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Portugal has been considered a peripheral market by international franchisors owing to the small market size and, in some cases, the geographical and cultural distance. However, as a reflex of the global trends in franchising, the last decade has witnessed the expansion of networks and the entry of many new foreign operators in Portugal. The presence of international franchise systems is dominant, but a small number of local concepts was developed and some have already started international operations. Reports the results of an empirical study that purported to identify and assess the methods of penetration in Portugal used by foreign participants; the proceedings for implementation of franchise systems at national level; participants′ opinions on major problems encountered in establishing the franchise system in Portugal; the opinion of participants about the performance and prospects of evolution; and the characteristics of international operations of national franchise systems and prospects for expansion.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an example of best practice towards enhancing employability in the cross-sectoral labour market for doctorate-holders. This was achieved through an Erasmus+ KA2 (Strategic Partnership) skills development project which created a training programme (TRANSPEER) involving a multi-disciplinary cohort of researchers at a range of career stages, drawn from universities in Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the UK.

Research support staff designed and delivered four transnational training events for the cohort, with the overarching theme of enhancing researcher employability. An initial skills awareness survey of the researcher cohort was undertaken prior to the start of the programme; this survey was repeated after each event. An additional aim of the project was the development of the consortium’s research support staff through exposure to the facilitation techniques and methodologies of their international colleagues.

The findings indicate that transnational collaboration in researcher development enhances the learning environment for participating researchers and provides significant professional development opportunities for both researchers and researcher developers. The findings further suggest the benefits of mixing cohorts across career stages and engaging researchers with novel and interactive approaches on themes not typically addressed in academic competence development offerings.

Transversal skills development cooperation between universities – especially transnational cooperation – is rare. Even more so is the professional development of research support staff in a transnational context. This paper outlines the benefits of such collaborative activities.

This study aimed to assess whether sociodemographic variables explain significant differences in attitudes towards transforming academic conferences into more sustainable events.

An analytical model of participants' attitudes towards sustainable conferences based on literature review as well as the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour was developed and applied to a sample of 532 surveyed individuals from 68 countries who regularly attended academic conferences in the last five years prior to 2020. The results were refined using statistical and computational techniques to achieve more empirically robust conclusions.

Results reveal that sociodemographic variables such as attendees' gender and age explain differences in attitudes. Women and older adults have stronger pro-environmental attitudes regarding event sustainability. On the other hand, attitudes towards more sustainable academic conferences are quite strong and positive overall. More sustainable events' venues, catering, conference materials and accommodations strongly influence attendees' attitudes towards more sustainable conferences. The strength of attitudes was weaker towards transportation.

First, the analyses focused on only aspects related to the attendees' attitudes. Assessing their real behaviour would complete this research. The geographical areas defined by the U.N. and used in this study have the limitation of combining highly developed countries and developing countries in the same geographical area, for example, the Americas and Asia and the Pacific.

Specific socio-demographic variables' effects on attitudes towards sustainable academic conferences can indicate how organisers can best promote these events according to attendees' characteristics and develop differentiated marketing campaigns. For women and older adults, event sustainability should be emphasised as a competitive strategy to promote events and attract these audiences. Marketing strategies for younger attendees (under 30 years old) could focus on technology, networking or attractive social programmes. Sustainable venues, catering, conference materials and accommodations are easier to promote. Event organisers should encourage participants to make more environmentally friendly decisions regarding more sustainable event transport.

A strategy based on promoting the event as contributing to sustainable development could educate attendees and put them on the path to developing stronger positive attitudes regarding sustainability and more sustainable behaviours. Sustainable academic conferences can educate students, organisers, service providers and delegates through their involvement in sustainable practices.

To our best knowledge, this research is the first to assess whether sociodemographic variables explain significant differences in attitudes towards the sustainable transformation of academic conferences.

Until the end of 1997, governmental accounting in Portugal was characterised as essentially cash-based budgetary accounting, using singleentry as the bookkeeping method. The only compulsory accounting system was Budgetary Accounting. As many countries all over the world, nowadays Portugal is implementing a reform of the whole governmental accounting, which has as most important innovations the use of double-entry within a system compulsorily integrating accrual-based Financial and Cost Accounting along with Budgetary Accounting (still essentially cash-based). The main purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the reform and current situation of governmental accounting in Portugal, especially discussing the accrual basis implementation. In particular, it shows that not only governmental accounting reform in Portugal has been going towards international harmonization, but also problems that have arisen are common to others faced by several countries. Perspectives of future evolution are also presented.

