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The research aims to identify the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site (WHS) managers' perception of cultural sustainability concepts and elements in tourism.

A literature review was carried out to identify the main speeches and characteristic elements of cultural sustainability present in the academic field, and then a quantitative survey was carried out with 60 managers of UNESCO WHSs to evaluate their perception of the theme.

The results show that managers believe that the concept of cultural sustainability is much more closely linked to the social dimension of sustainability than to the economic and environmental dimensions. Thus, elements such as the preservation of tangible and intangible assets, the participation of society in the management of heritage, the democratization of access, the guarantee of the appreciation of culture and its preservation for future generations are basic elements for cultural sustainability. Finally, although they believe that understanding the concept of cultural sustainability is fundamental to their activities, they still lack knowledge of how to measure cultural sustainability in their spaces.

Although the theme of sustainability has several published studies, most of the work focuses only on studies of its social, economic and environmental dimensions. The debates on the role of culture in sustainability are still incipient, and understanding the managers' perception of the topic enables the creation of more effective strategies that guarantee cultural sustainability in heritage by tourism.

This article delves into the contributions of Milton Santos (1926–2001) to the economic study of entrepreneurship. Santos made contributions to spatial economics, urbanization, and planning theories, being an important author to the field of regional and urban economics. His most famous idea is the “two circuits” of the urban economy. According to this approach, the urban economies in peripheral countries create two economic-urban circuits that are both distinct and connected. The superior circuit comes from the technological modernization and cultivates international relationships. High-value goods and networks and new technologies circulate through it. The inferior circuit works outside these networks. It consists of low-dimension activities from local populations. Santos elaborated this theory to understand urbanization in peripheral countries and to give voice to the ones left behind by the development process. He did not write directly on entrepreneurship. We argue, however, that his thoughts can be important to entrepreneurship studies. The entrepreneurship discourse, that had in Schumpeter one of its main sources, assumes that the entrepreneur has traits related to the superior circuit, such as access to resources and networks, which would not be available to entrepreneurs in the inferior circuit. We argue that Santos’ contributions can inform economic thought in entrepreneurship by calling attention to how literature can approach structural problems and contribute to making economics a more diverse discipline.

This study aims to investigate the effect of smoking on the income of workers in the Brazilian labor market.

Using data from the 2019 National Health Survey (PNS), we initially address the sample selection bias concerning labor market participation by using the Heckman (1979) method. Subsequently, the decomposition of income between smokers and nonsmokers is analyzed, both on average and across the earnings distribution by employing the procedure of Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009) - FFL decomposition. Ñopo (2008) technique is also used to obtain more robust estimates.

Overall, the findings indicate an income penalty for smokers in the Brazilian labor market across both the average and all quantiles of the income distribution. Notably, the most significant differentials and income penalties against smokers are observed in the lower quantiles of the distribution. Conversely, in the higher quantiles, there is a tendency toward a smaller magnitude of this gap, with limited evidence of an income penalty associated with this habit.

This study presents an important limitation, which refers to a restriction of the PNS (2019), which does not provide information about some subjective factors that also tend to influence the levels of labor income, such as the level of effort and specific ability of each worker, whether smokers or not, something that could also, in some way, be related to some latent individual predisposition that would influence the choice of smoking.

The relevance of the present study is clear in identifying the heterogeneity of the income gap in favor of nonsmokers, as in the lower quantiles there was a greater magnitude of differentials against smokers and a greater incidence of unexplained penalties in the income of these workers, while in the higher quantiles, there was low magnitude of the differentials and little evidence that there is a penalty in earnings since the worker is a smoker.

This research has the following specific objectives: provide an overview of the literature addressing operational excellence (OE) and OE in emerging countries; propose an integrative framework of OE attributes; and propose future research directions for the OE literature.

To remain competitive in industry, many organizations are implementing OE initiatives. However, achieving OE in emerging markets has been a pressing challenge due to the scarce knowledge on how it works. Through a systematic review of the literature, this study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept of OE in emerging countries through the triple bottom line.

This study has found nine attributes of OE based on the three pillars of sustainability or triple bottom line (economic, environmental and social). Four of them were the most cited and served to build the proposed framework. The analysis concludes that most of the studies related to OE in emerging countries have been carried out in Asia. Finally, based on the results obtained from the literature review, six points of future research are proposed based on three research directions: OE in emerging countries, active participation by employees and culture generation and finally, research methods.

The gap that is filled in this study is that some authors have studied the application of OE in emerging countries, specifically on the Asian continent. In those cases, the literature is either oriented to describing OE from different perspectives or to its application in different companies, some of which are emerging countries. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no study that describes the specific and complete aspects that make up a model of OE and which can show how this model can be applied in emerging countries.

We study the potential effects of pension underfunding on corporate investment, financial constraints and improved employee bonding using 10 Pacific-Basin countries (including the United States, Australia, and eight Asian countries) at heterogeneous economic development stages and different regulatory environments. We document that corporate pensions are significantly underfunded in most countries of our sample in the period of 2001–2017, when interest rates were ultralow in most countries. In addition, firms from countries with stronger employee protection and more generous retirement benefits tend to show higher levels of underfunding in their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. To the extent of pension underfunding imposing constraints on corporate investment, we find that firms in these countries can face more constraints on investment when their pension is underfunded.

