Samarco’s scandal: a perspective of organizational spirituality and corporate social responsibility

Purpose Society is asking for a humanized business strategy. In this paradigm-shifting, the first change is in companies’ discourses. This paper aims to analyze an organization’s discourse involved in a scandal (environmental crime) from the perspective of corporate social responsibility and organizational spirituality. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an interpretive qualitative study using discourse analysis encompassing Samarco, a joint venture between Vale S.A. and BHP Billiton. The collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, caused the spillage of approximately 56 million cubic meters of iron ore and silica tailings, among other particles affecting 41 cities and three indigenous reserves degrading 240.88 hectares of Atlantic Forest, until reaching the Atlantic Ocean. This paper analyzed the company website and all public documents available, both before and after the crime, Code of Conduct (2014), Annual Sustainability Report (2014) and Actions Report (2016), Biennial Report (2015–2016 and 2018–2019) and the Transaction and Conduct Adjustment Term (2016). This study chose the data considering the series of judicial processes in course, environmental crime’s delicacy, and its consequences for Samarco employees, stakeholders, affected communities and families. Findings The spiritual elements underlined in organizational discourses are different from the corporate practice in their everyday interactions with their stakeholders. As a result, the organizations’ identity seems problematic. The company has failed to provide an environment that encourages spirituality. Originality/value This is the first article to analyze a company’s discourse involved in a scandal through the lenses of corporate social responsibility and organizational spirituality. It contributes to the research concerning irresponsible management and the rhetorical use of spirituality in management.

Ethical Conciliation Hearings held by the Regional Nursing Council of São Paulo

ABSTRACT Objectives: to analyze the Ethical Conciliation Hearings held by the Regional Nursing Council of São Paulo. Methods: this is a retrospective study, of a quantitative approach, with documentary analysis. To obtain the data, documents related to ethical processes were analyzed. The time frame established for the study was from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2017. Results: 513 Ethical Conciliation Hearings were held and ratified. Nurses represent the category that most denunciate and are most accused. The highest percentages of ethical conciliations were in events related to public and hospital institutions. The Conduct Adjustment Term was the modality with the highest number of agreements. The main reason of conciliation failure was the non-attendance of at least one of the parties. Conclusions: the Ethical Conciliation Hearings represent an effective alternative instrument for the resolution of ethical-disciplinary processes in nursing.

Public Debt Dynamics and Intra-Year Exchange Rate Fluctuations

The public sector, in carrying out its operations, often incurs foreign currency denominated liabilities and, as such, is exposed to exchange rate fluctuations that could affect the value of public debt to GDP ratios over time. This paper shows that converting foreign currency denominated flows and stocks into local currency using the average and the end-of-period exchange rates, respectively, as envisaged in public finance manuals, gives rise to an identifiable stock-flow adjustment term—due to intra-year exchange rate fluctuations—that affects public debt accumulation. Importantly, the inclusion of this often-ignored stock-flow adjustment term is critical to accurately project public debt levels and any related indicator that could in turn inform about the risk of debt distress. Using a novel dataset covering 82 countries during 2008–19, the paper shows that this stock flow adjustment term is sizable in countries experiencing large exchange rate depreciations, namely above the 99th percentile of the full sample, reaching 1.2 percent of GDP. Interestingly, the measurement of policy-related concepts such as interest rate-growth differentials and debt stabilizing primary balances are also affected by intra-year exchange rate fluctuations, and in non-negligible ways.

