Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The analysis of organizations stands out in Niklas Luhmann’s theory of self-referential systems. However, this analysis has been subject of controversies. In recent years, a dialogue and an exchange of opinions with representatives of poststructuralist social philosophy have been in place, particularly regarding self-referential possibilities of communication and language. Currently there are several theoretical viewpoints converging to a constructivist, ecological and systemic self-definition. As an alternative to the autopoietic limitations in the observation of organizations, this article proposes the idea of reflexive autopoiesis.

Information on corporate social responsibility has gained importance in the last decades, not only to users of this information but also to those responsible for preparing it. This importance has intensified since 2007 due to the financial crisis in the US, which was reflected in Portugal in 2008. The growing volume of information can be presented in different ways, portraying actions that influence the company’s performance and how stakeholders see the company and its relationship with the community. The aim of this article is to present different forms of publicizing information on corporate social responsibility and highlight the channels strategically used to this end. Advantages and disadvantages of means currently used to publicize this kind of information are detailed, contributing to the debate on this issue. The literature review was based on recent studies, in order to assess the status of the issue. As for methodology, it is an exploratory analysis of information published on official websites of Portuguese companies listed at the Lisbon Stock Exchange in the first semester of 2016. The results show that there is a variety of information publicized by companies on their activities regarding social responsibility: written and non-written, financial and non-financial, internal and external. The websites and traditional reports seem to be the most used forms of publication, and reports are more often focused on qualitative than quantitative information.

The aim of this article was to conduct a literature review to identify in empirical studies major individual and contextual predictors of Entrepreneurial Intent (EI) among college students. The theory of planned behavior was used, taking into account researches that investigate the student attitudinal disposition to develop their own business. The search was made using the keywords “entrepreneurial intention”, in the main international and national journals of entrepreneurship, psychology, organization and administration and also in the SciELO database. The review covered the period between 2004-2015, and 60 articles were analyzed. The analysis showed an increase of 41% on IE studies between 2004 and 2015 in different countries and continents, which shows the increasing interest in the subject. The main individual predictors are: personal traits, personal fulfillment motivation, positive attitude, self-efficacy, perceived control, internal locus of control, perception of barriers and creativity. Contextual predictors are the families and networks of friends, which operate as role models and support to the development of the business. Regarding EE (entrepreneurial education), the results are inconclusive, especially taking into account the context. The article concludes with some limitations of the study and points to be included in the construction of a research agenda.

Resilience is a term that began to be used in the organizational context in the late 1990s; however, today it is required as a competence or "profile" for particular openings in the job market. At the same time, a line of research emerged with the fundamental role of analyzing labor relations with focus on the individual and his subjective universe, as well as questioning the functionalist ideas that had prevailed for years in organizational contexts. From this idea, this paper has as an objective to interpret the concept of resilience in literature, focusing on the subjective universe of the worker. For this, an investigation was conducted on the internal and external factors and their influences on the way a worker thinks and acts (subjectivity), with a focus on the concept of resilience. The research was qualitative, exploratory and descriptive in regards to its purpose, and bibliographic in regards to its means, with 59 papers, published between 1999 and 2014, analyzed. The results revealed that the concept of resilience from a functionalist perspective continues to dominate the organizational discourse.

This study investigates the way the growth ideology deals with the contradictions of sustainable development discourse. Reports from newspapers were analyzed, which linked state-owned companies and companies of mixed economy operating in the business of electricity generation and listed in the ISE BM&FBOVESPA to the dimensions of sustainable development of the Triple Bottom Line (3BL). Also, the sustainability reports of those companies were analyzed. The data collected is dated from 2005 to 2013. The media reports underwent content analysis aiming to find reported facts that linked those enterprises to the sustainable development themes. The reports of sustainability underwent discourse analysis with the purpose of identifying ideological demonstrations in the sustainability discourse. Using Giddens’s (1979) conceptualization of ‘ideology’, the results indicated that the growth ideology components are transferred to the discourse of sustainable development through euphemisms and semantic slips. This allows companies to take advantage of the polysemous properties of language to re-signify them by (i) the reification of the present; (ii) the defense of growth as if it were of primary collective interest, and (iii) the denial of contradictions, evidenced by conflicts between the environmental, economic and social dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line concept.

