Influence of sustainability practices and green image on the re-visit intention of small and medium-size towns

This study set a model to predict the e ect of corporate social responsibility and green image on visit intention in small and medium-size towns (SMST). At present, there is a keen social awareness towards environmental problems, and cities are required to reduce their ecological footprint and make more sustainable use of natural resources. Increasingly, tourists are considering “green options” in their decision making. The questionnaire responses, obtained from a sample of 221 tourism in Malaga town (Spain) were analyzed using a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the research hypothesis related to the positive influence of sustainability practices, green image, trust with the intention of revisiting related to the loyalty of the destination. This study shows that there is a positive relationship between sustainability practices and re-visit intention and between the green image and re-visit intention, both directly and indirectly, through trust. Also, the fact that this relationship is more significant if it is part of the green image than if it is part of sustainability actions. To practice, this study provides managerial implications to help executives adopt green actions, thanks to their positive e ects on tourist loyalty and the di erent way of manifesting this loyalty.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Technology, governance, and a sustainability model for small and medium-sized towns in Europe

New and cutting-edge technologies causing deep changes in societies, playing the role of game modifiers, and having a significant impact on global markets in small and medium-sized towns in Europe (SMSTEs) are the focus of this research. In this context, an analysis was carried out to identify the main dimensions of a model for promoting innovation in SMSTEs. The literature review on the main dimensions boosting the innovation in SMSTEs and the methodological approach was the application of a survey directed to experts on this issue. The findings from the literature review reflect that technologies, governance, and sustainability dimensions are enablers of SMSTEs’ innovation, and based on the results of the survey, a model was implemented to boost innovation, being this the major add-on of this research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estrella Damm : a star’s positioning in a new sky

The aim of this thesis is to study Estrella Damm’s internationalization and Positioning in Portugal. These decisions take a lot of responsibilities and risk, but are necessary for any company, in the globalized world. To understand the reasons behind these decisions, it is necessary to explain the motivations to go international, how the company has done it and at last, how it wants to be perceived by the new costumers. Grupo Damm, one of the leading breweries in Spain, has recently increased operations, in the Portuguese market. This internationalization has been prepared for a long time: in 2009, one of the brands of the group bought a plant in Santarem; after that, it was only a matter of time until operations increased. To support this process, Grupo Damm has made a strategic alliance with Sumol+Compal. From the side of the Spanish company, this partnership allows them to have a better access to the market, and take advantage of the strong position S+C has, in the Portuguese market. Afterwards, comes the decision of how should the brand position in the new market. Until now, this positioning has been similar to the one in Spain. It has targeted the premium segment, with special focus on the gourmet sub-segment. In order to understand this process, it was necessary to resort to two sources of data: Secondary and primary. The first one, Secondary, was collected from the company. This information allowed me to have a complete background about the strategy behind this whole operation. Secondly, there was also a need to gather primary data, an online survey, which allowed me to understand, from a reasonable sample, what were the perceptions of beer consumers towards Estrella Damm. To conclude this analysis it was deducted that consumers understand Estrella Damm’s positioning and have good references about it. Still, there is a lot to be done, it needs to increase awareness, since most of the respondents had never drunk or even know about the brand Estrella Damm.Esta tese tem como objetivo o estudo da internacionalização e posicionamento da marca Estrella Damm em Portugal. Estas decisões acarretam muita responsabilidade e risco para a empresa, mas elas são necessárias para competir neste mundo empresarial globalizado. Para perceber as rasões por detrás destas decisões, é necessário explicar as motivações para uma empresa se internacionalizar, como ela deve ser feita e por último como pretende ser percecionada junto dos seus novos clientes. O Grupo Damm, uma das principais empresas cervejeiras em Espanha, aumentou recentemente as suas operações em Portugal. Esta internacionalização estava a ser preparada já há muito tempo: em 2009, uma das marcas do grupo comprou uma fábrica em Santarém; depois disso era apenas uma questão de tempo ate esta aumentar as operações em Portugal. Para apoiar este processo, o Grupo Damm fez uma aliança estratégica com a Sumol+Compal. Do ponto de vista da empresa espanhola, esta parceria permite a marca ter um melhor acesso ao mercado e obter vantagens competitivas da forte posição que a S+C tem no mercado português. Depois, veio a decisão de como a marca se devia posicionar neste novo mercado. Até ao momento, este posicionamento tem sido semelhante ao praticado pela empresa em Espanha. Escolheu com target o segmento premium, com especial atenção para o subsegmento gourmet. De maneira a entender melhor todo este processo, foi necessário recorrer a duas fontes de informação: secundária e primária. A secundária foi na sua maioria recolhida junto da empresa. Esta informação permitiu ter conhecimento total acerca da estratégia por detrás de toda esta operação. Em segundo lugar, foi ainda necessário colecionar informação do tipo primário, questionário online. Este permitiu perceber, a partir de uma amostra, como é que a cerveja da marca Estrella Damm era percecionada pelos consumidores de cerveja.Como conclusão desta análise, foi deduzido que os consumidores entendem o posicionamento da Estrella Damm, e que têm em conta as suas reais características. Ainda assim, há muito para ser feito, a marca precisa de aumentar a consciencialização no mercado português, porque grande parte dos inquiridos nunca bebeu ou pior, não conhecia as cervejas da marca Estrella Damm