Error propagation in simulated treatment comparisons for multiple myeloma: Results from a simulation.

e20523 Background: Comparing the effectiveness of multiple myeloma treatments presents a challenge due to the limited number of head-to-head trials with which to conduct indirect treatment comparisons. This is particularly true when subgroup analysis is of interest. In comparative effectiveness research Simulated Treatment Comparisons (STCs) are becoming increasingly common in the absence of head-to-head trials. STCs use estimates from limited IPD to adjust for covariate imbalance between trials, however the uncertainty from these estimates is generally ignored when estimating relative treatment effects. This study demonstrates the need to account for this uncertainty when conducting STCs for indications such as multiple myeloma. We introduce an STC method that accounts for the uncertainty due to covariate adjustment, and demonstrate its effectiveness via simulation. Methods: We simulated two single arm studies (N = 300 for both), each containing age and overall survival. We assume study 1 has individual patient data available, and study 2 only has aggregate age data and a digitized Kaplan-Meier curve. We compute a covariate adjustment term based on the mean age difference between the studies and the age coefficients from fitting a parametric survival model to the observed study 1 IPD. We then estimate the variance of this adjustment term via bootstrapping and incorporate this uncertainty into a Bayesian STC model which estimates the relative treatment effect for the two study datasets converted to a digitized Kaplan-Meier format. Results: The proportion of 95% credible intervals (CrI) that captured the true treatment effect was 86.8% without error propagation, whereas 92.0% of CrI’s captured the true treatment with error propagation. 94.9% of CrI’s contained the true treatment effect when using survival regression with the complete IPD. Conclusions: Failing to account for uncertainty from the covariate adjustment when conducting simulated treatment comparisons generally leads to underestimating the uncertainty of the relative treatment effect. This method better captures the uncertainty introduced when conducting an STC and has the potential to yield more reliable estimates of the comparative effectiveness of multiple myeloma treatments.

O TERMO DE AJUSTAMENTO DE GESTÃO COMO FORMA DE TUTELA DE DIREITOS SOCIAIS: O CASO DO TRIBUNAL DE CONTAS DO ESTADO DE SERGIPE

RESUMO Objetivo: O presente artigo parte da construção de uma conjectura que sonda as possibilidades de um Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão no ambiente dos Tribunais de Contas, mostrando-se benéfico ou não à sociedade por meio da sua prática consensual. A pesquisa busca a possibilidade e a necessidade de comprovar se o Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão atua com o objetivo primordial de beneficiar a sociedade como instrumento de tutela de direitos fundamentais sociais. Metodologia:Uma abordagem qualitativa, por entendê-la como um instrumento de exploração de um fenômeno, para compreender o significado que indivíduos ou grupos lhes conferem, especialmente, no ambiente social ou humano. Utiliza-se a revisão bibliográfica de caráter exploratório, descritivo e documental, uma vez que a mesma possibilita sumarizar as revisões bibliográficas com a finalidade de aprofundar o objeto de estudo através dos processos e documentos oriundos do Tribunal de Contas Sergipano. Resultados: O Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão, por sua própria essência, continua, na sua aplicação, como um instrumento importante do ativismo administrativo, posto que permite por meio de compromissos firmados no seu bojo, ir além do que a lei literalmente dispõe, cuja finalidade volta-se para a concretização de direitos dos cidadãos e em benefício desses, indo além da literalidade da lei, levando-se em consideração que o julgador de contas não detém o conhecimento absoluto acerca de todos os fatos que circundam a Pública Administração, sejam eles de ordem técnica, científica e orçamentária entre outras. O Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão revela-se como um instrumento consensual, decorrente de inspeções e auditorias realizadas pelos Tribunais de Contas, cujo estudo apresentou 68 Termos de Ajustamento de Gestão firmados pelo Tribunal de Contas do Estado de Sergipe (TCE/SE) e órgãos municipais/estaduais na perspectiva de corrigir rumos e tutelar direitos sociais fundamentais. Contribuições: Este estudo permite compreender a necessidade de se (re)pensar a gestão pública ultrapassando os limites dos tradicionais mecanismos do direito administrativo, onde se afirma o caráter democrático, educativo e pedagógico do Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão como prática preventiva ou saneadora de irregularidades. Também a título de contribuição, assinala-se a premência de um maior dinamismo na ação e solução de conflitos que não tenham como última finalidade a sanção, e sim a recomposição e a reorganização da gestão, buscando a correta implementação de políticas públicas que se voltem efetivamente à coletividade. Palavras-chave: ativismo de contas; Termo de Ajustamento de Gestão (TAG); Tribunal de Contas; tutela de direitos sociais. ABSTRACT Objective: This article starts from the construction of a conjecture that probes the possibilities of a Management Adjustment Term in the environment of the Courts of Auditors proving to be beneficial or not to society by way of its consensual practice. The research seeks the possibility and the need to prove whether the Management Adjustment Term acts with the primary objective of benefiting society as an instrument of protection of fundamental social rights. Methodology:A qualitative approach, to understand it as an instrument for exploring a phenomenon, to understand the meaning that individuals or groups give them, especially in the social or human environment. An exploratory, descriptive and documentary bibliographic review is used, as it makes it possible to summarize the bibliographic reviews in order to deepen the object of study through the processes and documents originating from the Court of Auditors of the State of Sergipe, Brazil. Results: The Term of Management Adjustment, by its very essence, continues in its application as an important instrument of administrative activism, as it allows by way of commitments signed in its core, to go beyond what the law literally provides, which target is to achieve citizens' rights and for their benefit, going beyond the literality of the law and taking into account that the auditor does not have absolute knowledge about all the facts surrounding the Public Administration, whether technical, scientific or budge among others. The Term of Management Adjustment reveals itself as a consensual instrument resulting from inspections and audits carried out by the Audit Courts, which study presented 68 Terms of Management Adjustment signed by the Audit Courts of the State of Sergipe (TCE/SE) and municipal /state bodies in the perspective of correcting directions and protecting fundamental social rights. Contributions: This study allows us to understand the need to (re)think public management beyond the limits of the traditional mechanisms of administrative law, which affirms the democratic, educational and pedagogical character of the Term of Management Adjustment as a preventive or remedy for irregularities. Also as a contribution, there is an urgent need for greater dynamism in the action and resolution of conflicts that do not have the ultimate purpose of sanction, but rather the recomposition and reorganization of management seeking the correct implementation of public policies effectively directed to the community. Keywords: account activism; Term of Management Adjustment (TAG); Audit Office; protection of social rights.

