El relato integrado estimula la comunicación estratégica de responsabilidad social corporativa? Un análisis en la perspectiva del marketing, basada en el modelo de responsabilidad social corporativa propuesto por Maignan, Ferrell y Ferrell

Integrated reporting brings the promise of a new approach to corporate reporting based on integrated thinking, long-term focus, a broader view of value creation and a better articulation of organizations’ strategy and business models and further integration of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in business. Despite the potential of integrated reporting to drastically change the way corporate social responsibility is currently reported, marketing scholars focusing on ethics and social responsibility seem to be alienated from the discussion occurring in academia about integrated reporting. In this article we evaluate if integrated reports,as conceptualized by the International Integrated Reporting Council, may be used as a relevant source of information to operationalize Maignan, Ferrell and Ferrell’s stakeholder model of corporate social responsibility. We conclude that integrated reports present some important limitations, mostly related with being exclusively focused on the information needs of investors and not requiring companies to report on the full impact of their activities on other stakeholders. This study contributes to this special issue dedicated to the topic of strategic communication by framing the potential contribution of integrated reporting to strategic communication of corporate social responsibility.RESUMO: O relato integrado promete uma nova abordagem ao reporte corporativo baseada em pensamento integrado, uma visão de longo prazo, uma perspetiva alargada da criação de valor e uma melhor articulação entre a estratégia e os modelos de negócio, bem como uma maior integração da responsabilidade social e sustentabilidade no negócio. Apesar do potencial do relato integrado para alterar de forma significativa a forma como a responsabilidade social é presentemente reportada, os investigadores na área do marketing especializados em ética e responsabilidade social parecem alheados da discussão que ocorre na academia sobre relatório integrado. Neste artigo avaliamos se o relatório integrado conceptualizado pelo International Integrated Reporting Council pode ser considerado uma fonte de informação relevante para operacionalizar o modelo de responsabilidade social corporativa desenvolvido por Maignan, Ferrell and Ferrell. Concluímos que os relatórios integrados apresentam importantes limitações, relacionadas sobretudo com o fato de serem exclusivamente focados nas necessidades de informação dos investidores e não requererem às empresas o reporte do impato total das suas actividades sobre outras partes interessadas na empresa. Este estudo contribui para esta edição especial dedicada ao tema da comunicação estratégica pelo enquadramento que faz do contributo potencial do relato integrado para a comunicação estratégica da responsabilidade social corporativa.RESUMEN: El relato integrado promete un nuevo enfoque al reporte corporativo basado en el pensamiento integrado, una visión a largo plazo, una perspectiva ampliada de la creación de valor y una mejor articulación entre la estrategia y los modelos de negocio, así como una mayor integración de la responsabilidad social y sostenibilidad en el negocio. A pesar del potencial del relato integrado para alterar de forma significativa la forma en que la responsabilidad social es actualmente reportada, los investigadores en el área del marketing especializados en ética y responsabilidad social parecen ajenos a la discusión que ocurre en la academia sobre relato integrado. En este artículo evaluamos si los relatos integrados conceptualizados por el International Integrated Reporting Council pueden considerarse una fuente de información relevante para operacionalizar el modelo de responsabilidad social corporativa desarrollado por Maignan, Ferrell y Ferrell. Concluimos que los relatos integrados presentan importantes limitaciones, relacionadas sobre todo con el hecho de que se centran exclusivamente en las necesidades de información de los inversores y no requieren a las empresas el reporte del impacto total de sus activi- dades sobre otras partes interesadas en la empresa. Este estudio contribuye a esta edición especial dedicada al tema de la comunicación estratégica por el encuadramiento que hace de la contribución potencial del relato integrado para la comunicación estratégica de la responsabilidad social corporativa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Iteration of quadratic maps on matrix algebras

We study the iteration of a quadratic family in the algebra of 2 × 2 real matrices, parameterized by a matrix C. We analyze and classify the existing cycles (periodic orbits) and their dependence on the parameter matrix. We discuss how new dynamical phenomena occur as a consequence of the noncommutativity of the matrix product. In particular, we show that the commutator of the initial condition with parameter matrix C has a decisive role in the overall dynamics

Vocatives in Portuguese: Identification and Processing

This paper describes the most salient linguistic aspects of vocative constructions in Portuguese, with special reference to its European variety. Next, the paper presents the strategy followed for implementing this linguistic knowledge in a computational grammar of Portuguese, developed for the natural language processing chain STRING and using the XIP rule-based parser. Very precise and detailed linguistic descriptions can be implemented in this way

Social marketing in contexts of uncertainty: An analysis of social capital and health social support in online health communities facing treatment uncertainty

