10,088 research outputs found
Economia colaborativa
A importĂąncia de se proceder Ă anĂĄlise dos principais desafios jurĂdicos que a economia colaborativa coloca â pelas implicaçÔes que as mudanças de paradigma dos modelos de negĂłcios e dos sujeitos envolvidos suscitam â Ă© indiscutĂvel, correspondendo Ă necessidade de se fomentar a segurança jurĂdica destas prĂĄticas, potenciadoras de crescimento econĂłmico e bem-estar social.
O Centro de Investigação em Justiça e Governação (JusGov) constituiu uma equipa multidisciplinar que, alĂ©m de juristas, integra investigadores de outras ĂĄreas, como a economia e a gestĂŁo, dos vĂĄrios grupos do JusGov â embora com especial participação dos investigadores que integram o grupo E-TEC (Estado, Empresa e Tecnologia) â e de outras prestigiadas instituiçÔes nacionais e internacionais, para desenvolver um projeto neste domĂnio, com o objetivo de identificar os problemas jurĂdicos que a economia colaborativa suscita e avaliar se jĂĄ existem soluçÔes para aqueles, refletindo igualmente sobre a conveniĂȘncia de serem introduzidas alteraçÔes ou se serĂĄ mesmo necessĂĄrio criar nova regulamentação.
O resultado desta investigação Ă© apresentado nesta obra, com o que se pretende fomentar a continuação do debate sobre este tema.Esta obra Ă© financiada por fundos nacionais atravĂ©s da FCT â Fundação para a CiĂȘncia e a Tecnologia, I.P., no Ăąmbito do Financiamento UID/05749/202
Corporate Social Responsibility: the institutionalization of ESG
Understanding the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on firm performance as it relates to industries reliant on technological innovation is a complex and perpetually evolving challenge. To thoroughly investigate this topic, this dissertation will adopt an economics-based structure to address three primary hypotheses. This structure allows for each hypothesis to essentially be a standalone empirical paper, unified by an overall analysis of the nature of impact that ESG has on firm performance. The first hypothesis explores the evolution of CSR to the modern quantified iteration of ESG has led to the institutionalization and standardization of the CSR concept. The second hypothesis fills gaps in existing literature testing the relationship between firm performance and ESG by finding that the relationship is significantly positive in long-term, strategic metrics (ROA and ROIC) and that there is no correlation in short-term metrics (ROE and ROS). Finally, the third hypothesis states that if a firm has a long-term strategic ESG plan, as proxied by the publication of CSR reports, then it is more resilience to damage from controversies. This is supported by the finding that pro-ESG firms consistently fared better than their counterparts in both financial and ESG performance, even in the event of a controversy. However, firms with consistent reporting are also held to a higher standard than their nonreporting peers, suggesting a higher risk and higher reward dynamic. These findings support the theory of good management, in that long-term strategic planning is both immediately economically beneficial and serves as a means of risk management and social impact mitigation. Overall, this contributes to the literature by fillings gaps in the nature of impact that ESG has on firm performance, particularly from a management perspective
Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders
This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances
Queer spies in British Cold War culture: literature, film, theatre and television
This PhD thesis investigates how male homosexuality has been represented in British spy
fiction from the 1950s to the 2010s in multiple media: literature, film, television and
theatre. Due mainly to the betrayal of the Cambridge Spy ring around the middle of the
century, British culture has associated spies with homosexuality, while the wider
Anglophone world was in the grip of a homophobic atmosphere created by McCarthy's
Red Scare. My thesis explores how this history is reflected in the spy genre from the Cold
War to the present, in which male homosexuality and secret agency intersect as âqueerâ,
in so far as they were both considered to be discreet and criminal, existing outside of the
heteronormative order. By following multiple texts across media and time, I discuss how
some writers, television and film directors and actors update queer identity in spy fiction,
creating a shifting image of queer spies through decades. I refer to the findings of
adaptation studies and queer studies, along with numerous studies on spy fiction.