This paper aims to analyze what Samarco and Brazilian magazines speak and say about Mariana’s environmental crime. Discover their doxa in this subject. Interpret the speakings, sayings and doxas through the theories of the treadmills of production, crime and law.

It is a qualitative and documental research and a narrative analysis. Regarding the documents: 45 were from public authorities, 14 from Samarco Mineração S.A. and 73 from Brazilian magazines. Theoretically, the authors resorted to Bourdieusian sociology (speaking, saying and doxa) and the treadmills of production, crime and law theories.

Samarco: speaking – mission statements; saying – detailed information and economic and financial concerns; doxa – assistance discourse. Brazilian magazines: speaking – external agents; saying – agreements; doxa – attribution, aggravations, historical facts, impacts and protests.

The absence of discussions that addressed this fatality, with its respective consequences, from an agenda that exposed and denounced how it exacerbated race, class and gender inequalities.

Regarding Mariana’s environmental crime: Samarco Mineração S.A. speaks and says through the treadmill of production theory and supports its doxa through the treadmill of crime theory, and Brazilian magazines speak and say through the treadmill of law theory and support their doxa through the treadmill of crime theory.

To provoke reflections on the relationship between the mining companies and the communities where they settle to develop their productive activities.

Concerning environmental crime in perspective, submit it to a theoretical interpretation based on sociological references, approach it in a debate linked to environmental criminology, and describe it through narratives exposed by the guilty company and by Brazilian magazines with high circulation.

The proposal takes as a reference of the post-pandemic context corresponding to Cuba, likewise, it includes experiences from Peru and Argentina, mainly in the field of education. In the epistemic order, enclaves of the theory of culture in its humanist aspect corresponding to cultural identity were adopted. Methodologically, we adhere to the critical interpretative paradigm, integrating results of the authors’ social practice and critical review of sources, mainly contributions from critical theory. The exposed analyses contribute to base theoretical-methodological criteria aimed at reducing gender and racial gaps, and other inequalities determined by conditions that historically become inequities in access to development. Political theoretical criteria are proposed for the implementation of inclusive public policies in the area of education and productive activity, overcoming gender, and racial gaps in the post-pandemic context. As a result, it contributes to promoting the overcoming of the effects of racism and sexism in the pandemic context as well as enabling the development of cultural identity from actions aimed at the cultural integration of identity expressions neglected due to racial and gender conditions. As a result, it contributes to promote the overcoming of the effects of racism and sexism in the pandemic context; as well as to enable the development of cultural identity from actions aimed at the cultural integration of identity expressions neglected due to racial and gender conditions.

Our study aims to evaluate the impact of infrastructure and public investment on private investment in machinery and equipment in Brazil from 1947 to 2017. The contribution of our article to the existing literature lies in providing a more comprehensive understanding of the presence or absence of the crowding effect in the Brazilian economy by leveraging an extensive historical database. Our central argument posits that the recent decline in private capital accumulation over the last few decades can be attributed to shifts in economic policies – moving from a developmentalist orientation to nondevelopmental guidance since the early 1990s, which is reflected in the diminished levels of public investment and infrastructure since the 1980s.

We conducted a series of econometric regressions utilizing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model as our chosen econometric methodology.

Employing two different variables to measure public investment and infrastructure, our results – robust across various specifications – have substantiated the existence of a crowding-in effect in Brazil over the examined period. Thus, we have empirical evidence indicating that the state has influenced private capital accumulation in the Brazilian economy over the past decades.

Our article contributes to the existing literature by offering a more comprehensive understanding of the crowding effect in the Brazilian economy, utilizing an extensive historical database.

This study aims to evaluate the suitability of emergency remote education (ERE) during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently during the return to in-person education (IPE), investigating aspects of perceived quality differences in these transitions that may have impacted the students’ learning process.

This study applied a 41-item instrument to undergraduate students in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Brazil. For the suitability group, 493 responses were collected, and for the return to IPE group, 187 responses were collected. Three calibration approaches were performed using item response theory, with the first two adjusting data independently, and the third one involving a multigroup estimation.

During ERE, students perceived an increase in course offerings, better organization of classes and more study materials. However, the larger volume of content posed challenges in class monitoring, content comprehension and concentration. Upon returning to IPE, students noticed more organized assessments and activities. They found favorable test environments and collaborative tasks with peers, but they experienced difficulties in accessing professors and with class/content organization.

By identifying the most suitable items for both teaching formats, HEIs can enhance teaching practices that are more satisfactory from the students’ perspective.

This study provides an item ranking procedure inspired by differential item functioning and differential test functioning statistics. In an atypical situation, the item ranking procedure demonstrated its ability to generate useful information for identifying and quantifying the longitudinal effects of perceived quality on students.