For several medical treatments there is considerable scientific and medical uncertainty about the relative benefits and risks they imply. The literature indicates social support as an important factor in health uncertainty management. The concept of social support has gained considerable interest in the areas of behavioral medicine and health psychology research. Despite such interest, it is still not clear how it can be approached in social marketing interventions since there is a lack of conceptual and empirical literature discussing the concept from a social marketing perspective. The present thesis aims to explore how the social support concept can be better approached in social marketing interventions targeting contexts of treatment uncertainty. To attain this objective, first a scoping review of social marketing interventions in the health area operationalizing the concept of social support was undertaken. Results indicated that interventions have operationalized the concept in connection with all the key aspects of social marketing, including behavioral change, consumer research, segmentation and targeting, and exchange, as well as marketing mix and competition. However, the findings also indicated poor conceptualizations of social support and the underreporting of the theoretical rationale for the operationalization of the concept. Second, the study adopted a mixed-methods approach that involved netnography and social network analysis, to examine the nature of online social support, understood as a resource generated through social capital, using two distinct case studies: i) an online forum focused on health discussion about electronic cigarettes; ii) an online forum dedicated to menopausal hormone replacement therapy. Findings indicate that online health communities can be a place for extending the support networks of people facing treatment uncertainty as multiple typologies of peer-to-peer social support are remotely exchanged in the virtual communities. Both online health communities were found to have similar network structures characterized by small-world and scale free properties and reduced levels of reciprocity. Results also indicate that users mostly search for informational types of support in the online health communities and that they can be segmented based on the structural positions they occupy in the networks and patterns of support interaction. However, it was found that the information available in these forums can be subject to imprudent processes of selection by forum participants who try to conform online discussion to suit the forums’ shared and accepted narratives that highlight the benefits of these uncertain treatments, while minimizing the respective risks. From a theoretical perspective, this study has relevant implications for health uncertainty management literature by putting in evidence collective processes of information selection in the online health communities, that can hinder the main objective of these virtual spaces, that is to function as platforms for knowledge acquisition. Second it deepens understanding about the interconnected relations between the concepts of social capital and social support. The study also brings innovation in methods by combining social network analysis and netnography, two naturalistic and online-suited research methods to study online health communities. For practionaires, the results of the study provide significant insights that can be used to program social marketing interventions intended to increase and enhance the quality of social support available in these types of online health communities.Para vários tratamentos médicos existe considerável incerteza médica e científica sobre os benefícios e riscos relativos. A literatura indica o apoio social como um importante fator na gestão de incertezas na saúde. O conceito de apoio social despertou muito interesse nas áreas de medicina comportamental e psicologia. No entanto, não é clara a forma como o conceito pode ser abordado em intervenções de marketing social uma vez que existem poucos estudos conceptuais e empíricos focados neste tópico na literatura de marketing social. A presente tese investiga a forma como o conceito de apoio social pode ser aplicado a contextos caracterizados por incerteza nos tratamentos médicos. Para atingir este objetivo, em primeiro lugar procedeu-se a uma revisão da literatura focada em intervenções de marketing social na área da saúde que reportam a utilização do conceito de apoio social. Os resultados indicam que as intervenções de marketing social analisadas operacionalizaram o conceito de apoio social em conexão com as dimensões chave do marketing social, incluindo os princípios de mudança comportamental, investigação sobre o consumidor, segmentação e targeting, o princípio do intercâmbio, bem como o marketing mix e análise da competição. Contudo, também se concluiu que a generalidade das intervenções abordam o conceito de forma pouco rigorosa e que não reportam o racional teórico para a operacionalização do conceito. Em segundo lugar, o estudo adota uma abordagem mista envolvendo netnografia e análise de redes sociais, para examinar a natureza do apoio social virtual, entendido como um recurso gerado através de capital social, em comunidades de saúde virtuais sujeitas a incerteza nos tratamentos, usando dois casos de estudo: um fórum online dedicado à discussão de cigarros eletrónicos e um fórum online focado no tema do tratamento hormonal para mulheres em menopausa. Concluiu-se que estas comunidades online podem servir como um espaço de extensão às redes de suporte de indivíduos sujeitos a incerteza nos tratamentos uma vez que múltiplas tipologias de apoio social parceiro-a-parceiro são prestadas remotamente nas comunidades virtuais. Ambas as comunidades analisadas apresentam uma estrutura de rede semelhante, caracterizada por propriedades de “pequeno-mundo”, propriedades de “escala livre” e reduzidos índices de reciprocidade. Os resultados também indicam que a generalidade dos utilizadores procura apoio do tipo informacional nas comunidades e que estes podem ser segmentados tendo por base as posições estruturais que ocupam nas redes e os respetivos padrões de apoio social. No entanto, foi igualmente descoberto que a informação disponível nestes fóruns pode estar sujeita a processos imprudentes de seleção pelos participantes nos fóruns, que tentam conformar as discussões online por forma a servirem as narrativas aceites e amplamente difundidas que realçam os benefícios destes tratamentos incertos enquanto minimizam os respetivos riscos. Do ponto de vista teórico, este estudo apresenta implicações importantes para a literatura sobre gestão de incerteza ao colocar em evidência processos coletivos de seleção de informação nas comunidades online que podem prejudicar a função primordial destes espaços online, que é funcionarem como plataformas para a aquisição de conhecimento. Em segundo lugar, o estudo aprofunda o conhecimento sobre as relações interdependentes entre os conceitos de capital social e apoio social. O estudo também apresenta inovação em termos metodológicos ao combinar analise se redes sociais com netnografia, duas metodologias naturalistas e perfeitamente adaptadas ao ambiente online, para estudar comunidades de saúde online. Para a prática, os resultados deste estudo oferecem conhecimentos significativos que podem ser usados para a programação de ações de marketing social destinadas a melhorar a qualidade e quantidade do apoio social disponível neste tipo de comunidades online

