A model to assess the impacts of ISO management systems standards

The most widely diffused ISO standards are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The main objectives of those are to demonstrate the capability to satisfy the requirements of the customers and to demonstrate the continuous search to reduce the impacts on the environment, respectively. However, these certifications will not necessarily be reflected in the performance of the company. Through the analysis of the literature, mixed results are observed, showing that not all certified companies could achieve benefits and improve the performance of the organization due to the ISO standards certification.Based on a literature review and a questionnaire survey, this paper defines a model where the main critical success factors which will influence the internalization level of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 are presented, and consequently their impacts on the organizations. This model could help researchers and practitioners in the process of evaluating the ISO standards impacts and the possible reasons for different outcomes.- This research was funded by FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. Monica Cabecinhas is supported by FCT Doctorate Grant Reference SFRH/BD/131932/2017

Identidades nacionais e memória social : hegemonia e polémica nas representações sociais da história

O modo como os grupos nacionais representam a sua história é fundamental na definição da sua própria identidade. As representações do passado determinam a forma como cada grupo se posiciona no presente e as suas estratégias para o futuro. Nesta comunicação examinamos os resultados de um inquérito realizado junto de jovens em dois países, cuja história é marcada por uma longa relação de interdependência: Portugal e Brasil. Em cada país, analisámos as representações dos jovens sobre a história da humanidade, em geral, e a história nacional do respectivo país, em particular. Investigámos as representações hegemónicas e polémicas sobre a história, o papel da identidade social e as emoções associadas aos acontecimentos e às personalidades considerados mais marcantes. Tal como nas pesquisas realizadas noutros países, os nossos resultados demonstram um forte eurocentrismo e androcentrismo nas representações partilhadas da história da humanidade. Os acontecimentos considerados mais marcantes, tanto por brasileiros como por portugueses, estão relacionados com guerras e com a dominância dos países ocidentais. Na análise dos dados, demos especial relevo às representações dos brasileiros e dos portugueses sobre os descobrimentos, o colonialismo e a descolonização. Para os jovens portugueses, os descobrimentos portugueses surgem como o quarto acontecimento mais importante na história da humanidade e diversos estadistas e navegadores portugueses aparecem entre as personalidades mais marcantes. Estes jovens consideram que os descobrimentos tiveram um impacto positivo para toda a humanidade, associando-lhes emoções positivas: orgulho, admiração e felicidade. Em contrapartida, para os jovens brasileiros, ainda que os descobrimentos estejam entre os acontecimentos mais importantes da história da humanidade, o seu impacto na história afigura-se como muito mais polémico, sobretudo no contexto da história do Brasil. Muitos jovens brasileiros associam emoções fortemente negativas a estes acontecimentos: revolta, indignação, vergonha. Estes sentimentos sobre o passado são acompanhados por uma forte identificação étnica, o que se reflecte igualmente na evocação dos heróis da nação.The way national groups represent their history is paramount for their own identities’ outlining. Representations about the past determine the way each group stands in the present and strategically looks for the future. In this paper we analyse the findings of a survey applied to young people from two countries, which history is influenced by a long interdependence relationship: Portugal and Brazil. In each of these countries, we analysed the youngsters’ representations of the world history and their representations of their own country’s history. We studied history’s polemic and hegemonic representations, the role of social identity and feelings associated with events and people perceived as the most relevant ones. Similarly to researches carried through in different countries, our findings reveal a strong eurocentrism and androcentrism displayed in shared representations of the world history. Events considered as key by both Brazilian and Portuguese are related with wars and the dominance of occidental countries. When analysing the data, we emphasised Brazilian and Portuguese representations on the Portuguese discoveries, colonialism and decolonisation. According to Portuguese participants, Portuguese discoveries are the fourth most important event in the world history, and a number of Portuguese statesmen and discoverers come out among the most relevant people. These youngsters think the Portuguese discoveries had a positive impact to humankind as a whole, associating them with positive feelings: pride, admiration and happiness. On the other hand, for Brazilian youngsters, although Portuguese discoveries are among the most relevant events in the world history, their impact is considered much more controversial, especially as far as Brazil’s history is concerned. Many Brazilian youngsters associate this event with strongly negative feelings: anger, indignation, shame. These feelings about the Past are equally associated with a strong ethnic identification, which also reflects itself on the evocation of the nation’s heroes. Key-words: social identity; social memory; social representation

