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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of SERVQUAL to assess service quality in Dentistry, by evaluating patients’ expectations and perceptions of dental care and their association to patients’ sociodemographic data.

The sample constituted of 379 subjects in the first assessment and 155 in the second phase. All employees of the companies that were clients of the dental insurance participated, a total of four companies in two states (São Paulo and Minas Gerais) of Brazil. SERVQUAL questionnaires about expectations and sociodemographic data were dispatched in the first phase, and in a second phase SERVQUAL questionnaires about perceptions. Those who had not yet received dental treatment and had agreed to participate filled out their survey in the first phase. In the second phase, the respondents had to have completed their treatment.

When the value gap is considered, Reliability (as a dimension) had the smallest score (−3.71). This means that it was the worst result, i.e. there is a higher difference between expectations and perceptions, and problems can be identified here. t-test confirmed that all the dimensions had some statistically significant difference with p<0.05 in relation to expectations and perceptions. Women presented higher prevalence of dissatisfaction (Tangible and Reliability dimensions), as well as the oldest participants (Empathy dimension) and those with lower parental literacy (Assurance and Empathy dimensions). The only dimension that was not significantly associated was Responsiveness.

This research suggests that the patients evaluated the physical characteristics of the premises and the interaction with the staff as the priority issues that need special attention in this service. Moreover, the use of SERVQUAL was extremely relevant for the oral health service, because it assessed the users’ subjective perceptions.

In Latin America, technology has been advancing faster than society is able to adjust to it on its own. Thus, information and communication professionals should merge their efforts to research and discuss the relevant role they play in the society transformed by technology.

This paper presents and discusses the initiatives that the Brazilian government and stakeholder institutions are developing in regards to ICT and memory and heritage preservation.

The international relevance of describing the Brazilian initiative of ruling the internet in a non-restrictive way shows the trend the country has adopted.

In the current context of development of the Information Society and expansion of cultural economy and digital culture in Brazil, it is imperative to define public policies for digitizing Brazilian memory and heritage collections. Such a national policy involving the three levels of the Federation as well as private institutions committed to the custody of cultural collections, should play an essential role in guiding the efforts to digital reproduction of collections and their publication on the internet.

Brazil is the first country in the world to rule the use of internet openly, in a non-restrictive way, through the Marco Civil da Internet. Since 2007, an academic initiative named Memory Network has been working to promote the digitization and access to Brazilian collections of memory and heritage.

The study aims to investigate how the action research contributes to the collective construction of a discipline in management. This issue was the motivation for the present study, which was developed from the experience of master's degree students attending the post-graduate program in management of an institution in the State of Bahia, Brazil.

The overall objective of this study is to understand the method's effectiveness for this aim, whereas the specific objectives are to identify the commitment of the subjects in the activities proposed and to assess the effectiveness of the use of active methods in the discipline construction. The theoretical background is regarding digital education transformation, active teaching methods and action research. As for the qualitative perspective, the methodological approach of choice was that of participant observation (for data collection) and content analysis.

It was possible to highlight the awakening of critical sense and the effectiveness of action research in enhancing the protagonism of the master's degree students in the construction of their own knowledge.

This study not only contributes to the field of applied social sciences but also opens a precedent for the experience of collective construction of a discipline in another area of knowledge by means of action research. Another factor demonstrating the relevance of this study is the production of essays and articles by master's degree students in which active methodologies were related to themes of interest.

This study aims to expose the main knowledge management (KM) practices applied in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) industries using scientific literature published in the Scopus database from 2001 to 2010.

A search was performed in papers selected from the Scopus database, which houses the KM practices of industries in BRIC countries.

The results show that Brazil, Russia and India have an easier way of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge compared to China, where informal relationships of trust and friendship play a special role within organizations, as well as where the political structure (communism) is an intervening factor. Brazil, Russia and India practice similar KM mechanisms such as the use of technology, process standardization and electronic data management. They also model the positive experiences of western companies. In China, interpersonal relationships shape the tacit and explicit features of organizations.

The methodological filter could potentially limit the volume of responses, as not every case study can demonstrate the usual practices of KM. Empirical studies are able to capture the nuances and even provide a holistic picture of these practices.

The results have practical implication, in particular. They are expected to help managers and workers to better comprehend KM practices in BRIC countries or even suggest new KM practices in the business.

The main discussion of this paper brings together a large range of KM practices applied in BRIC, addressing similarities and differences between KM deployments.