Leadership behaviors impacting follower’s results

This study explores the concepts of Leadership Behavior and the impact on the followers. which can generate engagement, commitments and organizational success. The purpose of the paper is to discuss How Leadership Behavior impacts on follower’s results through implied motives how communication about autonomy and responsibility leads to a better performance both personal and organizational, from employees and also how communication can be performed by leaders to be effective on the organizational success. The research question is “How Leadership Behavior impacts on follower’s results through implied motives? And it will lead us to test and validate the impact of communication on performance through organizations structures. Is necessary to gather the right people with certain behaviors and with the right information for better decision making and consequently better and faster business results can be achieved. Communication is the main factor for information to flow within the organization hierarchies or teams and departments. Employees transform that information into knowledge, thus their perception capacity and performance, being knowledge defined as “understood information” or information as “organized facts”, applying it to their activities. In this context it’s possible to say that knowledge workers and organizations are those, which use knowledge intensively Reinforcing the main purpose of this research mentioning that "effective leadership is still largely a matter of communication. An effective leader thinks about what he says, carefully working out every expression of any significance". The central idea here is that for a system to have the freedom to self-organize, it must have some degree of "space" or autonomy for the occurrence of the relevant innovation. The idea of integrating the needs of individuals and organizations became a powerful force. Alternatives to the bureaucratic organization have begun to emerge as the research showed how bureaucratic structures, leadership styles and the general work of organizations could be modified to create "richer" jobs and motivators that would encourage people to exercise their capacities and creativity This is a conceptual paper, which explores the concepts of communication, autonomy and responsibility, framed by leadership models. The methodology used to was documentary analysis, including papers from the main scientific databases: Scopus and WOS, using the keywords communication, autonomy, responsibility and leadership. In the near future the field methodology will be "Action Research” to study methods, contents and ways of communication from leaders to their teams. The study is going to be performed during 2015/2016 in a specific company environment, using several techniques to collect data: observation and the register of evidences in loco. Data collected will be analyzed and preliminary conclusions will lead to new researches and analysis and a cycle will be done until the end of the study. As expected results we hope to prove that Communication within organization hierarchies will generate more autonomy and better performance from employees which will originate better results from their tasks and thus more efficiency which in turn will lead to high organizational performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How is Trust affected by a Leader’s failure on his role?

This study explores the trust concept on leadership and how it can affect employee’s behavior. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how leadership trust can be affected by a leader’s failure on his role. The research question is "How is trust affected by a leader’s failure on his role?” And it will lead us to test and validate the impact of leader’s trust on employee’s behavior and performance through organizations structures. In leadership, trust between superiors and followers plays a very important role. Since last decade, there has been a considerable increase in researching trust at the organizational level. Researchers and practitioners continue to recognize trust as an important factor in determining organizational success, organizational stability and the well-being of employees. Trust has also emerged as a central construct in a wide range of management studies including those focusing on performance. This is a conceptual paper, which explores the concepts of trust, behavior and performance, framed by leadership models. The literature review includes a documentary analysis of papers from the main scientific databases: Scopus and WOS, using the keywords leadership, trust, behavior and performance. As expected results we anticipate to confirm if leader’s trust within organization hierarchies will generate and be a key factor on behavior and thus lead to better performance from employees which will originate better results from their tasks and thus more efficiency which in turn will lead to high organizational performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estratégias biomiméticas usando a técnica camada-a-camada para aplicações biomédicas e engenharia de tecidos

