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This article develops a firm-level analysis of how the quality of employment relations following acquisition by private equity firms (PEFs) is contingent upon the strategic intent of those firms and the post-acquisition organizational choices they make. The efficiency gains that PEFs seek in acquired companies are expected to encourage restructuring towards a minimalist organization. However, the form such an organization takes is seen to depend on whether PEF strategy is oriented primarily towards extracting short-term value from acquired assets rather than towards renewing and developing those assets. Contrasts in the process of restructuring and in organizational form associated with these two strategies will have different implications for the quality of employment relations. The way in which PEFs restructure the companies or units they acquire is the key intervening factor between the strategic intent of PEFs and impact they have on the quality of employment relations.

The governance of companies, other than very small ones, operates through a double agency relationship. The first agency relationship is that between owners or stakeholders, on the one hand, and corporate management, on the other. The second agency relationship is that between corporate management and the employees of a firm, including middle managers, who execute its plans and policies. This second relationship has been largely ignored in discussions of corporate governance, yet its effectiveness is essential for achieving a firm's objectives. If employees have limited trust in their companies, the ability of corporate managers to have their intentions executed will be impaired. There is considerable evidence that such trust is today at a low ebb. This paper suggests policies that may help to repair employee trust and in so doing strengthen corporate governance. Its underlying theme is that greater attention to the trust that employees have in managers would help to achieve a long overdue realignment of corporate governance theory and policy.

The main aim of this essay is to present a set of reflections on Gilberto Freyre, highlighting his ideas on national identity and Latin Americanness. What connections may we establish between his work Casa-Grande & Senzala [The Masters and the Slaves] (1933) and various issues which remain relevant to the current Latin American political debate? First, we locate Freyre's thoughts within the Latin American debate on issues around national identity. We then move on to proposing several theoretical reflections and methodologies that we consider key to the debate on the theme of our work, namely: Gilberto Freyre's political thought and his strategies for Brazil; the author's studies abroad (in the US and in Europe) and the epistemological repercussions in Casa-Grande & Senzala; Freyre's own brand of romantic conservatism and Brazilian politics; and the relations between ethos and pathos in the implicit political pact in Freyre's work. Finally, we provide a summary of Freyre's debate on Americanness (at the onset of the 1940s) and his political agenda for Latin America.

The following article discusses various aspects of the trade of illicit psychoactive substances based on an analysis of reports obtained in semi-structured interviews with perpetrators of these practices and residents in the Greater Vitória region and the city of Piúma, both in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. By interviewing individuals condemned for drug trafficking, who found themselves at the time of the interviews serving time in an open scheme after a certain period of imprisonment, it was observed that they tended to return to such behavior for the same reasons that lead any young person to become involved in formal activities for generating income, which were, however, not available to this group. We discuss the disproportionality of the State's current treatment method and the problem of the trade of illicit substances, whose format has also adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding to encompass the delivery model.

Proceedings of the 2000 Winter Simulation Conference J. A. Joines, R. R. Barton, K. Kang, and P. A. Fishwick, eds. ; The Argentine Air Force and the Brazilian Navy recently added the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk aircraft to their military services. Each country maintains its own limited repair facility and spare parts inventory. Major repair work (depot-level maintenance) must be sent to the manufacturers in the United States, and the long repair cycle times adversely affect military readiness. It is critical to implement an effective spare parts management system to compensate for such long repair cycle times. We developed a simulation model to study the impact of consolidating aviation component spare parts inventory management and reducing transportation cycle times. Our results indicate that both countries will greatly benefit if they collaborate on the inventory management of their A-4 fleet maintenance. Their benefits will be significantly increased if they change the sea transportation mode to air transportation for transporting avionic components back and forth to the United States for repair.

Values are a central dimension of human social life, they are core to a person's self-concept and identity and drive individual actions towards both personal enhancement and social transformation. At a social level, values govern how individuals relate to others and shape the organization of societies being, therefore, powerful guidelines to face new societal challenges like inclusion/exclusion issues, social justice or cultural diversity. Research with adults in this field has demonstrated that human values are powerful predictors of a wide range of behaviours, attitudes and beliefs. However, research with children is still very recent and has mostly focused on adolescents and older children, probably due to concerns about young children's capabilities to produce reliable information and discourse. In the same way, children's voices regarding political issues have been frequently dismissed even when children's right to participate fully in political and cultural life is specifically recognized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Therefore, giving voice to children is ultimately a matter of respecting their rights. To address this gap we introduce in this presentation a project that seeks to respond to this need by mapping the basic human values (e.g. Schwartz, 1992) of children and young adolescents (6 to 14 years) and its associations with the representations of justice and attitudes towards different social groups. Also, we intend to propose further directions to incorporate values and children's views in education policies and decision-making. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by all UN member states and have been embraced by many multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international NGOs. They created a 'hybrid governance' platform in which companies, governments, NGOs, and knowledge institutes can work on achieving common goals through targeted action and serve as the leading global sustainable development framework until 2030. By the year 2020, however, progress towards the goals proved slow, prompting the UN to announce a 'Decade of Action'. The slow or limited adoption and implementation of the SDG Agenda by MNEs – in close interaction with government policies – is one of the root causes for delayed progress. The question is no longer 'why' MNEs should develop sustainability strategies, but rather 'how'. A number of related questions arise. What have been the roles of MNEs in progress towards the SDGs, what is needed from them in the future, and what can be the role of international business (IB) scholarship in shaping discussion and action? This Special Issue tackles these questions from four angles: (1) identifying and helping to fill theoretical gaps in IB research on the SDGs; (2) asking which SDGs and targets provide promising venues for societally relevant IB research topics; (3) assessing and helping to fill empirical gaps by using, complementing, and upgrading relevant SDG indicators; and (4) showing how IB research and policy practice can become better aligned.

15 pages, 7 figures.-- et al. ; An overview of 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy methods and their applications in the study of the metabolism of brain cells in vitro and in the in vivo brain is presented as well as their implications for modern molecular imaging techniques. Various topics will be discussed, such as general properties of the 13C NMR spectrum, 13C NMR spectroscopy acquisition protocols, determination of fractional 13C enrichment, 13C(2H) NMR methodologies, and the use of 13C hyperpolarized substrates for NMR spectroscopy and imaging. Some illustrative applications are described, both in vitro and in vivo. ; This work was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia SAF 2004-03197, SAF 2008-01327 ande NAN 2004-09124-C07-03 to S.C, grant S-BIO2006-170 from the Community of Madrid to S.C, fundacao para a Ciencia e Tegnologia (F.C.T). Portugal (Proyect POCTI/1999/BCI/36160), FEDER and grant MEDITRANS (FP VI 2006, EU IP NMP-02668) from the European Union. T.B.R and CPF were supported by fellowships from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tegnologia/Ministério da Ciencia e Ensino Superior - Portugal (SFRH/BPD/26881/2006 and PRAXIS XXI/BD/21462/99, respectively). ; Peer reviewed