we study the environmental institutional profile of the different regions where these firms operate.

On September 11th, 1973, started the darkest stage in the recent history of Chile. The military and the police, at the command of General Augusto Pinochet, executed the most atrocious acts against the human dignity that the country had witnessed. The martial and technocratic leaders of the dictatorship ripped apart and redesigned the institutions of the country at their will, through to the elimination of the opposition and the systematic violation of human rights, which reached any person or group. Just a few days after the coup d’état that brought Pinochet to power, the Cardinal and Archbishop of Santiago, Raúl Silva Henríquez, and a group of churches declared themselves against the devastating violence that was gripping the country. Immediately, the religious spaces took up the lead in the defense of the most vulnerable, the persecuted, marginalized, and poor. The major effort focused on the Vicariate of Solidarity, an organization of the Catholic Church in Chile that was tasked with the promotion and defense of human rights, which offered legal and social assistance to the victims and their families. The Vicariate quickly positioned itself as a leader in search of justice against the backdrop of repression, censorship, lack of representative institutions, and prohibition of popular movements. The purpose of the present chapter is to analyze the work of the Vicariate of Solidarity and its leading role in the fight against human rights violations, strengthening social reorganization, reconciliation, and the return to democracy in Chile.

In this chapter, we present our ongoing efforts in developing and sustaining interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate programs at North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&T) – a state-supported HBCU and National Science Foundation (NSF) Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Institutional Implementation Project grantee. Through three rounds of NSF HBCU-UP implementation grants, a concerted effort has been made in developing interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate research programs in geophysical and environmental science (in round 1), geospatial, computational, and information science (in round 2), and mathematical and computational biology (in round 3) on NCA&T campus. We first present a brief history and background information about the interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate research programs developed and sustained at NCA&T, giving rationales on how these programs had been conceived, and summarizing what have been achieved. Next we give a detailed description on the development of undergraduate research infrastructure including building research facilities through multiple and leveraged funding sources, and engaging a core of committed faculty mentors and research collaborators. We then present, as case studies, some sample interdisciplinary research projects in which STEM undergraduate students were engaged and project outcomes. Successes associated to our endeavor in developing undergraduate research programs as well as challenges and opportunities on implementing and sustaining these efforts are discussed. Finally, we discuss the impact of well-structured undergraduate research training on student success in terms of academic performance, graduation rate and continuing graduate study, and summarize many of the learnings we have gained from implementation and delivery of undergraduate research experiences at HBCUs.