The development of a suitable coating or material, which physico-chemical, mechanical or biological properties, that can be tailored according the features of the target tissue, has been gaining increased importance in biomedical and tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) fields. Biomimetic strategies have contributed significantly for the progress of biomedical field during the last years. This is possible to be achieved at different levels: imitating Nature form or function and mimicking natural processes and systems are the most used biomimetic approaches. In this thesis, Layer-by-Layer (LbL) methodology was used as a hierarchical biomimetic tool to modify surfaces and to produce freestanding membranes based on polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs). The possibility to functionalize or engineer biomaterials combined with the ability to incorporate a wide range of building blocks, makes LbL a powerful processing technique in the biomedical field. Synthetic polymers have been used to construct PEMs for biomedical and TERM applications; however, they lack often on adhesive cues for cell attachment and tissue growth. To overcome such issue, biomimetic synthetic polymers have been developed. Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are a class of nature-inspired polymers, nonimmunogenic, genetically encodable and biocompatible. These materials are based on the repetition of short peptides considered to be building blocks in natural elastin and can include specific bioactive sequences, as the tripeptide Arginine-Glycine-Aspartame (RGD) known by promoting cell adhesion. For the first work of this thesis, ELPs were functionalized with azide and alkyne groups to introduce the reactivity required to carry out the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition under mild biocompatible conditions, with no toxic by-products and in short reaction times. This reaction was done by means of a LbL assembly, driven by covalent interactions instead of being driven by electrostatic interactions, obtaining a bioactive and biomimetic multilayer coating. Moreover, these polymers are characterized by a critical temperature, known as the transition temperature in aqueous solution (Tt), which is related with a conformational reorganization. Thus, below Tt the polymer chains were soluble in water and above Tt they formed nano- and micro-aggregates becoming insoluble in a reversible process, making these coatings stimuli-responsive. In the following chapters, several polysaccharides as chitosan (CHT), alginate (ALG), hyaluronic acid (HA) or chondroitin sulfate (CS) were used to produce freestanding structured membranes through LbL processes, mainly driven by electrostatic interactions. The use of PEMs containing biopolymers are particularly appealing to coat and develop multilayered structures with biochemical functionalities, biocompatibility, and to mimic the interactions observed in native extracellular matrix (ECM). CHI/CS multilayers were used throughout the thesis, revealing some unique properties, when compared with other polysaccharide-based multilayers, such as their elasticity and degradation rate. However, natural origin polymer-based multilayers present low stiffness and higher hydration rates, which hinder cell adhesion. To overcome this, the CHT/CS multilayers were crosslinked with genipin. This is also a natural product, that is extracted from gardenia fruits and presents the ability to improve the mechanical properties, while preserves the biocompatibility and even enhances the cell adhesive properties. The ability to tailor the multilayers properties can be applied during their assembly or postassembly. Upon adjusting cross-linking parameters (e.g., cross-linker concentration and reaction time) the morphology, thickness, water uptake, rate of biodegradation, mechanical properties and cell adhesive properties can be tuned. Studies of shape-memory of these multilayered films, presented promising results regarding their use in biomedical applications. The mechanical properties of the multilayers can be further improved combining covalent and ionic crosslinking, which gives rise to a full interpenetrating polymer network. More interesting, it was possible to create a well-organized patterned topography at the surface of the freestanding multilayered membrane, just by using a different underlying substrate. This strategy envisaged to mimic the topography of the ECM of some tissues, as bone, skin or nerves, creating grooves on the material’s surface at nanoscale. Using this approach, it was possible to control some cellular functions and behavior as alignment and differentiation. Further in this thesis and inspired by the composition of the adhesive proteins in mussels, freestanding multilayered membranes containing dopamine-modified hyaluronic acid (HA-DN) were produced. The presence of DN along with the thickness of the membranes presented better lap-shear adhesion strength than the control membranes (hyaluronic acid and alginate films – two polysaccharides often regarded as good natural adhesives – were assembled together). Moreover, in vitro tests showed an enhanced cell adhesion for the membranes containing HA-DN and ability to use such kind of membranes for different biomedical and TERM applications, particularly for bone regeneration and skin wound healing. Combining different biomimetic concepts, it was also possible to recreate the complex environment of osteoarthritic articular cartilage by preparing human circular discs of superficially damaged articular cartilage from human samples. Herein, the adhesive freestanding multilayered membranes were used as a vehicle to deliver human adipose stem cells (hASCs) to help to repair the damaged cartilage. hASCs temporarily adhered to the adhesive LbL-based membranes, and were transported to the cartilage discs, creating a bridge of cells between the membranes and the surface of the cartilage. The cells started to migrate into the defects of the cartilage, proliferating and secreting factors capable of repairing the cartilage. Overall, the developed work in this thesis shows that LbL is a very versatile technique that provides the means to develop a wide range of solutions to be useful in biomedical and TERM applications.O desenvolvimento de um revestimento ou material cujas propriedades físicoquímica, mecânicas ou biológicas podem ser modificadas de acordo com as propriedades do tecido alvo, tem ganho cada vez mais importância, nomeadamente para fins biomédicos e de engenharia de tecidos e medicina regenerativa. Durante os últimos anos, diferentes estratégias biomiméticas têm contribuído significativamente para o progresso destas áreas. Estas são possíveis de implementar a diferentes níveis: imitar formas e funções