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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the determinants of per capita expenditures with disaggregate food away from home (FAFH) including variables such as family structure.

The authors estimated a system of expenditure equations (SUR method) with data from the latest Consumer Expenditure Survey of 2008–2009 – (or Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares – POF), considering the complex sample design in estimation procedures.

The authors found a positive relationship between woman’s opportunity cost of time and FAFH spending only when the authors considered the effects of wife’s education in higher income class. Hiring domestic help diminishes FAFH spending, mostly for lunch and dinner time meals. The presence of children in the household decreases the consumption of most FAFH categories.

Even though, Brazilian FAFH consumption has been increasing, the presence of women in the labor market seems to play a small role in the determining this type of food consumption. Family structure plays an important role in determining FAFH.

The contribution of the paper is to estimate FAFH expenditures at the disaggregate level and by income class for Brazil. The authors also included alternative family structure specifications as determinants in the model. The authors considered the sample design characteristics in estimation.

The second decade of the twenty-first century finds Brazil racked by a series of scandals that are extreme even by world standards. This chapter presents an explanation for one of the behaviors that have produced these scandals. Specifically, it is the offering of bribes to public officials by individuals or companies that stand to benefit from contracts to perform public services and, furthermore, the paying of kickbacks to the officials if the contract is awarded. I liken this behavior to the making of vows to the saints in the “popular” or “folk” form of Catholicism – and other popular religions that accept its basic premises – and the fulfillment of the promise if and when the otherworldly being provides what the petitioner requested. Part 1 of the chapter examines an election for mayor of the city of Fortaleza in 2012 in which the office was “bought” for what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of money. I hypothesize that this is to be explained by the anticipation of the city receiving government contracts to build a soccer stadium, a rail system, and other projects related to the 2014 World Cup. In Part 2, I examine Brazil’s religions beginning with popular Catholicism, to show that the normative way of gaining something desired from a supernatural – be it the restoration of health or the recovery of a lost item – is to offer it something it values and then fulfilling the promise if and when the petitioner receives what was requested. I contend that this important religious pattern continues to provide the template for the secular behavior that is being judged to be corrupt by standards other than those found in the religiously based worldview of many Brazilians.

The paper is the story of the marginalization of the concept of networks of dyadic exchanges or patronage and clientage by Brazilian intellectuals and Brazilianist academics. I contend that though it is a pervasive pattern in the culture of the nation, Brazilian intellectuals wrote about patronage/clientage as an aspect of politics that is responsible for the country's backwardness and underdevelopment. Anthropologists, for the most part, judged it to be exploitative of the people involved and believed that it should be eliminated. The Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT), as it implemented a highly commended conditional cash transfer program to help the poor, attempted to replace it with an alternative way they believed electoral politics ought to be conducted. I suggest that the pattern continues to be more than exchanges between political office seekers and voters in Brazil as it transcends the political, economic, and religious categories of modernity and may provide the most needy with what the labor market does not.

This chapter examines the economics of alternative healing in Brazil.

Two narratives are selected from extensive observations and interviews over a period of years. The presentation chronicles the accounts of people experiencing physical symptoms who sought further advice from friends and relatives after visits to conventional medical providers failed to cure them.

In response to a recommendation from one of those consulted, one person went to a spirit “received” by a Kardecist/Spiritist healer-medium while the other obtained treatment from an otherworldly being at an Umbanda center. The respective “therapeutic” procedures are described and analyzed in terms of the beliefs and the worldviews of each of the traditions. If satisfied with the outcome, the patient fulfills an implicit bargain with the otherworldly being(s) and its religious group by adopting their beliefs and practices. This conversion is “payment” for the healing services rendered.

Since some treatments are successful and others are not, the implications of this exchange is that many Brazilians may change their religions several times during their lifespan. As a result of this behavior individuals circulate among the several religious groups that are always in competition with each other.

The analysis provides a distinctive insight into, and original way to understand, alternative health care in Brazil.

Information on scales for measuring dimensions related to consumer concerns over production processes is scarce in the literature. The purpose of this study was to develop a more comprehensive scale for measuring concern over the production process (CPP).

The authors derive the concept based on the results of a bibliographic review, existing certification criteria, an interview with five experts and two consumer focus groups. The authors interviewed 725 frequent beef meat consumers to test the scale.

Statistical tests and purification yielded a final scale with 18 items and six latent variables: animal welfare, traceability, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, legality and sanitation in slaughterhouses. The authors confirmed the nomological validity of the instrument using product involvement as an antecedent construct and attitude related to sustainable consumption as a consequent of CPP.

The research results may lack generalisability. New research avenues are suggested for testing the scale in other cultural contexts and with different groups of consumers and food types.

This study provides insights for cattle ranchers, the industry and the retail sector in formulating communication strategies and product/brand positioning in response to consumer concerns about the production process.

There is no study at present that fully addresses the use of a scale to measure dimensions of production processes. The creation of the CPP scale is a relevant academic contribution that aids in assessing the influence of the environmental dimension in conjunction with other essential constructs.

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between collaborative innovation and the financial performance of information technology (IT) firms through the mediating role of strategic agility and absorptive capacity. Customer knowledge management capability (CKMC) is also explored as a potential moderator.