I conclude that the interrelation of different media has contributed to the re-drawing of queer identity in spy fiction. These developments have enabled the spies'
queer identity to transcend its pejorative history in British culture, towards its more
flexible and pliant sense which is designated by the term's modern usage. I also discuss
that spiesâ homosexuality has been represented as a fleeting ghost in most of the texts
examined, hovering on the margins of pages and screen. Although homosexuality is not
âthe love that dare not speak its nameâ anymore, clandestine queer spies have been
preserved as spectral others in the genre for many years. Spy fiction is a cultural
repository retaining the memory of violence inflicted against those who have been called
âqueerâ in twentieth century Britain, and the spectral nature of queer spies narrates this
history reaching back to the Oscar Wilde trial in 1895, from which point British queer
identity as we know now developed.
This thesis benefits the study of spy fiction by filling a gap in the investigation of
homosexual representation. It also contributes to the field of gender studies of literature,
film, television, and theatre by illustrating queer history in a genre which has not received
a great deal of focus on its representation of homosexuality. Spy fiction occupies a
central position in British popular culture, and by exploring this genre in terms of
homosexuality, this research will identify the role which same-sex desire has historically
played in the British cultural imagination
Conscience and Consciousness: British Theatre and Human Rights.
This research project investigates a paradigm of human rights theatre. Through the lens of performance and theatre-making, this thesis explores how we came to represent, speak about, discuss, and own human rights in Britain. My framework of âhuman rights theatreâ proposes three distinctive features: firstly, such works dramatise real-world issues and highlights the role of the state in endangering its citizens; secondly, ethical ruptures are encountered within and without the drama, and finally, these performances characteristically aspire to produce an activist effect on the collective behaviours of the audience.
This thesis interrogates the strategies theatre-makers use to articulate human rights concerns or to animate human rights intent. The selected case-studies for this investigation are ice&fireâs testimonial project, Actors for Human Rights; Badac Theatre; Jonathan Holmesâ work as director of Jericho House; Cardboard Citizensâ youth participation programme, ACT NOW; and Tony Cealyâs Black Menâs Consortium. Deliberately selecting companies and performance events that have received limited critical attention, my methodology constellates case-studies through original interviews, durational observation of creative working methods and proximate descriptions of practice.
The thesis is interested in the experience of coming to âconsciousnessâ through human rights theatre, an awakening to the impacts of rights infringements and rights claiming. I explore consciousness as a processual, procedural, and durational happening in these performance events. I explore the âĂŠffectâ of activist art and examine the ways in which makers of human rights theatre aim to amplify both affective and effective qualities in their work. My thesis also considers the articulation of activist purpose and the campaigning intent of the selected theatre-makers and explores how their activism is animated in their productions. Through the rich seam of discussion generated by the identification and exploration of the traits of a distinctive human rights theatre, I affirm the generative value of this typological enquiry
From Bitcoin to Solana -- Innovating Blockchain towards Enterprise Applications
This survey presents a comprehensive study of recent advances in block-chain
technologies, focusing on how issues that affecting the enterprise adoption
were progressively addressed from the original Bitcoin system to Ethereum, to
Solana etc. Key issues preventing the wide adoption are scala-bility and
performance, while recent advances in Solana has clearly demon-strated that it
is possible to significantly improve on those issues by innovat-ing on data
structure, processes and algorithms by consolidating various time-consuming
algorithms and security enforcements, and differentiate and balance users and
their responsibilities and rights, while maintaining the re-quired security and
integrity that blockchain systems inherently offer
Co-operatives, Work, and the Digital Economy: A Knowledge Synthesis Report
