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This conceptual paper examines and evaluates patronage and clientage as a system of interrelated dyadic exchanges between unequals through which goods and services circulate, flowing both up and down through stratified societies. The parties involved may be in different places socially and geographically.

Data are presented for Brazil from the period of the Old Republic beginning in the 1890s, through the end of the Military Dictatorship in mid-1980s, and finally to the present, ending with today’s conditional cash transfer programs. The data are examined against the background of a 15th century book, O Livro da Virtuosa Bemfeituria (The Book of the Virtuous Benefits), written by a Portuguese Prince influential in the expansion and discoveries as a guide for princes and great lords that is used in the paper very much in the way that Adam Smith’s writings are used for most economic behavior today.

There are striking parallels over this long historical period in the behaviors referred to as patronage and clientage that may be conceptualized as an older (traditional) way of ordering the flow of goods and services (distributing them), alternative and parallel to market mechanisms that have, and continue to operate in Brazilian society.

Patronage and clientage are often-misunderstood behaviors, sometimes referred to as corrupt, that alternatively may be explained and understood as part of a still viable and operational socio-cultural system that goes back to a period before the colonization of Brazil.

The aim of this paper is to analyze relationships of cooperation and conflict between a mining company and the involved communities, focusing on the presence of the mining company (MSX) in Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico.

The paper focuses on the co‐operation and conflict between firms, communities, new social movements and the role of government.

The presence of the mining company has caused a severe social conflict among the inhabitants of San Pedro, Soledad y San Luis, alerting all who are concerned with historic heritage, cultural and environmental issues. At the center of the controversy is the cheap and efficient technology. Federal and state laws were violated. It is quite evident that there was a lack of sensitivity of foreign mining companies toward the consequences of their activities upon the communities and environment. This case also shows the lack of negotiation between firms, communities, new social movements and governments. Information about externalities and future costs of company activities is crucial but more crucial is formulation and implementation of more sensitive policies to avoid damage to the environment, biodiversity and health of the population. Governmental institutions must be aware that their decisions may affect the quality of life of present and future generations for the sake of a small increment in economic growth and large increase in private benefits of a small group of investors. More informed citizens tend to be more active protestors, such as the case of the students in San Luis. Contact between informed individuals of diverse groups and organizations helps to exchange experiences and create public opinion in favor of mobilization. Community participation and involvement in decision‐making of community development planning is quite limited by the lack of critical information. This fact is critical when the local government cannot provide the right information because there are other interests affecting the process.

The paper highlights the lack of sensitivity of foreign mining companies towards local communities.

Lean healthcare (LHC) applies lean philosophy in the healthcare sector to promote a culture of continuous improvement through the elimination of non-value-added activities. Studies on the subject can be classified as conceptual (theoretical) or analytical (applied). Therefore, this research compares bibliometric indicators between conceptual and analytical articles on LHC.

For data collection, the PRISMA Protocol was employed, and 488 articles published from 2009 to 2021, indexed in the Scopus and WoS databases, were retrieved.

This study reveals how conceptual and analytical LHC studies are organized in terms of the most relevant journals, articles, institutions, countries, the total number of citations, collaboration networks (co-authorship, international collaboration network and institutional collaboration network) and main co-words.

Only four papers conducting bibliometric analysis on LHC studies were identified in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. In addition, none of these papers compared conceptual and analytical bibliometric indicators to reveal the evolution, organization and trends of each category. Therefore, this work is not only the first to make this comparison but also the first to analyze the collaboration between authors, institutions and countries in relation to studies on LHC. The analyses performed in this work allow one new possible understanding, by researchers and health professionals, of the literature behavior in this field of study.

The purpose of this paper is three-fold. The first objective is to contextualize and clarify the concepts of regional innovation systems and entrepreneurship, addressing their differences and complementarities and suggesting an analytical filter to enhance their understanding. The second aim is to question and analyse the challenges this renewed approach brings to the domain of territorial policy, namely, the role it may bring to local and regional development strategies, opening up the way for a set of public policy interventions on the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation promotion. Finally, the paper presents and analyses the example of Coimbra, a medium-sized city in Portugal, underlining both the role of academia and the Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator have had on these domains.