existentes na natureza ou mimetizar processos e sistemas naturais. Na presente tese, a técnica camada-a-camada (LbL) foi usada como uma ferramenta biomimética para modificar superfícies ou produzir membranas com base em múltiplas camadas de polieletrólitos. A crescente utilização desta técnica, concretamente na área biomédica, prende-se com a possibilidade de funcionalizar ou produzir biomateriais aliada à capacidade de incorporar uma gama alargada de blocos de construção. Aqui, diferentes polímeros sintéticos e naturais têm sido usados para construir estruturas multicamada; no entanto, a generalidade dos polímeros sintéticos não apresenta naturalmente locais de ligação e adesão celular. Para contornar este obstáculo, algumas modificações químicas aos polímeros sintéticos têm sido sugeridas e novos compostos têm sido desenvolvidos, inspirados na composição de sistemas naturais. Por exemplo, polipéptidos tipo-elastina (ELPs) são uma classe de polímeros inspirados na natureza, que apresentam propriedades não-imunogénicas e biocompatíveis, podendo ser geneticamente programados conforme desejado. A sua composição baseia-se na repetição de pequenos péptidos também presentes na elastina humana, com a possibilidade também de incorporar outras sequências bioativas especificas, como o tripéptido Arginina-GlicinaÁcido Aspártico (RGD), reconhecido por promover a adesão celular. Para esta tese foram produzidos ELPs, que mais tarde foram funcionalizados com grupos azida e alquino para introduzir a reatividade necessária para uma reação 1,3-dipolar de ciclo-adição se realizar em condições biocompatíveis, sem produtos tóxicos resultantes e em curtos tempos de reação. Esta reação foi realizada sob a técnica LbL, mas conduzida por interações covalentes ao invés de electroestáticas, para atuar como revestimento biomédico. Estes polímeros são ainda reconhecidos pela sua temperatura de transição (Tt) em solução aquosa, relacionada com uma reorganização conformacional da cadeia polimérica. Abaixo da Tt as suas cadeias poliméricas são solúveis, mas acima de Tt formam-se micro-agregados; este é um processo reversível que confere propriedades responsivas aos revestimentos. Nos seguintes capítulos, diferentes polissacarídeos como quitosano (CHT), alginato (ALG), sulfato de condroitina (CS) ou ácido hialurónico (HA), foram usados para produzir membranas multicamadas conduzidas maioritariamente via interações electroestáticas. Esta abordagem tem ganho cada vez mais importância para desenvolver materiais com funcionalidade bioquímica, biocompatibilidade e para mimetizar algumas interações observadas na matriz extracelular (ECM). Ao longo desta tese foram usadas membranas multicamada de CHT/CS; estes materiais revelaram algumas propriedades muito particulares, quando comparadas com outros sistemas de multicamada, como a sua elasticidade e taxas de degradação mais rápidas. No entanto, a baixa rigidez e maiores taxas de hidratação, que muitas vezes impedem a adesão celular, surgem frequentemente associados a sistemas multicamada compostos somente por polissacarídeos. Para contornar este obstáculo, as membranas multicamada de CHT/CS foram reticuladas com genipina. De notar que este composto é de origem natural, sendo extraído da fruta da gardénia; a pós-modificação das membranas com genipina resultou na melhoria das propriedades mecânicas e biocompatibilidade, e ainda, no aumentando das propriedades bio-adesivas. Na realidade, a possibilidade de modular as propriedades destes sistemas multicamada por reticulação química pode ser conseguida logo durante a adsorção de cada camada ou no fim do processo. Características dos biomateriais como a morfologia, espessura, taxas de adsorção de água ou biodegradação, propriedades mecânicas e biológicas podem ser moduladas ajustando certos parâmetros de reticulação (por exemplo, agente de reticulação, concentração ou tempo de reação). Para além do mais, estudos de memória de forma destas membranas multicamada mostraram resultados promissores, considerando o seu uso para fins biomédicos. As propriedades mecânicas destes sistemas foram melhoradas combinando as ligações electroestáticas já existentes com ligações covalentes conferidas pela reticulação química, dando origem a uma rede polimérica multicamada, mas interpenetrada. Na continuação deste trabalho foi possível criar uma topografia com padrão bem organizado na superfície das membranas, alterando somente o material onde efetuamos a deposição das multicamadas. Esta estratégia visou mimetizar a topografia da ECM de diferentes tecidos, como o osso, a pele ou os nervos, criando canais alinhados na superfície do material. Usando este tipo de materiais multicamada padronizados foi possível modular funções e comportamentos celulares como o alinhamento ou a diferenciação. Em seguida, inspirados pela composição das proteínas que conferem adesividade aos mexilhões, foram produzidas membranas multicamada contendo HA modificado com dopamina (DN). A presença de DN ao longo da espessura das membranas multicamada parece ter contribuído para uma melhor e maior força de adesão, quando comparadas com as membranas controlo (membranas multicamada CHT/HA e CHT/ALG). Para além do mais, os testes in vitro resultaram em uma significante melhoria da adesão celular às membranas contendo DN. Esta estratégia mostrou ser promissora para diferentes aplicações biomédicas e de engenharia de tecidos, particularmente para a regeneração de tecido ósseo e a cicatrização de feridas da pele. Combinando diferentes estratégias e conceitos biomiméticos, foi também possível recriar um sistema complexo associado à cartilagem articular e concretamente a doenças como a osteoartrite. Assim sendo, na última parte desta tese, estas membranas multicamada com propriedades adesivas foram utilizadas como veículo para transportar células estaminais humanas do tecido adiposo (hASCs) para o local onde a cartilagem se encontra danificada. A presença deste tipo de células tem sido utilizada como tratamento para cartilagem danificada. Aqui, hASCs aderiram temporariamente às membranas multicamada, e foram assim transportadas diretamente para discos de cartilagem humana danificada, permitindo a criação de uma ponte celular entre as membranas e a superfície da cartilagem. Desta forma, estas células começaram a proliferar na superfície da cartilagem começando a migrar para os defeitos (em profundidade), segregando fatores capazes de ajudar na reparação da cartilagem. No geral, o trabalho desenvolvido para a presente tese mostra a grande versatilidade da técnica LbL, que proporciona os meios necessários para desenvolver uma gama alargada de materiais, estratégias e soluções muito necessárias e promissoras para aplicações biomédicas e de engenharia de tecidos e medicina regenerativa.Programa Doutoral em Químic

