How do small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) adopt environmental innovations? Do they have the necessary internal competence? Is any support offered by external parties (i.e. network involvement)? What are the policy implications? This book is based on extensive fieldwork, conducted in four traditional industrial sectors: offset printing, electroplating, textile finishing, and industrial painting. The work was carried out in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. Twenty company-based case studies were analyzed and a telephone survey was conducted among 527 companies. As a result, the Innovation Triangle came to be formulated, which is presented here, defining and combining the determinants of SME innovativeness. The Innovation Triangle distinguishes three major determinants of innovativeness: business competence, environmental orientation, and network involvement. The Innovation Triangle allows one to diagnose current environmental and innovation policies, indicating which policy measures might be effective in increasing the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, allowing environmental objectives to be achieved.

How do small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) adopt environmental innovations? Do they have the necessary internal competence? Is any support offered by external parties (i.e. network involvement)? What are the policy implications? This book is based on extensive fieldwork, conducted in four traditional industrial sectors: offset printing, electroplating, textile finishing, and industrial painting. The work was carried out in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. Twenty company-based case studies were analyzed and a telephone survey was conducted among 527 companies. As a result, the Innovation Triangle came to be formulated, which is presented here, defining and combining the determinants of SME innovativeness. The Innovation Triangle distinguishes three major determinants of innovativeness: business competence, environmental orientation, and network involvement. The Innovation Triangle allows one to diagnose current environmental and innovation policies, indicating which policy measures might be effective in increasing the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, allowing environmental objectives to be achieved.

Son relatos de experiencias, compartidas unas, imaginadas otras, y acaso alguna que otra historia vivida desde la cercania. Y sin embargo, he querido ajustarme siempre a la mas estricta realidad, es decir, que son o pueden ser autenticas, verdaderas, y querria tambien que fuera un grito de atencion a este tiempo que nos llena de incertidumbres, de muchas inquietudes y algun dato esperanzador. No es un testimonio a loa contra, solo quiere ser notario de las cosas que nos pasan de manera casi rutinaria. Como la vida misma.

El Cura. (Caso de Incesto) Novela medico social (The Priest. Case of Incest. Medical-Social Novel) (1885) constitutes, together with La Regenta (1884-1885) by Leopoldo Alas, a.k.a. Clarin, one of the best Spanish examples of anti-clerical literature, and yet another example of Spain's increasing move towards secularization during the second half of the XIX Century. El Cura (Caso de Incesto) is the first novel of a trilogy -integrated also by El Confesionario (Satiriasis) (The Confessional - Satyriasis) (1885) and La Monja (The Nun) (1886)- that contests Christian sexual moral authority and demands its suppression based on the laws of Nature. More than a mere attack against the Catholic religion, El Cura highlights the misuse, on the part of the Church, of certain religious beliefs, to the detriment of the sexual (and mental) health of priests. Lopez Bago's anti-clericalism, thus, is rather physiological than political. As the author states, El Cura inaugurates a new series of studies aimed at fighting ecclesiastic celibacy and its dangerous consequences, seen from a socio-medical perspective. El Cura tells the story of the relationship between Roman, a handsome young priest, and his beautiful sister Gracia. The incest will not take place until the end, but the whole plot is geared towards it. Fermin, a fellow priest who lives with Ana, his concubine, cogently symbolizes the decay of ecclesiastical ethics. According to El Cura's clear-cut message, only the implementation of celibacy can save the Catholic Church. For, as Lopez Bago puts it, celibate priests live among us hiding their appetites, and do not starve to death for the sole reason that they feast in secrecy. This edition brings back to print an author and a novel that became a true best seller during a particularly agitated period of Spanish history, and in a time when sexuality fell under careful scrutiny both in its social and scientific aspects. The foreword by prof. Maite Zubiaurre highlights the common aspects shared by El Cura and Clarin's La Regenta (1884-1885), one of the great literary masterpieces of Spanish Realism and Naturalism. Both novels fall prey to controversy and take a skeptical look at ecclesiastical celibacy. More important, in both novels, female sexuality takes center stage, and unavoidably degenerates into pathology and hysteria.

Headrests are simple, utilitarian objects. Widely used across Africa, they are predominantly found in the eastern, central, and southern part of the continent. Also known as neckrests or pillows, headrests are valuable and very personal objects which are indispensable to everyday life. They are made to sleep on, to rest the neck, to sit on, and to protect the elaborate coiffure of their owners. At first sight, they appear to be devoid of any symbolic content. This functional utility has confined them through history to the realm of mere objects. Headrests are not that simple, though. They transcend their material purpose to become something more. In many instances, their design, inherent beauty, technical mastery, and uses give them a multi-purpose value and a multi-layered meaning. They are objects with ritual and magical intent concealed inside their utilitarian function. Headrests can be flaunted as status symbols that differentiate chiefs from ordinary people, rich from poor, diviners from healers, farmers from shepherds, and sedentary from nomadic. The volume features full-colour pictures of very rare and fine headrests that have never before been published. Short texts introduce selected pieces among the 230 works that have particularly interesting, well-documented backgrounds. This book is a journey through ethnicity, anthropology, aesthetics, creativity, tradition, and spirituality. A journey to a part of Africa that materialises through a simple artefact that sometimes dreams to become art: a dream that starts with resting the neck on a piece of wood.