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This study aims to analyze whether companies from six Latin American countries are encouraging dialogic communication on Facebook.

To do so, the paper studied the level of predisposition for interaction and the type of interaction achieved by companies on Facebook to produce an effective dialogic communication exchange and to generate conversation through different types of communication exchange between organizations and users. This research includes a specific analysis of the active presence, interactive attitude, interactive resources, responsiveness and conversation of 29,078 posts on 135 corporate fanpages of companies from six Latin American countries.

The results show that companies have a low interest in managing communication from a dialogic perspective on the social network, not only because a greater predisposition to interaction is needed, but also because the interaction generated is very low. Therefore, the paper identifies the need to review the communication strategy on social networks and to define a strategy aligned to the dialogic nature of the social network.

This research contributes to broadening the conceptual reflection on the evaluation of the dialogue in the digital context and aims to generate new methodological contributions to the evaluation of dialogic communication in an integrated way.

The purpose of this paper is to overview the literature about the environmental performance of additive manufacturing (AM) and to evaluate the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) on these studies.

This study was based on the systematic literature review.

The investigation found that most authors were concerned about the energy consumption of the AM equipment, which is the subject studied by 87% of articles. In addition, 25% of the studies used LCA at least in some level, making a global environment assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of AM. By analyzing research studies, it was possible to find signs that AM could be a lower environmental impact process, when compared with traditional manufacturing. However, this assumption is not valid in all cases because there are many variables that may affect environmental results.

Due to the increase on the usage of this type of technology by industries, studies on the environmental performance of this process became relevant.

This study aims to analyze the complexities of the Brazilian soybean supply chain (SSC) and develop strategic interventions to improve the origin system’s performance.

This study used stakeholder interviews to identify the SSC bottlenecks and determine and assess drivers of competitiveness. A methodological framework based on the systems thinking approach for developing long-term structural changes was used. The problem was structured using behavior over time graph and causal loop modeling to propose three investment strategies to solve the logistics problem in SSC.

This study highlights the gaps in coordination between stakeholders and the public sector regarding the public policy for infrastructure investment. Three strategic interventions were developed to address the agro-industrial logistical problem, namely, investment in storage, multimodal transport systems and improvements in existing transport infrastructure. To overcome transport and storage logistics limitations, the authors suggest different forms of partnerships, including public-private partnerships.

This research is limited to evaluating an agricultural commodity (soybean) and does not include its by-products. The sample of stakeholders was limited and the boundary of analysis was Brazil. Nevertheless, the study showed how strategic interventions could be developed following a holistic analysis.

The proposed integrated approach illustrates the development of three strategic initiatives. It can be implemented by stakeholders, including the public sector, which is the basis for providing assertive long-term investments in Brazilian logistics.

The SSC analysis could promote the implementation of systemically determined interventions and strategies. It could significantly improve the performance of agricultural systems and help the formulation of public policies aimed at rural development.

The use of system dynamics to identify intervention points is an essential contribution to mitigating the SSC’s hindrances. Moreover, the combining methodologies resulted in comprehensive intervention strategies.

Research on the role of women in Public Relations (PR) has seen a notable increase in recent years (Topić et al., 2019), yet exploratory studies on the subject remain limited, particularly concerning the role of women in the academic sphere of PR in Spain. Guided by the imperative to reflect on the role of PR professionals operating within the Spanish academic landscape, this chapter aims to identify and reflect on the role of women in PR academia in Spain to discover the extent to which women are leading the communication faculties where PR is taught; to identify the presence of women in the departments where communication studies take place and to determine women's leadership in national research activity. This study follows a combined approach with two dimensions, exploratory and interpretative, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. The interpretative approach is developed using a focus group with women currently working in PR education and leading projects and institutions in the Spanish academia. Through this research, we discover the struggles and opportunities they face and identify possible solutions and ideas to improve the situation of women in academia and, specifically, in PR.

The foreword to Women's Work in Public Relations discusses the multitude of ways that women experience public relations (PR) work. Each women's experience depends on, for instance, location, culture, the presence (or otherwise) of a union or professional association, the support of colleagues, the practitioner's domestic circumstances and more. There is not just one female experience of PR.

This foreword reviews the chapters in Women's Work in Public Relations and points to the parallels, contradictions, and struggles faced by women working in the little-understood occupation of PR where the everyday work of women is largely invisible. It explains how women working in PR carry out tasks which can at once be necessary, unnecessary, the whim of a client or management, performative, or exploitative – such is the varied and unstructured occupation of PR.

Women face barriers and discrimination at work but past research has not always explained the form that this takes. The foreword notes that much discrimination takes place in plain sight (for instance in terms of erratically applied flexible working policies, unpredictable workloads, or language in professional documents that accepts inequality) and observes that unless we recognise discrimination it's difficult to vocalise opposition to it.