The formation of alliances between organisations is increasingly common, allowing firms to discover and ensure competitive advantages. This research paper aims to make a critical analysis of studies to understand the role of communication between partners in the process of strategic alliances.

A systematic literature review was carried out, using the Web of Science database to obtain data, associating the terms “communication” and “strategic alliances”, which resulted in 240 scientific articles (published between 1993 and March 2021). After data treatment using VOSviewer software and reading of the contents, the final sample consisted of 179 articles on the subject in question.

The conceptual limits, exploratory descriptive analysis of the data and content analysis of research methods are presented, with five clusters being identified. The results show growing academic interest in studying communication associated with strategic alliances, and authors’ main interest lies in understanding the critical success factors and the relation between communication and knowledge.

This study corroborates understanding of the future of alliances, assuming that learning is the main objective; trust is the factor determining success or failure; technology is the aggregating tool; culture affects the relation; and communication is not an end but a means to construct consolidated, long-lasting and high-performing strategic alliances.

This study is innovative in strategic alliances area. The research confirms that the main factor in forming alliances, in both emerging and international markets, is the learning intention. This fact reinforces the relevance of the learning made possible by this transfer of know-how through communication. In addition, this study gives critical understanding of how the process of communication between partners in an alliance must be distinct; i.e. it must be flexible enough to adjust to the stage in the alliance’s life cycle.

This chapter examines women’s participation at the Portuguese punk scene, suggesting the use of fanzines as an alternative medium able to spread feminist narratives. Through the words and pictures of the Portuguese punk fanzines – X.cute, Modern Girl, Global Riot, Sisterly, Mulibu and Cuecas Quentes – we highlight the strength of the symbolic resistance of the Portuguese punk women. This approach allows us to show the existence of an imaginary structure of equality within an actual scenario of inequality and reproduction of society’s gendered structure. The theoretical discussion involves themes related to feminism, the punk movement (Guerra, 2013, 2017; Guerra & Silva, 2015; Guerra & Straw, 2017), the riot grrrl scene (McRobbie & Garber; 1987; McRobbie, 2000, 2009), and the universe of alternative media and fanzines (Guerra & Quintela, 2014, 2016; Triggs, 2006; Worley, 2015).

This paper aims to analyze job‐satisfaction differences between employees of the hotel industries of two similar tourist destinations: Andalusia (Spain) and the Algarve (Portugal).

A questionnaire survey was conducted in the two regions. The population for this study comprised employees of any hotel establishment in these regions. The authors have used stratified random sampling based on the number of hotels in each category and the number of hotel beds these represent. A total of 2,064 usable questionnaires from 165 hotels were returned in Andalusia and 461 from 23 hotels in the Algarve.

Findings from this study show an acceptable level of job satisfaction in both regions, although this is higher among the Andalusian workers, not only in terms of the overall score but also for each of the job facet scores considered. In contrast to previous findings, in this study the effect of wage on job satisfaction has been reported as significant in both regions.

The different periods of time in which the fieldwork was done may have caused some distortions in the perception of working conditions in each region. Besides this, some departments may not be sufficiently represented.

This paper encourages hotel managers to focus their attention on their remuneration systems, promotion possibilities and the perception of their profession's prestige in order to improve staff satisfaction. Particularly in Andalusia, it would be advantageous to develop retention strategies for talented people. In the Algarve region, more training and an improved recognition system are needed.

Although job satisfaction is an employee attitude that has been studied extensively, there have been few studies on that topic in the tourism sector in Spain, and even fewer in Portugal. Moreover, whereas prior work has mainly focused on small samples – a limited number of hotels surveyed in some specific area – in this study two important tourist regions using a wide sample, and taking all hotel categories into consideration are compared.

The purpose of this paper is to test a model of the effects of intragroup conflict (relationship conflict, task conflict and process conflict), past performance feedback and perceptions of team decision‐making effectiveness on team performance and affective responses.