The paper is based on a case study approach, with an in-depth descriptive and exploratory analysis of the Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The paper acknowledged the role entrepreneurial stakeholders have on the fertilization of the innovation and entrepreneurial Coimbra ecosystem. The Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator, with a new generation of startups, mostly born on its infrastructure as university spin-offs, gradually introduced a more business-oriented perspective on the local innovation system which, alongside the creation of a thicker networking and more profound cooperation culture, with the growing involvement of other local stakeholders such as science parks (Coimbra iParque), has had a decisive role on upgrading urban competitiveness. These new knowledge-based startups also have important spill-over effects that are beneficial to the growth of other firms in the same locality. There is evidence that they also provide an important Schumpeterian stimulus within economies by increasing competition, promoting innovation and augmenting the efficient allocation of resources within economies. Besides the more traditional transactional forms of support (tax incentives, grants, etc.), there is now the recognition that relational forms of support such as network building, developing connections between entrepreneurial actors, institutional alignment of priorities, fostering peer-based interactions have been strategic to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

There is, thus, a need for more profound theorization and empirical research that can produce additional comprehension into this domain of the cause-effect relationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and local and regional dynamics. Some authors suggest, in particular, that the existing work on entrepreneurial ecosystems within popular business literature and academic research still has a deficit of a solid theoretical foundation, making the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach somehow both ambiguous and immature concept and, thus, reducing its generalizability and policy applicability. Research that evaluates the relationship between entrepreneurial performance and the level of government participation as part of governance systems will also be of great significance over the near future as it will help researchers and policymakers to realize better where the different stakeholders can enhance entrepreneurship and where their intervention will possibly diminish positive outcomes.

The main practical implications of this paper are associated with the need that urban and regional policymakers to formulate more business-led strategies to promote territorial innovation and entrepreneurship. The paper also offers conceptual tools that point out the need that innovation stakeholders, namely, universities, incubators and firms, have to assume more protagonism in promoting competitiveness and sustainability.

The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach constitutes both a theoretical and analytical useful tool to define competitive strategies for urban and regional economies. Urban and regional-innovation ecosystem construction is a representative method of realizing territorial development and competition enhancement, through sustainable job and wealth creation.

This paper analysis summarizes and integrates the increasing and scattered literature of both the regional innovation systems and of the entrepreneurial ecosystems and delivers new insights for the future development of this field, namely, in terms of renewal of policy formulation and implementation. The singularity of the case study is associated with the fact that Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem is still largely embryonic, having its roots on a paradigm strategic shift the University adopted towards a more proactive role in terms of city aand regional development.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study regarding the deployment of a previously developed model for the integration of management systems (MSs). The case study is developed at a manufacturing site of an international enterprise. The implementation of this model in a real business environment is aimed at assessing its feasibility.

The presented case study takes into account different management systems standards (MSSs) progressively implemented, along the years, independently. The implementation of the model was supported by the results obtained from an investigation performed according to a structured diagnosis that was conducted to collect information related to the organizational situation of the enterprise.

The main findings are as follows: a robust integrated management system (IMS), objectively more lean, structured and manageable was found to be feasible; this study provided an holistic view of the enterprise’s global management; clarifications of job descriptions and boundaries of action and responsibilities were achieved; greater efficiency in the use of resources was attained; more coordinated management of the three pillars of sustainability – environmental, economic and social, as well as risks, providing confidence and added value to the company and interested parties was achieved.

This case study is pioneering in Portugal in respect to the implementation, at the level of an industrial organization, of the model previously developed for the integration of individualized MSs. The case study provides new insights regarding the implementation of IMSs including the rationalization of several resources and elimination of several types of organizational waste leveraging gains of efficiency. Due to its intrinsic characteristics, the model is able to support, progressively, new or revised MSSs according to the principles of annex SL (normative) – proposals for MSSs – of the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, that the industrial organization can adopt beyond the current ones.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize three-dimensional (3D) printing filaments commonly used in fused deposition modeling (FDM) to determine their viability for restoration and conservation treatments.

Eight current filaments for FDM from six polymeric materials have been characterized to determine their suitability for restoration and conservation treatments. For testing these filaments, specimens are printed with acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene; polylactic acid; polylactic acid with CaCO3 (E.P.); polyethylene terephthalate glycol; polypropylene; and high-impact polystyrene. Suitability of a filament was verified using the Oddy test by detecting the action of volatile pollutants released from the filaments. The morphological and color changes were observed after allowing them to degrade under the exposure of UV radiation. The samples were then analyzed using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. In addition, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy technique was applied to complete the characterization of the printed filaments.

