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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of public employment services (PES) on transitions from unemployment.

The likelihood of exit from unemployment is explained by a multinomial logit model which takes into account the target state of the transition (unemployment, employment or inactivity). In order to analyze the unobserved heterogeneity, the model has been estimated using a Generalized Linear Latent and Mixed Models.

The analysis suggests that the contribution of PES to improving labor market outcomes is low in the case of transitions to employment. Nevertheless, PES play an important role in workforce dropout prevention.

The results suggest that redesign and modernization are needed to improve PES performance. More intensive job counselling should be provided so that PES get beyond workforce dropout prevention and start having clear positive effects on placement. Target groups should be defined more clearly so as to ensure sustainable transitions for individuals at risk of exclusion. PES should focus on the most disadvantaged jobseekers and those who need more help to get jobs.

First, the results highlight the role PES play in reducing inactivity rates. Second, this is the first study in Spain that uses Labor Force Survey (LFS) data to evaluate PES in a dynamic framework. The LFS is the only data source which allows us to relate people registered unemployed to people considered unemployed by international standards.

Social entrepreneurship, sustainable development and emerging economies.

Advanced undergraduate students and Graduate students (MBAs).

We present the case of Marli Medeiros, a community leader in the city of Porto Alegre (south of Brazil) who has been working with the local government, local firms and local inhabitants over the last 40 years to build an organization that has been changing the reality of the slum Vila Pinto. The case highlights three main dilemmas faced by Marli Medeiros. Part 1 addresses whether to start a social entrepreneurship project in an environment surrounded by household violence and drug influences. Part 2 examines how to organize a community to develop this social project and challenge the context (local drug dealers). Part 3 considers how to work with different social players to innovate and manage a self-sustained social entrepreneurship that brings social change for an impoverished community.

Understand the five main characteristics required by social entrepreneurs to achieve social change by economic, self-sustained activities: social vision, sustainability guidelines, social networks development, search for innovation and search for financial returns. Understand the social entrepreneurship model from the point of view of a female leader in a local impoverished community. Understand and analyze the social and economic context of an emerging country.

Teaching note.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for better analyzing the utility and impact of new technologies on smart cities. The authors have designed a tool that will evaluate new technologies according to a three-pronged scoring system that considers the impact on physical space, environmental issues and city residents. The purpose of this tool is to be used by city planners as part of a strategic approach to the implementation of a smart city initiative in order to reduce unnecessary public spending and ensure the optimal allocation of city resources.

The information and communication technologies that manage and transform twenty-first century cities must be reviewed, analyzing their impact on new social behaviors that shape the spaces and means of communication, developing a new methodology and setting the basis for an analysis matrix to score the different and technologies that affect a smart city environment.

Traditional technological scenarios have been challenged, and smart cities have become the center of urban competitiveness. A lack of clarity has been detected in the way of describing what smart cities are, and the authors try to establish a methodology for urban policy makers to do so. As a dynamic process that affects several aspects, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed solution further.

After a review of the state-of-the-art, the authors found that there are no existing systems for assessing smart city strategies regarding new, evolving technologies. The methodology attempts to design a simple tool to bring urban developers and policy makers closer to the technology and to have an instrument with which to compare different alternatives before choosing one.

Helped by new technologies, citizens are the ones who have the power to define new urban scenarios. For this reason the methodology the authors propose must have citizens and their needs as the ultimate reference, considering all the social, physical and environmental effects on people before selecting a new technology for urban strategies.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how new technologies could affect urban scenarios before being applied, developing an analysis system in the form of a matrix to be used by urban planners and policy makers to decide how best to use them.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the particularities and challenges associated with creating municipal environmental governance institutions in the Peruvian Amazon.

A case‐study approach based on qualitative research, document analysis and interviews is used based on field research between 2007 and 2009.

Findings reveal the limitations of municipal governance institutions to reflect local environmental concerns illustrated by the example of oil exploration. Whereas municipal institutions put in place resulted in environmental plans and policies, they failed to effectively address major sustainability concerns within their territorial boundaries. On the one hand, policy ambiguities about the meaning of “local” action reflect longstanding divides between centralised policy making and local agenda setting. On the other hand, findings point to the flexibility of local environmental processes easily neglecting core environmental problems.

The conclusions justify reinforcing policy efforts to strengthen the mandate and competencies of municipalities on broader environmental matters. They also reinforce the need for more locally responsive and socially inclusive environmental agenda setting.

The study sheds light on poorly described environmental governance aspects from an area of global significance. Amazonian affairs are emblematic for environmental conflicts related to deforestation, extractive industries and ecological complexity. Analyzing the importance of municipal processes is critical in this respect.