The relationship between board of director's nationality diversity and financial performance

Companies are moving to a more international structure; going into new markets and having an increased competition in all fronts. Therefore, the practices that lead companies to a more efficient and competitive position are praised. The management of the workforce comes as one of the main concerns of companies, aiming at performance enhancing and at creating better environments that both attract and maintain the professional talents. In an increasingly international environment, companies tend to look for the specialists and best professionals, regardless of their nationality. This new structure with several different nationalities working together poses new challenges for companies. Understanding if and how a more diverse has a relationship with financial performance is the starting point for better managing this new corporate structure.

Managing software development information in global configuration management activities

Software Configuration Management (SCM) techniques have been considered the entry point to rigorous software engineering, where multiple organizations cooperate in a decentralized mode to save resources, ensure the quality of the diversity of software products, and manage corporate information to get a better return of investment. The incessant trend of Global Software Development (GSD) and the complexity of implementing a correct SCM solution grow not only because of the changing circumstances, but also because of the interactions and the forces related to GSD activities. This paper addresses the role SCM plays in the development of commercial products and systems, and introduces a SCM reference model to describe the relationships between the different technical, organizational, and product concerns any software development company should support in the global market.

Genetic diversity and susceptibility to Vip3Aa20 protein in Brazilian populations of Helicoverpa armigera and Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) was officially reported in Brazil in 2013. This species is closely related to Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) and has caused significant crop damage in Brazil. The use of genetically modified crops expressing insecticidal protein from Bacillus thuringiensis (Berliner) has been one of the control tactics for managing these pests. Genetically modified maize expressing Vip3Aa20 was approved to commercial use in Brazil in 2009. Understanding the genetic diversity and the susceptibility to B. thuringiensis proteins in H. armigera and H. zea populations in Brazil are crucial for establishing Insect Resistance Management (IRM) programs in Brazil. Therefore, the objectives of this study were: (a) to infer demographic parameters and genetic structure of H. armigera and H. zea Brazil; (b) to assess the intra and interspecific gene flow and genetic diversity of H. armigera and H. zea; and (c) to evaluate the susceptibility to Vip3Aa20 protein in H. armigera and H. zea populations of Brazil. A phylogeographic analysis of field H. armigera and H. zea populations was performed using a partial sequence data from the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene. H. armigera individuals were most prevalent on dicotyledonous hosts and H. zea individuals were most prevalent on maize crops. Both species showed signs of demographic expansion and no genetic structure. High genetic diversity and wide distribution were observed for H. armigera. A joint analysis indicated the presence of Chinese, Indian, and European lineages within the Brazilian populations of H. armigera. In the cross-species amplification study, seven microsatellite loci were amplified; and showed a potential hybrid offspring in natural conditions. Interespecific analyses using the same microsatellite loci with Brazilian H. armigera and H. zea in compare to the USA H. zea were also conducted. When analyses were performed within each species, 10 microsatellites were used for H. armigera, and eight for H. zea. We detected high intraspecific gene flow in populations of H. armigera and H. zea from Brazil and H. zea from the USA. Genetic diversity was similar for both species. However, H. armigera was more similar to H. zea from Brazil than H. zea from the USA and some putative hybrid individuals were found in Brazilian populations.Tthere was low gene flow between Brazilian and USA H. zea. The baseline susceptibility to Vip3Aa20 resulted in low interpopulation variation for H. zea (3-fold) and for H. armigera (5-fold), based on LC50. H. armigera was more tolerant to Vip3Aa20 than H. zea (≈ 40 to 75-fold, based on CL50). The diagnostic concentration for susceptibility monitoring, based on CL99, was fairly high (6,400 ng Vip3Aa20/cm2) for H. zea and not validated for H. armigera due to the high amount of protein needed for bioassays. Implementing IRM strategies to Vip3Aa20 in H. armigera and H. zea will be of a great challenge in Brazil, mainly due to the low susceptibility to Vip3Aa20 and high genetic diversity and gene flow in both species, besides a potential of hybrid individuals between H. armigera and H. zea under field conditions.

Perceived dissimilarity and work group involvement: The moderating effects of group openness to diversity

Perceived dissimilarity and its association with work group involvement were examined in this study. Additionally, perceived group openness to diversity was examined as a moderator of this relationship. A longitudinal study was conducted with nurses in four departments of a public hospital. Results revealed that visible dissimilarity was negatively associated with work group involvement at both times, and informational dissimilarity was negatively associated with work group involvement at Time 1. Openness to diversity interacted with visible and informational dissimilarity in the prediction of work group involvement at both times. This interaction pattern showed that there was a negative relationship between dissimilarity and work group involvement when individuals perceived low group openness to diversity, whereas there was no relationship when individuals perceived high group openness to diversity. Results highlight the importance of managing perceptions of difference and introducing norms that encourage the active involvement of group members.

