Globalization

In Brazil, buses represent the main mode of public transportation. However, in recent years intercity and interstate bus companies have been facing a growing competition with other forms of transportation such as bus companies competitors, illegal transportation companies, chartered buses, and, more recently, air companies. In this scenario characterized by growing competition, it is essential to evaluate the quality of road transportation of passengers. In order to contribute to the analysis of this issue, this paper presents a methodological approach to assess the quality of intercity road transportation of passengers, according to the customers’ perspective. By conducting a case study in a city of almost 500,000 inhabitants from the interior of Rio de Janeiro, an Importance–Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) and an assignment procedure were used in order to obtain: (i) the main factors (criteria) that influence the quality of service intercity road transportation of passengers, (ii) the importance degree of criteria related to road transportation of passengers, (iii) the satisfaction of the users of road transportation under the considered criteria, (iv) the critical criteria/items, and (v) the categories which best represent the quality of service intercity road transportation according to the passengers’ perspective. Finally, several possible corrective actions to improve the quality of services considering each critical item/criterion were highlighted and special recommendations were done for the critical process (ticket sales).► Criteria that most influence the quality of intercity road transportation of passengers. ► The importance degree of criteria related to road transportation of passengers. ► The satisfaction degree of passengers of bus road transportation under the criteria. ► The critical criteria of intercity road transportation of passengers. ► Classification of the quality of intercity road transportation.

The spectacular growth of Evangelical Protestantism and its “network culture” in Polynesia relies on regional migrations and young generations who aspire to disentangle personal faith and obedience to church authority. And yet, this growth can’t be simply reduced to a trend of globalisation, breaking away from the deep cultural roots of historical Protestantism in the region. The analysis of regional networks linked with the charismatic international organisation Youth With a Mission thus shows how some Evangelical movements re-appropriate, in their own terms, the Polynesian missionary history and local cultural identities; and how they finally interpret them in the frame of a global theology of spiritual warfare combining a “folklorisation” of culture and a de-territorialisation of personal membership with the exaltation of the “natural” bonds between individuals and territories.

"Bronze Age research is characterised by a problematic polarisation between different scale-level perspectives. Inspired by postmodern and postcolonial critics of grand narratives, several researchers advocate local community perspectives that better describe contextual particularities, frequently resulting in models of low-segmented societies. Influenced by ideas of globalisation, other researchers stress long-range contacts and metal trading at high stratification levels. In this article, the current research situation is addressed and briefly contrasted with ideas of cosmopolitanism as a mediating ideology in future archaeology.

Key words: Bronze Age research, scale-level perspectives, cosmopolitanism, the postcolonial paradox, methodological particularism, time and space"

"During their entire disciplinary lives, psychology and
social psychology have treated work as a naturalized
fact and an inevitable part of human existence. Whilst
themes such as working conditions, decent work, work
and subjectivity, work and vocation, guidance and
careers may be discussed in a critical manner, the
overall centrality of the work discourse is left untouched.
In this essay it is argued that the multiple forms,
possibilities, contradictions and restrictions present in
contemporary economic relations are pointing to the
weakening, or even fragmentation, of the articulating
role of work and in third world countries like Brazil,
where the western model of salaried wage employment
was never extensive to more than a part of the
population, this process becomes doubly complicated.
In these circumstances it is important to seek a different
starting point for the social psychological discussion of
economic activity, which can give greater visibility to the
multiple ways in which people “get by” in order to keep
their homes together, sustain households and develop
family collectives."