How Leadership Fosters Communication and Impacts Employees Responsibility and Autonomy

This study explores the communication, autonomy and responsibility concepts, which can generate organizational success. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how communication about autonomy and responsibility leads to a better performance both personal and organizational, from employees and also how communication can be performed by leaders to be effective on the organizational success. The research question is "How Leadership fosters Communication and impacts Employees Responsibility and Autonomy?" And it will lead us to test and validate the impact of communication on performance through organizations structures. Is necessary to gather the right people with certain behaviors and with the right information for better decision making and consequently better and faster business results can be achieved. Communication is the main factor for information to flow within the organization hierarchies or teams and departments. Employees transform that information into knowledge, thus their perception capacity and performance, being knowledge defined as "understood information" or information as "organized facts", applying it to their activities. In this context it's possible to say that knowledge workers and organizations are those, which use knowledge intensively Reinforcing the main purpose of this research mentioning that "effective leadership is still largely a matter of communication. An effective leader thinks about what he says, carefully working out every expression of any significance". The central idea here is that for a system to have the freedom to self-organize, it must have some degree of "space" or autonomy for the occurrence of the relevant innovation. The idea of integrating the needs of individuals and organizations became a powerful force. Alternatives to the bureaucratic organization have begun to emerge as the research showed how bureaucratic structures, leadership styles and the general work of organizations could be modified to create "richer" jobs and motivators that would encourage people to exercise their capacities and creativity This is a conceptual paper, which explores the concepts of communication, autonomy and responsibility, framed by leadership models. The methodology used to was documentary analysis, including papers from the main scientific databases: Scopus and WOS, using the keywords communication, autonomy, responsibility and leadership. In the near future the field methodology will be "Action Research" to study methods, contents and ways of communication from leaders to their teams. The study is going to be performed during 2015/2016 in a specific company environment, using several techniques to collect data: observation and the register of evidences in loco. Data collected will be analyzed and preliminary conclusions will lead to new researches and analysis and a cycle will be done until the end of the study. As expected results we hope to prove that Communication within organization hierarchies will generate more autonomy and better performance from employees which will originate better results from their tasks and thus more efficiency which in turn will lead to high organizational performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Innovations and Social Media Analytics in a Digital Society