Muslim Women Managing Women's Shelters : Somaya, the Muslimwoman and Religion as Resource

This article focuses on Sisters’ Shelter Somaya in Sweden, an organization unique in its claim to be a women’s shelter by and for Muslim women, and in its combining of Islamic and secular feminisms. Examining the organization’s self-presentations, the author argues that there is, however, an ongoing shift from an emphasis on its Muslim profile to a dissolution of the very same. Looking into potential loss in the process (for clients, activists, allies, and feminism at large), the analysis draws on current research on anti-Muslim intolerance and normative secularism. The concept of the “Muslim woman” is employed to illustrate the stereotyping that continuously associates Muslim women with “victims” inhabiting shelters rather than capable “managers”. Intersectionality is pointed at as an emic strategy adopted by Somaya to overcome division, but also critically analysed as a consensus-creating signifier that hinders diversity. Thus,the article raises the increasingly important issue of the relationship between religion, gender, and feminism in the post-secular turn, and the author calls for critical self-reflection and creative affirmation in the interaction with heterogeneous others.

Weathering the crisis? Managing democracy at a national broadcaster

With post-2008 political and economic crises as its backdrop, this inquiry into the political roles and functions of public service broadcasting (PSB) in Ireland is principally concerned with examining the capacities for and actuality of critical and counter-hegemonic professional journalistic and institutional mediations of crisis. Recognising the diversity of influences on the normative identity of Irish PSB, the dissertation adopts a sociological approach that acknowledges the systemic embedding of media institutions in the broader field of power. An initial tracing of the formative impacts of endogenous and exogenous forces on the democratic horizons of PSB suggests that the present crisis conjuncture does not represent promising terrain for engendering critical crisis and recovery imaginaries. A methodologically diverse intra-institutional empirical research agenda aims to explore at close hand Irish PSB’s contingent navigation of crisis, encompassing ethnographic observation in the newsroom, practitioner interviews and textual analysis of broadcast output. These methods afford close analysis of practices of journalistic production and reflexivity, self-conceptions of the journalistic habitus, and ideological affinities of crisis framings in broadcast output. These analyses are supplemented by a participant observation study of the possibilities for public agenda-building in a key institutional venue of public participation in broadcasting governance. The findings offer an evidential basis for the arguments that the crisis has prompted only minimal changes to professional norms and practices of representation and inclusion; that journalistic crisis framings tend toward effecting hegemonic repair by lending support to neoliberal crisis and recovery imaginaries; and that the institutional openings for the building of public counterpower are highly constrained. The overall conclusion is made that the normative democratic orientation embedded in the professional and institutional projects of public service broadcasting help render it ill-equipped to act as a re-democratising countervailing power against the democratic regressions engendered by the present crisis of democratic capitalism.

Critically low levels of genetic diversity in fragmented populations of the endangered Glenelg spiny freshwater crayfish Euastacus bispinosus

The Glenelg spiny freshwater crayfish Euastacus bispinosus is a large endangered freshwater invertebrate of southeastern Australia that has suffered major population declines over the last century. Disjunct populations in the state of South Australia are in a particularly critical condition, restricted to a few isolated rising-spring habitats and in an ongoing state of decline. We assessed genetic diversity and gene flow within E. bispinosus across its current range using allele frequencies from 11 nuclear microsatellite loci and DNA sequence data from a single mitochon -drial locus (cytochrome oxidase subunit I). Populations were characterized by low levels of genetic diversity and found to be highly structured, with gene flow restricted both within and across catchments, highlighting the species' vulnerability to further habitat fragmentation and the importance of managing environmental threats on local scales across its current natural range. South Australian populations were characterized by critically low levels of genetic diversity generally, highlighting their potential vulnerability to localized extinction. Holistic conservation efforts are necessary to conserve populations, including local habitat management and, potentially, translocations to increase genetic diversity and evolutionary potential, and reduce possible inbreeding effects and the threat of extinction.

Molluscan diversity caught by trawling fisheries: a case study in southern Portugal

The effects of commercial trawling on the malacological communities (except for the Cephalopoda) were examined, based on a study undertaken between 1996 and 2000 on the continental shelf and slope of southern Portugal. More than 50% of species caught by trawling in southern Portugal were discarded, with molluscs representing about 19%. Forty-four species of molluscs (15 bivalves, 28 gastropods and one polyplacophoran) were identified from the discarded specimens. Crustacean trawlers accounted for 34 molluscs species, and fish trawlers for 24. Twenty species were only caught by the crustacean trawl, compared with 10 species by the fish trawl, and 14 species were common to both trawls. The bivalve Venus nux Gmelin was the most numerous species discarded in the fish trawl, accounting for 42.0% of the total number of individuals, followed by the gastropods Ampulla priamus (Meuschen) (7.8%) and Ranella olearium (L.) (7.3%). In the crustacean trawl, the most numerous species discarded were the bivalve Anadara diluvii (Lamarck) (19.4%), the gastropod Calliostoma granulatum (Born) (15.5%), and the bivalve V. nux (15.1%). The third most discarded species from fish trawls in Algarve waters, the gastropod species R. olearium, is a species listed in Annex II of the Bern Convention. The difficulties of managing the real impact of fisheries on the molluscan populations and in defining a conservation strategy are discussed.