Clustering consumers who engage in boycotting: New insights into the relationship between political consumerism and institutional trust

This study proposes a segmentation model for European consumers engaging in boycotting and examines each segment’s level of trust in public institutions. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), measures of generalized trust, social participation, interest in politics, human values and demographics were used as segmentation variables in a two-cluster solution. The two clusters, labeled conservative majority and active idealists, revealed significant differences in their levels of institutional trust in 10 of the 21 countries analyzed. These findings highlight the potential heterogeneity of consumers engaging in boycotting and offer an explanation for extant contrasting findings regarding the relationship between institutional trust and political consumerism.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Syntactic REAP.PT: Exercises on Clitic Pronouning

The emerging interdisciplinary field of Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) aims to integrate the knowledge from computational linguistics into computer-assisted language learning (CALL). REAP.PT is a project emerging from this new field, aiming to teach Portuguese in an innovative and appealing way, and adapted to each student. In this paper, we present a new improvement of the REAP.PT system, consisting in developing new, automatically generated, syntactic exercises. These exercises deal with the complex phenomenon of pronominalization, that is, the substitution of a syntactic constituent with an adequate pronominal form. Though the transformation may seem simple, it involves complex lexical, syntactical and semantic constraints. The issues on pronominalization in Portuguese make it a particularly difficult aspect of language learning for non-native speakers. On the other hand, even native speakers can often be uncertain about the correct clitic positioning, due to the complexity and interaction of competing factors governing this phenomenon. A new architecture for automatic syntactic exercise generation is proposed. It proved invaluable in easing the development of this complex exercise, and is expected to make a relevant step forward in the development of future syntactic exercises, with the potential of becoming a syntactic exercise generation framework. A pioneer feedback system with detailed and automatically generated explanations for each answer is also presented, improving the learning experience, as stated in user comments. The expert evaluation and crowd-sourced testing positive results demonstrated the validity of the present approach

Automatic Identification of Whole-Part Relations in Portuguese

In this paper, we improve the extraction of semantic relations between textual elements as it is currently performed by STRING, a hybrid statistical and rule-based Natural Language Processing chain for Portuguese, by targeting whole-part relations (meronymy), that is, a semantic relation between an entity that is perceived as a constituent part of another entity, or a member of a set. In this case, we focus on the type of meronymy involving human entities and body-part nouns

Scoping challenges and opportunities presented by COVID-19 for the development of sustainable short food supply chains

Over the past decades, short food supply chains attracted government and public support owing to their potential to mitigate some of the sustainability issues associated with the conventional globalized food supply system. The recent event of the coronavirus disease pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on food supply systems worldwide, and it constitutes a unique opportunity to evaluate the performance of food chains. Through a scoping review of the academic literature, this study provides a critical assessment of the implications of the pandemic on short food supply chains in multiple economies. Following the guidelines outlined in the PRISMA-ScR framework, the SCOPUS and ISI Web of Science databases were searched for the academic literature on the topic. The results of the review indicate that, besides the direct effects of the pandemic, the indirect effects resulting from public policies implemented to contain the spread of the virus affected all relevant dimensions of sustainability. Moreover, the consequences of the pandemic were more disruptive in the short food chains of low-income countries than in those of high-income countries. The main challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of short food supply chains are identified, and recommendations for future research are outlined.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The case for social support in social marketing

