Suchergebnisse

Since the early 2000s, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been conducting a reform of its forestry sector with the publication of The Forest Code (2002). The implementation of this law, which aims to assure the participation of all stakeholders, has been evolving slowly since then. The present research aims to evaluate the knowledge local communities and indigenous people detain over the ongoing reform, and the expectations they created when negotiations over the implementation of industrial harvesting activities in their traditional territories began. By interviewing local people, we came to understand that insufficient knowledge regarding the law gathers with a lack of concern towards ecological or environmental matters and with the need of seeing basic needs satisfied; all this in a context in which different stakeholders' responsibilities and negotiational terms are often misunderstood.

PurposeSal Island has been the object of strong tourism development in the last decades, to the point that Cape Verde is now the African country with the highest relative weight of tourism in employment and economy. This study aims at knowing: the perceptions of Sal residents towards the environmental, cultural, social and economic impacts of tourism activity; the opinion of the people regarding public information and participation; and possible divergences with the "official" discourse present in governmental strategic plans.Design/methodology/approachA survey was carried out among a sample of residents and descriptive statistics, t‐student and Pearson correlation were computed to study the existence of relations between the impacts and the demographic characteristics of the respondents (age, education, gender and years living in the area). The most relevant plans concerning tourism activity were object of content analysis.FindingsNegative social impacts and positive economic ones are well perceived by the residents, especially the improvement of women's situation. There is a lack of public participation in the decision‐making processes. In general, the population supports tourism development, but there are wearing signs that ought to be taken into consideration by planners and decision makers.Originality/valueIt is the first study about the perception of the resident population concerning the tourism development on Sal Island. The information may be relevant to planners and public policy makers to substantiate future decisions.

Purpose– Corporate social responsibility became a core topic in the management and activity of banks. Being a bidirectional, permanent, updateable and universal access communication channel, the internet contributed to transform the way the organizations report social responsibility to stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to understand how the banks use their web sites to disclose their social responsibility concerns and activities.Design/methodology/approach– The globe was divided in 11 regions, according to geographic and cultural criteria. Information was gathered from the corporate web sites of the ten major banks in each region, and their contents were analyzed. Geographic patterns and the correlation to universal development indicators were studied.Findings– The banks disclose on their web sites information on environmental management and socioeconomic programs. Other recurrent themes are the support to education, fight against corruption, workers' welfare, corporate ethics and the existence of codes of conduct. There are geographic patterns in the quantity and detail of the information provided, as well as in the themes mentioned. The banks located in Europe, the American continent, and Oceania, are those who disclose more information. This confirms that the disclosure of social responsibility by the banks is larger and more detailed according to the development indexes of the country where they operate.Originality/value– The work studies the disclosure on the internet of information on social responsibility by the banks, being the first work to do it at the world level. This way, it provides a significant contribution to identify the themes that are more often disclosed and to establish comparisons between geographic areas.

Through an interdisciplinary literature review, based on empirical evidence, this research approaches different ways of interpreting silence(s) in three qualitative research methods—ethnography, focus groups and interviews—which, by their nature, are conducive to practices that resort to silence as units of meaning. The findings presented in this paper demonstrate how, in different data collection techniques, it is possible to rethink not only the whole conception of what silence is but also what silence can (or cannot) help to express. From a qualitative perspective in the social sciences and humanities, silence can in itself be a means of expression and a valid communication resource.

A literatura existente sobre o fenómeno de hortas urbanas tem-se debruçado essencialmente sobre o seu contributo para a sustentabilidade das cidades e sobre a importância ambiental deste tipo de iniciativas. A questão que colocamos neste estudo é a de compreender o processo de participação em programas de hortas urbanas de carácter comunitário e relacionar essa mesma participação com a promoção da sustentabilidade local. O que motiva os cidadãos a participar, como participam e quais os resultados dessa participação são as questões centrais que iremos abordar. Tendo como estudo de caso as hortas urbanas de Cascais, recorreu-se a entrevistas semi estruturadas aos utilizadores dos espaços hortícolas. A participação no programa de hortas comunitárias de Cascais é examinada através de uma análise às entradas (inputs), ao próprio processo em si e aos resultados (outputs) da participação. Concluímos que o reforço das relações sociais, a promoção da coesão e inclusão social facilitam o estreitamento das relações de vizinhança. Mais, ao favorecerem a aquisição de competências, estimulam a cidadania e a participação em outros projetos comunitários, contribuindo assim para empoderar os participantes, criando um cenário favorável à geração de capital social.

Purpose
This study aims to explore the alignment between strategic plans of the Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs) and their perception of the integration of sustainability in education and curricula.


Design/methodology/approach
The strategic plans from 15 institutions were selected for content analysis; data about the integration of sustainability in education and curricula, from these HEI, were collected with an online questionnaire (self-report survey). Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed.


Findings
Strategic plans of the Portuguese public HEIs seem to not be sufficiently aligned with self-assessment integration of sustainability in education and curricula.


Research limitations/implications
The classifications used in the content analysis were constructed and revised by the authors to reduce coder interpretation issues and subsequent bias in the results. However, some subjectivity could remain. The analysis of strategic plans and self-report surveys answered by top management, or a technician, does not assess the practices and sustainability implementation in education and curricula.


Practical implications
This study allows the self-report of already-implemented practices to be compared to the planned strategy of HEI governance in Portugal as stated in their strategic plans.


Originality/value
An analysis and respective insights on the lack of connection between strategic planning and self-report practices about sustainability implementation, using Portugal as a case study.