Data were collected from 300 respondents working in different small to medium IT enterprises operating in different cities around Portugal. The simple random sampling method was used for data collection, and Smart partial least squares-structural equation modeling (Smart PLS-SEM version 3.2.8) was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings demonstrate that collaborative innovation contributes significantly to the financial performance of IT firms in Portugal. The results also indicate that absorptive capacity and strategic agility both positively and significantly affect the relationship between collaborative innovation and firms’ financial performance. However, while the moderating role of CKMC has a positive and significant effect on the relation between collaborative innovation and strategic agility, CKMC insignificantly moderates the relation between collaborative innovation and absorptive capacity.

Few studies have explicitly connected collaborative innovation with firms’ financial performance; this study attempts to fill that gap. Moreover, this research investigates the mediating role of strategic agility and absorptive capacity in the relationship between collaborative innovation and financial performance. Finally, by discussing the moderating effect of CKMC, which leads to enhanced financial performance, this study proposes that when complex and unpredictable situations occur, managers should focus on customer-oriented strategies and innovation at the same time to outpace their competitors.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic generated a worldwide financial crisis by impacting several links of the supply chain, however companies can take advantage by quantitatively measuring the disruptive impacts.

This study sought to develop the failure mode and effect analysis and supply chain resilience (FMEA-SCR), a hybrid tool developed using a potential failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) applied to supply chain resilience (SCR) and taking into account the capability factors and business processes.

In order to validate, the proposed model was applied into two different organizational study cases: an university and a cooperative managing urban solid wastes with recyclable potential (MSWRP). Through the procedures described here any organization can understand and assess in a simplified way the impacts over their supply chain generated by such a crisis.

This study synthesizes three different procedures into a single method called FMEA-SCR, allowing organizations to understand and assess in a simplified way, the impacts over their supply chain generated by COVID-19. To this end, it brought together the studies developed by Rajesh and Ravi (2015) and Curkovic et al. (2015), on possible causes of disruptions in SC, the capability factors of Pettit et al. (2010) used by organizations to mitigate the effects of disruptions, besides Lambert's and Croxton (2005) business processes, thus weaving a method that allows organizations to visualize, analyze and classify the pandemic impacts over their supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insights about service branding from higher education administrators (HEAs) perspectives and to identify the main factors involved in their strategic thinking in this sector.

Adopting a qualitative approach, 22 in-depth interviews were performed in Brazilian HEAs to analyze service branding as a strategic institutional process in this context.

Findings reveal that service branding depends on several factors, e.g., in this case, deep integration between branding and services, leadership involvement, strong value propositions, sharing of strategic guidelines, branding experiences and, finally, credibility and reputation. Excellence of service is considered essential in higher education (HE) and, therefore, service branding faces the challenge of promoting the provision of quality services.

Although there have been many studies relating to HE and branding, few authors have studied service branding in educational sector and which issues must be observed in a competitive marketplace.

This chapter presents a discussion on the development of the Brazilian education system. In the introduction, we resume the local and regional contexts and their relation to the global scenario using a historical-temporal perspective, focusing on the peculiarities of our political and democratic profile, Brazilian educational public policies, economy and social system. We descriptively reconstructed the beginnings of formal education: missionary and colonial education, independence and post-independence expansion. We point out the objectives of education, its organization, administration, structure, operation and its interfaces with the policies on curriculum, evaluation and funding. The discussion of these policies shows their impacts on the education of teachers and students, as well as the relation between education and work in the context of an approach of cycles and the neoliberal perspective. Beyond this, under the perspective of contextual influences, we have identified and described how OECD contributed to incorporate the analysis of comparative development indexes through which it is possible to re-discuss education quality, equity and other aspects. The understanding of all concepts used was broadened by a reformulation, not only due to the effects of the pandemic but also by a profound political and economic crisis that points toward an unprecedented historic setback in the democratic context.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the microfoundations of student entrepreneurship, a cornerstone of innovation ecosystems. To this end, this paper assesses how perceived university support for entrepreneurship influences entrepreneurial characteristics and intentions in students enrolled at Amazonas and São Paulo State Universities.

A quantitative approach based on multivariate data analysis using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was applied to a sample of 420 respondents.

Results indicate that the university environment positively influences entrepreneurial behavior and intention in students. Nonetheless, further integration between academia and external dimensions of the ecosystems is necessary to drive more intense entrepreneurial activity in students. The educational contexts of Amazonas and São Paulo present significant differences in the relationship between entrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurial intention with a stronger influence found for Amazonas. This finding suggests a relative lack of propensity of students from São Paulo to engage in entrepreneurial venturing.

The main limitations involve the use of non-probabilistic sampling procedures and students’ heterogeneity in terms of academic seniority.

This research offers guidance for policies targeting the generation of entrepreneurial activity in universities embedded in developing countries’ innovation ecosystems and facing distinct levels of socioeconomic development.

This research presents a novel analysis of the microfoundations driving student entrepreneurship within different educational contexts in a developing country. Results highlight the necessary conditions for universities to foster entrepreneurial activity and, incidentally, feed innovation ecosystems with entrepreneurial talent.