A sample of 183 individuals, working in 47 different teams, participated in this study. All the teams were involved in a national management challenge for a five‐week period. Three questionnaires were sent directly to team members by e‐mail at different times of the challenge period to collect data concerning demographic data (questionnaire 1), perceptions of team functioning (questionnaire 2) and perceptions of team decision‐making effectiveness as well as the affective responses (questionnaire 3). The level of analysis in this study was the group. Thus, all individual survey responses were aggregated to the team level for statistical analysis.

Results showed a full mediation effect of perceptions of team decision in the relationship between process conflict and team performance. Task and relationship conflict showed no significant relationships with team performance and satisfaction with the team. The result that effective past performance feedback directly influences team performance, in a positive way, suggests that past effective decisions may reinforce the decision‐making processes previously used by team members.

One possible limitation of this study is the fact that measurements were taken at different times of the management challenge. In fact, while intragroup conflict was measured two weeks after the beginning of the challenge, the other variables were measured at the end of the challenge. This time measurement difference could raise some questions concerning the stability of the intragroup conflict over time in work teams. Future research should address this hypothesis. Future research should also elucidate the influence of contextual variables, such as cultural values, on the relationship between intragroup conflict and performance outcomes.

This study helps managers to understand how to benefit from conflict. In a highly competitive environment, disagreement among team members about “how to do it” seems to decrease decision‐making effectiveness.

This study fills a gap in the conflict literature concerning the impact of intragroup conflict in the team members' perceptions of decision‐making effectiveness and how it affects the overall performance. Moreover, this study also clarifies the importance of past performance to the actual team outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the user's assessment of the level of quality of the library services of the Portuguese University of Trás‐os‐Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) in order to identify its potential improvement.

Following a literature review on library service quality assessment focusing on the ServQual, Lib Qual, or Biqual conceptual tools, a survey was designed and applied to a sample of the UTAD library's users, and then subjected to statistical analysis.

The literature review on library quality service assessment points out an array of dimensions that must be taken into account. The conceptual tools recently developed for that assessment showed that the services provided by the UTAD library needed to be redefined in order to enhance its user's autonomy. The results of the survey follow the findings of the literature review and, in particular, show that for the UTAD case study: gender is an important variable to take into account; the access to new technologies and to its convenient use is of the outmost importance; and face to face relation between users and service providers must be deepened.

The data survey clearly indicates the areas in which UTAD library has to direct its efforts in order to improve the quality of its services and meet users' expectations.

The results opened up the way to future comparative investigations with other services provided by other university libraries.

This research article addresses the role of processes of normative regulation, driven by distinct approaches to collective action and underlying narratives of social change, in the construction of “solidarity economy” initiatives as parallel spatialities to that of the mainstream economy.

This article is based on a comparative case study analysis, informed by aspects of the Grounded Theory and Extended Case Study methods, of an ecovillage, an alternative commercialization network and an “integral cooperative”. The analysis is illustrated with fieldwork data on food production, commercialization and consumption, given its centrality in the construction of human livelihoods and lifeworld.

The resulting conceptual framework identifies three methodologies of normative regulation: Prefigurative social technologies and capitalizing upon power and reputation to exert influence over other economic actors; being part of a wider class-based emancipatory political project; mobilizing online peer-to-peer platforms and community currencies to construct an alternative institutionality.

This article constitutes an exploratory analysis. Further research, based on the application of mixed methodologies to larger samples, will further expand the setup and applicability of these concepts.

This analysis will allow scholars and practitioners alike to gain a deeper understanding of how different approaches to collective action, based on distinct structural standpoints and narratives of change, constitute alternative economic spatialities to those of the mainstream economy.

The comparative approach used in this article, as well as the resulting concepts, have the potential of contributing to the convergence of “solidarity economy” strategies between initiatives and movements with different approaches to collective action, therefore contributing to improve their capacity to exercise influence upon incumbent institutional regimes, as well as promote socio-economic change.

This article aims to bridge a significant gap in the understanding of how “solidarity economy”-based parallel spatialities emerge and coexist with the mainstream economy: It analyses how processes of normative regulation result from narratives of change with distinct approaches to collective action, based on the standpoint of actors located differently within structural power relations.