ISO 14001 standard: Benefits, motivations and difficulties throughout the implementation process

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a summary of the benefits, motivations and difficulties in implementing the ISO 14001 standard, which is the key reference in the field of corporate environmental management. Design/methodology/approach- A literature research was carried out in order to get understanding about the key concepts of ISO 14001, to investigate the reason why companies feel motivated to adopt this EMS and to identify the associated benefits and difficulties in the implementation. Findings This paper shows the benefits found by certified companies can be classified in internal, external and relations benefits. The impact of the certification on financial and organizational performances showed to be positive. Enhancement of internal processes, strengthening of results, prevention of potential problems and a larger number of stakeholders are pointed as important performance improvements. Originality/value - This paper focuses on the ISO 14001 certification motivation and importance. Thus, this paper contribution lies on providing information regarding possible benefits and difficulties that may occur due to EMS implementation.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ISO 22000 standard implementation: Benefits, motivations and obstacles

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to evaluate benefits, motivations, and obstacles of the implementation of ISO 22000 in the food industry and do a comparative relation in multiple countries. The study identifies the main difficulties faced by companies during the adoption process and the benefits found on their overall satisfaction with ISO 22000. Design/methodology/approach - A research was performed to identify the existence of studies about difficulties and benefits of ISO 22000 implementation. The literature review resulted in the selection of studies about the Food Safety Management System (FSMS) in different countries, with special focus on ISO 2200 implications. Findings - There are several benefits that companies can obtain from having an implemented and certified FSMS. It is possible to observe similar benefits when ISO 22000 is implemented. The difficulties to the implementation of ISO 2200 were identified by all companies, however they demonstrated to be pleased with the benefits (internal and external) of the certification. Research limitations A small percentage of papers were found about the ISO 22000 implementation. Most case studies focus on Food Safety without a specific focus on ISO 22000. Originality/value - The studied papers comprised certified companies and analyzed benefits and obstacles of the implementation of ISO 22000, including representatives of all links in the Food Chain.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Impacts from the implementation of the ISO 22000

Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to assort different impacts of the ISO 22000 implementation considering internal or external impacts, positive or negative impacts. It also intends to provide a worldwide overview on the topic, to distinguish companies from different sectors and to gather different methodologies that are used in previously published articles related with this implementation. Design/methodology/approach- Different articles of the ISO 22000 implementation from different countries were gathered and singled out according to the information that was provided. The information of interest was analyzed and rewritten according to the initially established categories. Findings- The results from several studies, researches and points of view from different authors show that the ISO 22000 implementation carries positive impacts. Negative impacts are hard to find. Most of the impacts are directly related to the organizations themselves, hence being internal impacts. Studies are mainly carried out with the help of questionnaires that are presented to the companies. Research limitations/implications- The main goal was to come across different impacts and classify them either as positive and negative or internal and external. However, its unusual to find authors that consider negative impacts from the ISO 22000 implementation. Also, external impacts are not so common. Originality/value- This article mainly highlights the ISO 22000 implementation positive impacts in worldwide organizations. It summarizes the different countries views towards Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) and how they affect the performance of their companies.U.Porto -Universidade do Porto(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Critical success factors during the implementation of ISO 22000:2018

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to evaluate why companies still struggle with ISO 22000 implementation and maintenance, identifying which aspects are key for its success. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review was carried out based on Scientific articles and implementation guides collected from Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and ResearchGate. Findings - Nine aspects seem to have a broader impact on organizations maintenance of ISO 22000 and other FSMS. Furthermore, the empirical research reveals that having an efficient food safety management system is a prerequisite for companys competitiveness. Practical implications - The findings show that many of the critical success factors for a FSMS implementation are based on regular and adequate management of people inside the company. Originality/value - A novel model of segmenting critical success factors is presented, which has practical implications for ISO 22000 achievement.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social representations of history, wars and politics in Latin America, Europe and Africa