This report surveys recent literature on co-operative approaches to improving work and livelihoods in the digital economy, specifically in the gig economy, the tech sector, and digital creative industries. It introduces concepts that update co-operative theory and practice for the digital age, including platform cooperativism, open cooperativism, distributed co-operative organizations, and Exit to Community. It outlines how the co-operative model has been adopted by and for self-employed workers, platform workers, technologists and communication professionals, and data subjects. While the report presents evidence of co-opsâ potential to improve working conditions and mitigate power asymmetries in the digital economy, it also addresses challenges co-ops face. It explores perspectives on the infrastructure necessary to overcome these challenges and expand worker co-opsâ presence in the digital economy, including the formation of co-operative federations for sharing technology across co-ops. Despite the promise of co-ops in the digital economy, the literature cautions against viewing them as a panacea. Stressing that individual co-ops are not, on their own, a sufficient response to problems of work and inequality, several authors position co-ops as one among a diversity of worker-centered organizations and strategies necessary to improve work and livelihoods in the digital economy. The report concludes with suggestions for future research and policy recommendations
Managing global virtual teams in the London FinTech industry
Today, the number of organisations that are adopting virtual working arrangements has exploded, and the London FinTech industry is no exception. During recent years, FinTech companies have increasingly developed virtual teams as a means of connecting and engaging geographically dispersed workers, lowering costs, and enabling greater speed and adaptability.
As the first study in the United Kingdom regarding global virtual team management in the FinTech industry, this DBA research seeks answers to the question, âWhat makes for the successful management of a global virtual team in the London FinTech industry?â. Straussian grounded-theory method was chosen as this qualitative approach lets participants have their own voice and offers some flexibility. It also allows the researcher to have preconceived ideas about the research undertaking.
The research work makes the case for appreciating the voice of people with lived experiences. Ten London-based FinTech Managers with considerable experience running virtual teams agreed to take part in this study. These Managers had spent time working at large, household-name firms with significant global reach, and one had recently become founder and CEO of his own firm, taking on clients and hiring contract staff from around the world. At least eight of the other participants were senior âHeadsâ of various technology teams and one was a Managing Director working at a âBig Fourâ consultancy. They had all (and many still did) spent years running geographically distributed teams with members as far away as Pacific Asia and they were all keen to discuss that breadth of experience and the challenges they faced.
Results from these in-depth interviews suggested that there are myriad reasons for a global virtual team, from providing 24 hour, follow-the-sun service to locating the most cost-effective resources with the highest skills. It also confirmed that there are unique challenges to virtual management and new techniques are required to help navigate virtual managers through them.
Managing a global virtual team requires much more than the traditional management competencies. Based on discussion with the respondents, a set of practical recommendations for global virtual team management was developed and covered a wide range of issues related to recruitment and selection, team building, developing standard operating procedures, communication, motivation, performance management, and building trust
Platform protocol place: a practice-based study of critical media art practice (2007-2020)
This practice-based research project focuses on critical media art practices in contemporary digital culture. The theoretical framework employed in this inquiry draws from the work of the Frankfurt School, in particular Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimerâs The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. Using Adorno & Horkheimerâs thesis as a theoretical guide, this research project formulates the concept of the digital culture industry - a concept that refers to the contemporary era of networked capitalism, an era defined by the unprecedented extraction, accumulation and manipulation of data and the material and digital infrastructures that facilitate it. This concept is used as a framing mechanism that articulates certain techno-political concerns within networked capitalism and responds to them through practice.
The second concept formulated within this research project is Platform Protocol Place. The function of this second concept is to frame and outline the body of practice-based work developed in this study. It is also used to make complex technological issues accessible and to communicate these issues through public exhibition and within this written thesis.
The final concept developed in this research project is tactical media archaeology. This concept describes the techniques and approaches employed in the development of the body of practice-based work that are the central focus of this research project. This approach is a synthesis of two subfields of media art practice and theory, tactical media and media archaeology. Through practice, tactical media archaeology critiques the geopolitical machinations and systems beneath the networked devices and interfaces of the digital culture industry
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