The foreword's discussion of methodology shows that there is no one way to study women working in PR and this book represents a small but rich range of largely qualitative research methodology. It demonstrates that, just as there are many experiences of women in PR, there are also many ways to research them.

The simulated scenarios can be used to compute risk premiums per risk class in the portfolio. These can then be used to adjust the policy premiums by accounting for storm risk.

A complete model to analyse and characterise future losses of the property portfolio of an insurance company due to hurricanes is proposed. The model is calibrated by using the loss data of the Fidelidade insurance company property portfolio resulting from Hurricane Leslie, which hit the centre of continental Portugal in October, 2018.

Several scenarios are simulated and risk maps are constructed. The risk map of the company depends on its portfolio, especially its exposure, and provides a Hurricane risk management tool for the insurance company.

A statistical model is considered, in which weather data is not required. The authors reconstruct the behaviour of storms through the registered claims and respective losses.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations among knowledge sharing (KS), intellectual capital (IC), absorptive capacity (AC), innovation (IN) and organizational performance (OP).

This paper empirically tests a model that uses structural equation modeling (SEM) based on a partial least squares (PLS). The sample is composed of 351 Brazilian and 135 Portuguese enterprises. They are micro, small and medium enterprises.

The results show that: the relation between KS and AC is partially mediated by IC; the relation between IC and IN is partially mediated by AC and the relation between KS and IN is mediated by AC and IC or both. There are relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP.

The study does not control for industry effects and technological differences among the firms.

The use of KS mitigates the loss of knowledge associated to employees' retirement or job changes. The knowledge appropriation by the organization (turning human capital (HC) into structural capital (SC)), the knowledge achieved from connections (relational capital, RC) and the trust embedded in an organization's relation with employees are important for AC and IN. Moreover, KS can positively influence all elements of IC. OP depends directly on IN and indirectly on the others constructs.

This study is relevant because it explores the relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP in one model. Moreover, it focuses on small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) with data from two countries.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how knowledge takes effect in different software development methodologies by relating them to different knowledge cycles.

The results were find by conducing a general review about the topics of knowledge cycles and software development methodologies.

All software development methodologies have knowledge cycles. In Waterfall methodology, the cycle followed is I-Space. For “code and fix,” there is a parallel with March’s cycle. Scrum shows a parallel with SECI cycle. Among the methodological options, results show there an increase in hierarchy, documentation, processes and explicit knowledge.

Identified parallels of each methodology with knowledge cycles; established which Scrum artifacts are performed at each stage of SECI, which Waterfall steps correspond to I-Space phases and which activities in “code and fix” deal with exploration and exploitation of knowledge; and features shown increase or decrease according to the adoption of each methodology.

Results help knowledge sharing implementations and foster inter-team knowledge sharing, with the identification of the correct methodology-cycle match and the personalization of the strategy for each team based on the adopted methodology. Training for knowledge initiatives can be improved by determining how knowledge-sharing activities are incorporated on the determined series of actions established by the methodologies adopted on the firm.

The identification of how knowledge is generated and shared among teams in each methodology, the optimum pairing of the methodology and the parallels with the other, and the differences that emerge from the adopted knowledge cycle show that software projects are embedded in a knowledge cycle.

This study aims to resolve contradictions in the literature regarding the relationship between knowledge sharing (KS) and absorptive capacity (AC). The authors analyze the reasons for which KS has been interpreted as an antecedent and those for which it has been seen as a consequent of AC.

The study uses a systematic review of the literature to identify the arguments supporting the relationships between the constructs and propose a model. Additionally, the hypotheses were tested using SEM to assess the proposed model.

The findings reveal the nature of the relationship between KS and AC. Suggesting AC is bi-dimensional, consisting of potential AC and realized AC, while the relationship between these two dimensions depends on KS.

This study provides consistent theoretical grounds for future empirical research. The study findings demonstrate KS provides a real contribution towards AC, validating the previous literature on the impact of KS antecedents on realized AC. Additionally, the authors provide evidence to suggest knowledge donation is an output of the AC process, thus generating a debate on the nature of knowledge donation (requested vs unrequested), which raises interesting research questions to be addressed in the future. As a limitation, empirical data was only collected in the context of software development in two countries.

The results elucidate the central role of knowledge collection within AC. For managers, the importance of the role of knowledge collection to fully benefit from AC and exploit knowledge is highlighted.

The research design is original in that it combines a systematic and integrative literature review to the ground and propose hypotheses with empirically testing of the emerging model. The study clarifies the relationship between KS and AC, providing evidence to show knowledge donation is an output of the AC process. The benefits of this study can be seen at the team and firm-level.