Corporate Environmental Disclosure Practices in Different National Contexts: The Influence of Cultural Dimensions

The influence of different national contexts, including the effects of cultural environments, on corporate environmental disclosure practices has yet to be properly addressed in the literature. The purpose of this research is, therefore, to analyse how cultural factors affect the environmental disclosure practices of companies in different countries. This research is supported by the diversity of cultures across countries. Given that a cultural framework prompts different organisational actions and strategies, the question to be answered through this research is as follows: How do cultural aspects affect corporate environmental disclosure? Cultural factors are precisely those that can explain similarities and differences between stakeholders’ actions and preferences. The sample used in this research comprises companies in 28 countries and 9 economic sectors for the period 2004 to 2015. Our main findings show that companies operating in countries with individualist, masculine and indulgent cultures are less likely to disclose environmental information. Contrary to our predictions, cultures with a longterm orientation also discourage the reporting of environmental information, while uncertainty avoidance contexts tend to promote more environmental reporting

Redundancy in parliamentary political discourse

This paper is aimed at analysing the use of redundancy in Oral Questions in the Andalusian Parliament. The corpus is made up of 12 oral questions raised by the two main political parties at the Committee for Equality and Social Welfare. Six questions were raised by men and six by women. The study focuses on the identification of the most relevant functions of redundancy, as well as on the analysis of gender differences and differences between the two main political parties. Some of the devices studied in this paper are: anaphora, epistrophe, anadiplosis, epanalepsis, amplification, scesis onomaton, polysyndeton, hyperonymy, holonymy, synonymy, oppositenes

Meiosis in Phycomyces

A four-factor cross between two strains of Phycomyces involving two auxotrophic, one color, and the mating type marker is described. Samples of 40 germspores from 84 individual fertile germsporangia were characterized. The results show: (i) The germspores of a germsporangium are derived from one meiosis in approximately 78% of the cases. (ii) The four markers are on separate chromosomes. They are nonselective. (iii) Analysis of a large sample of germspores from 106 pooled germsporangia confirms that the four markers are unlinked. (iv) From the ditype/tetratype ratios it is inferred that each marker is located about 15 map units from its centromere

Ibsen’s Influence on the Spanish Dramatist Jose Echegaray

In the history of literature there are certain writers who owe their importance not only to their creative stature, but to the fact that they give life or incorporate ideas and ideals of their times that had hardly registered in the intellectual sensibility of the elite. Such men represent the new stages in the awareness of men’s condition. One of them was the playwright José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (1832-1916). This thesis records in a modest way some aspects of a renovated consciousness. Several dramatic critics have pointed out that the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), influenced the plays of Echegaray; but an intensive search in the specialized works has yielded little proof of this influence. A clear challenge to scholarship was thus established. In the consideration of conformity between two authors, it is always legitimate to debate where coincidence finishes and influence begins. In the case under study, the difficulty of the problem is proven by the fact that after almost one hundred years, no one, to our knowledge, has undertaken the enterprise. It would be presumptuous to hope that we can give a clear answer to the interrogations set, within the modest framework of a Master of Arts thesis. A definite solution to the problem would require a much more ambitious research. In the present thesis we shall try to delineate the possibilities of influence on the basis of the community of dramatic situations and of the identity of some ideals in both authors. In order to appreciate the significant relationships, we shall also have to consider the biographical elements, not to mention the temper of both personalities. Our efforts will try to show whether the lack, up to the moment, of “material” proof of an influence, does or does not allow us to believe in the existence of a change in the dramatic personality of Echegaray under the impact of Ibsen’s ideas

Displacements and Autobiography in Cuban-American Fiction

My study seeks to trace the dramatization of the Cuban voice within the fictional world of Cuban American authors and to explore the solutions and substitutions these authors have devised in order to create a voice in a culture other than that of their country of birt