This paper aims to analyze the recognition of the theme "social responsibility" in undergraduate courses in Business Administration offered by higher education institutions (HEIs) in the State of Rio de Janeiro, from the viewpoint of course coordinators, students and student organizations that undertake social practices. A qualitative survey was conducted by applying 14 (fourteen) in-depth interviews with the coordinators, directors, professors and representatives of students social organizations. In addition, 15 (fifteen) questionnaires were completed by students who worked in the surveyed social organizations. The empirical results reveal that there is still a long way to go for Social Responsibility to be effectively included in the mandatory study program of the surveyed courses in Business Administration. In most cases, disciplines addressing social responsibility are optional (in private HEIs) or non-existent (in public HEI). Nevertheless, there is a notable increase in the number of students working in student organizations and engaged in social practices, which represent an opportunity for students to get work experience in the subject. However, this is still a small percentage, considering the amount of students registered on undergraduate courses in Business Administration. The findings also reveal that the main causes of this poor involvement of students in social entities are associated with bureaucracy as well as with the low recognition HEI give to social organizations.

Environmental responsibility has been a widespread and relatively recent research theme in the healthcare sector. Considering that the greater life expectancy increases the need for healthcare services and that these services produce negative environmental externalities on human health, it is important to understand the relationship between environmental responsibility and the healthcare sector. This article aims to investigate what motivates hospital managers to adopt environmental responsibility programs and to identify the actions implemented by them. A multiple case study was conducted involving four Brazilian hospitals based in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The results indicate that the main drivers are competitive, ethical and regulatory and that the competitive and regulatory motivators have the potential to establish a baseline for environmental performance that varies across ownership type (public or private). The results also indicate that the comprehensiveness of environmental actions is related to organizational resilience and to the motivators that drive hospitals to adopt those actions. Two conceptual models are proposed to illustrate these findings and offer bases for further research.

Amidst the changes in the business world, companies are constantly forced to adapt by reviewing their policies, their processes and their practices and work routines. Among various working practices, teleworking is a controversial theme in management and worthy of more in-depth studies. Based on this premise, the following research question is proposed: What are the critical elements for telework programs’ sustainability in a multinational company? This article aims to describe and characterize teleworkers’ views regarding telework as a human resources practice, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the challenge of making it a strategically oriented practice. A study was carried out in a telework program for interns of a multinational company. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with twelve trainees and examined through a content analysis with the aid of the software NVivo 9. The analysis provided seven categories regarding the perceptions of the program participants. Among advantages identified are the positive relationships between telework and academic activities, the flexibility provided, as well as professional development as a result of autonomous setting of individual working goals. On the other hand, the working hours, the difficulty of untying personal life from work and problems with visibility within the organization – which is important in terms of career advancement – were singled out as major difficulties of this work mode.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the effects of strategic, technical and institutional response, in the perspective of dynamic capability facing environmental changes, considering that the literature has few references on how institutional factors contribute to a firm’s dynamic capabilities. A case study was conducted on the oldest journalistic enterprise in Brazil. It was found that the organizational practices with dynamic capabilities were conditioned by mechanisms and factors that have extrapolated intentions, expectations, and planning skills of the firm’s own Board of Directors. The new social structure found in the organization is based on the interpretations of the journalists themselves, regarding the social reality of the field of journalism, was supported by the coherent interpretative schemata of some managers in order to reduce the uncertainty caused by institutional demands of the rapidly changing reading habits of people. The study revealed that strategic practices such as making the newspaper known at schools, development of a digital newspaper, showed the influence of institutions as a new normative order, social responsibility, greater legitimacy, and at the same time, a higher capacity of the organization to adapt to its business environment. These aspects, reflect a cultural structure that is reproduced at the company in its practices for the continuous use of new technologies and new social demands.

The relationship established between organizational skills and organizational sustainability should be reflected and constantly improved to align the goals of the individual and the organization, in order to achieve business sustainability and success of the strategies adopted. Against this backdrop and considering the relevance of discussions involving societal competencies and organizational sustainability, this research seeks to analyze and explore the relationship between organizational competencies and sustainability, applied to a business context. To this end a systemic review of quantitative and qualitative publications was conducted, using CAPES Portal of Scientific Journals (Periódicos CAPES) and ANPAD - National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Administration database. The research focused on studies published from 2010 to 2015, and all publications approach the relationship between organizational competencies and sustainability, applied to organizations. The results show distinct lines of understanding and production adding value to the debate on the issue. The publications focus on organizational competencies that are developed in companies by articulated activities focusing on economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.