A Resolution to Valuation Conflicts of Swaptions/Caps and OIS/LIBOR

In this article, the authors provide a unified valuation framework under which a multicurve economy can be established and caps/floors and swaptions can be consistently priced. Furthermore, if a lognormal distribution is employed for the forward price (or 1 plus forward rate), then a “model-free” volatility calibration can be achieved, and all swaptions and caps/floors are perfectly repriced. This article leverages earlier work by Chen, Hsieh, and Huang (2017) who fix a crucial drift-adjustment problem of the traditional LIBOR market model (LMM) where the LIBOR rates follow a lognormal distribution. By assuming 1 + LIBOR to be lognormal (hence LIBOR is shifted lognormal), Chen, Hsieh, and Huang achieve an exact and deterministic drift-adjustment term. In this article, they extend the model to provide a perfect calibration to both swaptions and caps/floors (which is not doable under the traditional LMM), and by using a foreign currency analogy, they show that the model supports multiple curves, which is a key element to overnight index swap (OIS) discounting.

Discurso, complexidade e sustentabilidade ambiental em organizações

In this article we seek to conduct an investigation into the dynamics of internalization of environmental sustainability in a productive organization of the sugarcane industry. The theoretical discussion is developed from the criticism of Jurgen Habermas to systemic functionalism of Niklas Luhmann. Also, we discuss the theme environmental public sphere and administration of environmental sustainability as a way of adapting organizations to new quality standards required and demanded by the State, Market and Society. The methodological procedures used were: interviews, document analysis and closed questionnaire application. The questionnaire used with 12 representatives of the plant has thirty (30) assertive, accompanied each of two extreme scenarios. The results show that the organization started to internalize environmental sustainability in their organizational system from a Conduct Adjustment Term, prepared by the Public Ministry State. As well as to internalize sustainable practices were adapted in different areas such as: organizational management, procurement, production management, people management and marketing management.