Recent advances in digitization are transforming healthcare, education, tourism, information technology, and some other sectors. Social media analytics are tools that can be used to measure innovation and the relation of the companies with the citizens. This book comprises state-ofthe-art social media analytics, and advanced innovation policies in the digitization of society. The number of applications that can be used to create and analyze social media analytics generates large amounts of data called big data, including measures of the use of the technologies to develop or to use new services to improve the quality of life of the citizens. Digitization has applications in fields from remote monitoring to smart sensors and other devices. Integration generates data that need to be analyzed and visualized in an easy and clear way, that will be some of the proposals of the researchers present in this book. This volume offers valuable insights to researchers on how to design innovative digital analytics systems and how to improve information delivery remotely.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Subjective wellbeing, sense of humor and psychological health in hemodialysis patients

Objective: To investigate the relationship between satisfaction with life in general, sense of humor, and anxiety, depression and stress with subjective happiness in chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional and correlational study was developed in two units of the Diaverum dialysis clinic and one hospital unit, with 183 chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. An instrument was used to characterize the sociodemographic and clinical profile of the sample (age, gender, nationality, education, occupation, marital status, dialysis sessions length, presence of hypertension and diabetes): the subjective happiness scale; the satisfaction with life in general; depression, anxiety and stress scale 21; and multidimensional sense of humor scale. Inferential procedures included Spearman correlation coefficients, and multiple linear regression adjusting to age, marital status, professional activity and diabetes.Results: Subjective Happiness was positively correlated with satisfaction with life in general, and the three dimensions of Sense of Humor. Nevertheless, subjective happiness was negatively correlated with stress / anxiety and depression. Satisfaction with life in general, humor production and social use of humor, and attitude towards humor had a positive relationship with subjective happiness. However, depression had a negative relationship with subjective happiness. Conclusions: Higher levels of subjective happiness were associated with higher levels of satisfaction with life in general, and sense of humor, however they were also associated with lower levels of depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis

the role of intercultural mediation

Migration is generally described as a process that is nationally specific and that have features common to several countries. This has been shown by several authors through comparative research that compares the migration process of the same immigrant group to several countries (among others, Engbersen, Snel, & de Boom, 2010) or which scrutinises the migration realities of different countries (Zimmermann, 2005). Most of these studies are about geographically near countries, which are part of the same political system (the EU), and that have an established (albeit differentiated) welfare system. These proximities (geographical, but also political and social) allowed the authors of these studies to conceptualise the existence of several migration models or regimes: the southern European model (Baldwin-Edwards, 2012), the Iberian model of Migration (Malheiros, 2012); the intra-EU mobility regime (Engbersen et al., 2017). These migratory regimes are intertwined by migrant integration models or by different approaches to increasingly diverse populations. Although these are often identified as ‘national models of integration’, they do not fail to integrate the developments that have been recorded in the last decades in the international contexts in which the countries are inserted. Throughout the present text, the Portuguese experience in dealing with immigrant integration is used to reflect on the development of intercultural policies and practices, and on the role of intercultural mediation. The article is structured in the following way: in the introductory section we will review the discussion on interculturalism; in a second section the Portuguese immigration context will be presented; in a third section the integration of immigrants in the country will be analysed, given special attention to the development of policies that support immigrants’ integration process. In the fourth section, the role of intercultural mediation for the integration of immigrants will be considered.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio