Qual a importância do trabalho voluntário para sustentabilidade de organizações não-governamentais?

A presente dissertação trata do trabalho voluntário nas instituições privadas sem fins lucrativos de pequeno porte. O estudo tem como principal objetivo a investigação a respeito do impacto do trabalho voluntário na sustentabilidade dessas instituições por meio do estudo de caso da organização não-governamental Colcha de Retalhos. Como objetivo secundário buscou-se analisar as motivações, significados e benefícios do trabalho voluntário para o voluntariado. O estudo se caracteriza como descritivo-interpretativo, por uma abordagem predominantemente qualitativa, os dados foram coletados através de entrevistas estruturadas e pesquisa documental. Os dados revelam aspectos importantes para a pesquisa e fomentou o estudo de assuntos vinculados ao voluntariado trazido pelos próprios entrevistados, tais como: cidadania, tensões nas relações entre voluntários e famílias atendidas, voluntários e escolas e voluntários e voluntários. Questões próprias do voluntariado e do Terceiro Setor são abordadas com o intuito de embasar as análises e conclusões do estudo. Os resultados apontam para um impacto positivo do trabalho voluntário na sustentabilidade das instituições sem fins lucrativos de pequeno porte.

Segmentos populares, consumo e participação cultural

Esta pesquisa investigou como a cultura pode se tornar um recurso econômico, social e político para os segmentos menos favorecidos da população. Foram estudados três grupos de artesanato e três grupos de música, bem como entrevistou-se representantes de órgãos estatais, para-governamentais e do terceiro setor, que atuam na área da cultura. A conclusão é a de que a cultura pode ser um recurso econômico, social e político, quando se verifica a conjugação de alguns fatores-chave: os grupos de artistas conseguem se organizar coletivamente; suas lideranças agem de modo empreendedor e articulando-se a redes sociais diversificadas; parcerias são estabelecidas com organizações governamentais, para-governamentais e do terceiro setor, comprometidas com os objetivos desses grupos. Constatou-se que a sustentabilidade dos empreendimentos associativos na área cultural depende de políticas transversais, visando o desenvolvimento local integrado e sustentado.

A green revolution in Mozambique: a study about the government possibilities to launch a sustainable green revolution

The present study is focused on the analysis of the political, economical and social factors that may interfere with the possibility of a Green Revolution as a solution for Mozambique to reach self-sufficiency and to reduce poverty. In order to perform such analysis, the study analyzes the consequences of the decolonization process in Mozambique focusing that the independence process in Mozambique did not create non-colonial models for the Agriculture Sector. Later on, the study tries to understand the impact of HIV/AIDS and Malaria on the labor force. By then, it explores the concepts of the Green Revolution and its successful history in India. At the end, it tries to evaluate if a Green Revolution is possible in Africa, especially in Mozambique, first identifying the factors, which characterized the Green Revolution in India, and trying to link those factors with the reality of Mozambique. The report is structured as followed; Chapter 2, ¿The decolonization process and its impacts on the agriculture sector¿. It gives information about the decolonization process, and explores its consequences. Chapter 3, ¿The Impacts of HIV/AIDS and Malaria on the Labor Force¿. It analyzes the impact of those diseases in the labor force. Chapter 4 ¿The Green Revolution and the Agriculture Sector¿, explores the concepts of Green Revolution, its success in India and its history in Mozambique. Chapter 5, finally, centers on conclusions, findings and recommendations.

Understanding e-government technology transfer: evidence from the transfer of a patent management system from EPO to INPI

Drawing upon Brazilian experience, this research explores some of the key issues to be addressed in using e-government technical cooperation designed to enhance service provision of Patent Offices in developing countries. While the development of software applications is often seen merely as a technical engineering exercise, localization and adaptation are context bounded matters that are characterized by many entanglements of human and non-humans. In this work, technical, legal and policy implications of technical cooperation are also discussed in a complex and dynamic implementation environment characterized by the influence of powerful hidden agendas associated with the arena of intellectual property (IP), which are shaped by recent technological, economic and social developments in our current knowledge-based economy. This research employs two different theoretical lenses to examine the same case, which consists of transfer of a Patent Management System (PMS) from the European Patent Office (EPO) to the Brazilian Patent Office that is locally named ‘Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial’ (INPI). Fundamentally, we have opted for a multi-paper thesis comprising an introduction, three scientific articles and a concluding chapter that discusses and compares the insights obtained from each article. The first article is dedicated to present an extensive literature review on e-government and technology transfer. This review allowed the proposition on an integrative meta-model of e-government technology transfer, which is named E-government Transfer Model (ETM). Subsequently, in the second article, we present Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a framework for understanding the processes of transferring e-government technologies from Patent Offices in developed countries to Patent Offices in developing countries. Overall, ANT is seen as having a potentially wide area of application and being a promising theoretical vehicle in IS research to carry out a social analysis of messy and heterogeneous processes that drive technical change. Drawing particularly on the works of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law, this work applies this theory to a longitudinal study of the management information systems supporting the Brazilian Patent Office restructuration plan that involved the implementation of a European Patent Management System in Brazil. Based upon the ANT elements, we follow the actors to identify and understand patterns of group formation associated with the technical cooperation between the Brazilian Patent Office (INPI) and the European Patent Office (EPO). Therefore, this research explores the intricate relationships and interactions between human and non-human actors in their attempts to construct various network alliances, thereby demonstrating that technologies embodies compromise. Finally, the third article applies ETM model as a heuristic frame to examine the same case previously studied from an ANT perspective. We have found evidence that ETM has strong heuristic qualities that can guide practitioners who are engaged in the transfer of e-government systems from developed to developing countries. The successful implementation of e-government projects in developing countries is important to stimulate economic growth and, as a result, we need to understand the processes through which such projects are being implemented and succeed. Here, we attempt to improve understanding on the development and stabilization of a complex social-technical system in the arena of intellectual property. Our preliminary findings suggest that e-government technology transfer is an inherently political process and that successful outcomes require continuous incremental actions and improvisations to address the ongoing issues as they emerge.

Agreements and disputes over non-tariff measures

In trade agreements, governments can design remedies to ensure compliance (property rule) or to compensate victims (liability rule). This paper describes an economic framework to explain the pattern of remedies over non-tariff restrictions—particularly domestic subsidies and nonviolation complaints subject to liability rules. The key determinants of the contract form for any individual measure are the expected joint surplus from an agreement and the expected loss to the constrained government. The loss is higher for domestic subsidies and nonviolations because these are the policies most likely to correct domestic distortions. Governments choose property rules when expected gains from compliance are sufficiently high and expected losses to the constrained country are sufficiently low. Liability rules are preferable when dispute costs are relatively high, because inefficiencies in the compensation process reduce the number of socially inefficient disputes filed.