This study analyzes how people perceive world history on three continents: Latin America, Europe and Africa. A total of 1179 university students form Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde were asked to evaluate world events and leaders in terms of their valence and importance. The results demonstrated that social representations of history show a Euro/North American-centric, long-term positive evaluation, recency, and socio- centric bias. Euro/North American-centric events and leaders were found to be rated as more important and were more positively perceived in general. Distant political events, like French or American Revolution, were considered to be more positive than XX century similar events, which supports the long-term positive evaluation bias hypothesis. The hypothesis on recency bias was partially substantiated. Confirming the existence of such bias, World War II was rated as more important than the previous XX century wars and revolutions. Socio-centric bias also received partial support. African participants rated Mandela as a more important leader than other participants did. Latin Americans rated Che Guevara less positively, which suggests that some leaders are generally idealized icons, not based on group belongingness. However, results did not bring support to the centrality of war hypothesis. Wars were indeed negatively evaluated and World War II was rated as an important and negative event. Nevertheless, war- and politics-related events were not perceived as more important than the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that people appraise the importance of long-term socioeconomic factors of history when responding to close-ended quantitative measures (vs. open-ended salience measures). Results are discussed in the framework of social representations of history.El estudio analiza como las personas perciben la historia mundial en tres continentes: Latinoamérica, Europa y África. 1179 estudiantes universitarios de Argentina, Brasil, Perú, Portugal, España, Guinea-Bissau y Cabo Verde evaluaron una lista de eventos mundiales y líderes en lo que concierne a su valoración e importancia. Los resultados han mostrado que la representación social de la historia se caracteriza por un Euro centrismo, una evaluación positiva a largo plazo, y por sesgos socio-céntricos. Los eventos “Occidentales” (vinculados a Europa y Norteamérica) fueron evaluados como más importantes y percibidos más positivamente que los no-Occidentales. Eventos políticos distantes, como la Revolución Francesa o Americana, fueron evaluados más positivamente que eventos similares del siglo XX, apoyando la hipótesis de la evaluación positiva del pasado lejano. La hipótesis del sesgo de recencia o proximidad fue parcialmente confirmada, ya que la II Guerra Mundial fue evaluada como más importante que revoluciones o guerras anteriores al siglo XX. El sesgo socio-céntrico también recibe apoyo parcial. Los africanos consideraron a Mandela como un líder más importante comparado con los otros participantes. Los Latinos americanos evaluaron Che Guevara menos positivamente, lo que sugiere que ciertos líderes son generalmente íconos idealizados, y su valoración positiva no se basa en la proximidad o la pertenencia grupal. Sin embargo, los resultados no apoyaron la hipótesis de la centralidad de la guerra. Las guerras fueron efectivamente evaluadas negativamente y la II Guerra Mundial fue evaluado como la guerra más importante y como un evento muy negativo. No obstante, las guerras y eventos políticos relacionados con la violencia no fueron percibidos como más importantes que la Revolución industrial, sugiriendo que las personas valoran la importancia general de los factores históricos socioeconómicos cuando responden a medidas cuantitativas cerradas (vs. medidas abiertas). Los resultados se analizan desde el marco teórico de las representaciones sociales de la Historia

Interwoven migration narratives: identity and social representations in the Lusophone world

First published online: 17 Oct 2016This article provides an exploratory analysis of the life narratives of migrants in the Portuguese-speaking world. By interweaving the life experiences of eight participants in three thematic clusters – ‘shared past’, language and sense of community – we propose a critique of the deep-seated idea of the Lusophone space as a community constructed by the harmonious conviviality of different countries and people. Drawing on contributions from cultural studies, social psychology, anthropology and sociology, we first aim to give voice to the human subjects who embark on migrations and then to understand how the engendered process of identity construction is framed by their social world, simultaneously reframing it. Thus, we aim at shedding light on the ways in which aspects of the political discourses on Lusophony are used (and are instrumental) to the migrants’ identity narrative (re)construction.This work was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia: [Grant Number PTDC/CCI-COM/105100/2008]

Heroes and villains of world history across cultures

© 2015 Hanke et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedEmergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox, Muslim, and Asian country clusters. The highest consensus across cultures involved scientific innovators, with Einstein having the most positive evaluation overall. Peaceful humanitarians like Mother Theresa and Gandhi followed. There was much less cross-cultural consistency in the evaluation of negative figures, led by Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. After more traditional empirical methods (e.g., factor analysis) failed to identify meaningful cross-cultural patterns, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify four global representational profiles: Secular and Religious Idealists were overwhelmingly prevalent in Christian countries, and Political Realists were common in Muslim and Asian countries. We discuss possible consequences and interpretations of these different representational profiles.This research was supported by grant RG016-P-10 from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (http://www.cckf.org.tw/). Religion Culture Entropy China Democracy Economic histor