Materials investigated are suitable for restoration purposes ensuring long-term stability. Rapid prototyping using FDM is appropriate for restoring sensitive archaeological objects allowing reconstruction of parts and decreasing risk while manipulating delicate artifacts.

Rapid prototyping using FDM was chosen for the restoration of a fragile and sensitive archaeological glass bowl from Manises Ceramic Museum.

This research aims to identify the optimal configuration of investment which leads firms to their best competitive positions, considering the degree of concentration in the market.

The methodology was quantitative and based on secondary data with samples of 124, 106 and 90 firms from competitive environment classified as perfect competition, monopolistic competition and oligopoly, respectively. Proposed models' parameters were estimated by means of genetic algorithms.

Adjustments on firm's investment are contingent on the degree of competition they face. Results are in line with existing academic research affirmation that the purpose of investments is to create and exploit opportunities for positive economic rents and that investments allow firms to protect from rivals' competitive actions and reinforce the need for investment decision makers to consider the environment in which the firm is competing, when defining the amount of investment that must be done to achieve and maintain a favorable competitive advantage position.

This research brings two main original contributions. The first one is the identification of the optimal amount of capital and R&D investments which leads firms to their best competitive positions, contingent to the degree of concentration of the competitive environment in which they operate, and the size of the firm. The second one is related to the use of genetic algorithms to estimate optimization models that considers the three competitive environments studied (perfect competition, monopolistic competition and oligopoly) and the investment variables in the linear and quadratic forms.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of light intensity and sources of carbon and nitrogen on the cultivation of Spirulina maxima.

Cultures were carried out in a modified Zarrouk medium using urea, sodium acetate and glycerol. A Taguchi experimental design was used to evaluate the effect on the production of biocompounds: productivities in biomass, carbohydrates, phycocyanin and biochar were analyzed.

Statistical data analysis revealed that light intensity and sodium acetate concentration were the most important factors, being significant in three of the four response variables studied. The highest productivities in biomass (46.94 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹), carbohydrates (6.11 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹), phycocyanin (3.62 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹) and biochar (22, 48 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹) were achieved in experiment 4 of the Taguchi matrix, highlighting as the ideal condition for the production of biomass, carbohydrates and phycocyanin.

Sodium acetate and urea can be considered, respectively, as potential sources of carbon and nitrogen to increase Spirulina maxima productivity. From the results, an optimized cultivation condition for the sustainable production of bioproducts was obtained.

This work focuses on the study of the influence of light intensity and the use of alternative sources of nitrogen and carbon on the growth of Spirulina maxima, as well as on the influence on the productivity of biomass and biocompounds. There are few studies in the literature focused on the phycocyanin production from microalgae, justifying the need to deepen the subject.

This paper aims to present a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate how supply chain risk management (SCRM) is applied to the healthcare supply chains and which improvement opportunities are being missed in this segment.

This SLR used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method to answer three research questions: (1) Which are the main gaps concerning healthcare supply chain risk management (HCSCRM)? (2) What is the definition of HCSCRM? and (3) What are the risk management techniques and approaches used in healthcare supply chains?

The authors present a complete summary of the HCSCRM body of research, investigating research strings like clinical engineering and high reliability organizations (HROs) and its relations with HCSCRM; (1) This research revealed the five pillars of HCSCRM; (2) The authors proposed a formal definition for HCSCRM considering all the literature blocks explored and (3) The authors generated a list of risks present in healthcare supply chains resulting from extensive article research.

The authors only reviewed international journal articles (published in the English language), excluding conference papers, dissertations and theses, textbooks, book chapters, unpublished articles and notes. In addition, the study did not thoroughly investigate specific countries' particularities concerning how the healthcare providers are organized.

The contribution of this article is threefold: (1) To the best of authors knowledge, there is no other SLR about HCSCRM published in the scientific literature by the time of realization of authors’ work, suggesting that is the first effort to fulfill this research gap; (2) Following the previous contribution, in this work the authors propose a first formal definition for HCSCRM and (3) The authors analyzed concepts such as clinical engineering and HROs to establish the building blocks of HCSCRM.