Purpose – This paper aims to reinforce the arguments for applying the social support concept in social marketing. Design/methodology/approach – This paper aims to conceptually outline the potential positive contribution of social support for social marketing practice as a tool to induce behavior change. Findings – This paper focuses on the philosophical principle of social exchange, highlights the consumercentered perspective of social marketing, which implies the natural evaluation of the social networks of influence and support and presents social support as a mechanism to induce long-term behavior change. Research limitations/implications – No empirical (qualitative or quantitative) investigations were used to test the application of the concept in practical interventions. Practical implications – This paper provides significant insights for intervention developers that can be used to program and theoretically justify future social marketing interventions applying the social support concept. Social implications – Empirical research concluded for a positive relation between social support and human health and well-being. Thus, increasing the use of the concept in social marketing can serve to attain these social goals. Originality/value – The concept of social support has gained considerable interest in the areas of behavioral medicine and health psychology. Despite such interest, it is still not clear how it can be approached in social marketing as there is a lack of conceptual literature discussing social support from a social marketing perspective, the number of social marketing interventions operationalizing the concept is limited and, till date, no research has focused in comprehensively establishing a theoretical rationale to operationalize the concept in social marketin

Will cryptocurrencies help alleviate recessions?

The objective of this dissertation is to assess and explain the effects of cryptocurrencies on the business cycle and to understand whether this new method of transaction of goods and other values, may or may not ease the cycle of future economic recessions, facilitating the recovery of the economy to its equilibrium state and re-enabling its expansion. To achieve this goal we used the returns for some selected cryptocurrencies and other variables referring to their normal activity as ratios between volume of transactions and total amount in the market. In addition and to improve the model, we added variables that represent alternatives to cryptocurrencies, from an investing point of view. Official currencies such as the Eurozone Euro, the United States Dollar, the United Kingdom Pound, the Japanese Yen, and the Chinese Yuan, and others market-related variables such as the returns of the S&P500, Gold and Silver, the reference interest rates of central banks of various countries and the stock market value of each country. Using Logit models for panel data, with a particular emphasis on Fixed Effects Logit models, we can analyze how the variables vary over time for each country and how they affect our general model, which is composed of a binary dependent variable (dummy) that allows us to analyze both situations of interest: expansion versus recession. We built this work around five cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Eosio, Ripple and Ethereum, with data from 38 countries, all from 2007 to 2019. We concluded that some cryptocurrencies can have an impact on future economic recessions, such as Ripple, which provides cheap and fast transactions, Ethereum, which can provide an infinite supply of its coins to help drive an expansion and Bitcoin, which can be used as a safe haven to protect and diverse risk on investors portfolio.O objetivo desta tese é procurar encontrar e explicar os efeitos das criptomoedas no ciclo económico e compreender se este novo método de transação de bens e outros valores pode ou não aliviar o ciclo de futuras recessões económicas, facilitando a recuperação da economia para o seu estado de equilíbrio e possibilitando a sua expansão de novo. Para tal, foram usadas variáveis de rendimento/retorno em algumas criptomoedas e outras variáveis referentes à normal atividade das mesmas, como rácios entre volume de transações e total quantidade no mercado. Adicionalmente, e para melhorar o modelo, adicionámos variáveis que representam alternativas de investimento às criptomoedas, desde moedas oficiais como o Euro da Zona Euro, o Dólar dos Estados Unidos da América, a Libra do Reino Unido, o Iene Japonês e o Yuan Chinês, e outras variáveis relativas ao mercado como os retornos do S&P500, do Ouro e da Prata, as taxas de juro de referência de bancos centrais de vários países e o valor do mercado bolsista de cada país. Utilizando modelos Logit para dados em painel, com particular ênfase em modelos Logit de Efeitos Fixos, podemos analisar como se alteram as variáveis ao longo do tempo e por país e como afetam o nosso modelo geral, sendo que o modelo é composto por uma variável dependente binária (dummy) que nos permite analisar as duas situações de interesse: expansão versus recessão. Construímos esta tese à volta de cinco criptomoedas, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Eosio, Ripple e Ethereum, com dados de 38 países, todos de 2007 a 2019. Concluímos que algumas criptomoedas podem ter um impacto nas futuras recessões económicas, como o Ripple que fornece transações baratas e rápidas, o Ethereum que pode fornecer quantidades infinitas das suas moedas para ajudar a impulsionar uma expansão e a Bitcoin que pode ser usada como um porto seguro para proteger e diversificar o risco na carteira de investidores