Abstract
In carrying out its mission, the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (IPP), addresses social concerns and ethical and transparent behavior, based on a system of social responsibility management certified since 2011. The aim of this study is to evaluate the system and to understand what the new social concerns are, contributing to the eventual redefinition of social responsibility programs and actions that support the institution’s strategic objectives. The methodology followed was based on an online questionnaire survey, aimed at stakeholders, namely teaching staff, nonteaching staff, and students. As main results, it is highlighted that the stakeholders confirmed the importance of the institution to have an SRMS, mainly for the attention it provides to social inclusion, to the support in crisis situations resulting from social emergencies and to the teaching of quality and excellence. Hence, stakeholders positively evaluate the overall system as a whole, although 17% have considered whether it can be revised. Among the proposed changes is the need for greater involvement of stakeholders in the programs, renewal of some programs, and greater articulation among them, as well as broadening the team under the system, and strengthen the communication of programs and results. The main limitation of the study is the difficulty of getting a response from a larger number of students and other external partners. The interest that the results of this study may have in the strategy of other higher education institutions is highlighted, given the development of the case study and its originality.
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Notes
- 1.
Superior School of Education and Social Sciences, Superior School of Management and Technology, Superior School of Health and Superior Agrarian School of Elvas.
- 2.
The remaining nonteaching staff who answered the questionnaire were distributed very closely by the four organizational units and other services transverse to the institute, although with a higher response rate in one of the schools in particular, in this case Superior School of Education and Social Sciences.
- 3.
In the case of the students, the small number of answers obtained is understood, in the context of this study, only as indications and not as representative value of the universe of students of the Polytechnic of Portalegre. Besides the students, the number of teachers and nonteaching staff who answered the questionnaire is also insufficient to be representative of the institution’s universe. However, the responses obtained provide analysis lanes of interest in this research.
- 4.
The activities and programs mentioned here, in a total of 23, are: “Support for the inclusion of students with special needs”, “Volunteer Scholarship”, “Student Friendly Cities”, “Short-term Training (nonteaching staff)”, “Flexible Scheduling Management (teaching staff)”, “IPP Friend”, “IPP Leisure”, “IPP Health”, “IPP Mentoring”, “We are an interested party”, “Social IPP—Healthy Food Project in the Schools of the Municipality of Portalegre”, “Social IPP—Social IPP—Food Reuse”, “Social IPP—Exhibition space in December”, “Social IPP—Yellow Ribbon Project”, “Social IPP—Health promotion and hygiene care oral”, “Social IPP—Paper for the Food Bank”, “Social IPP—Collection of food and goods for donation to animal protection associations of the region”, “Social IPP—Solidary and Ecological Olive grove”, “Social IPP—8i 8 h Overtime for a Good Cause/8 h for a Good Cause”, “Training/Awareness-raising Actions in the Health Promotion Area”, “Training/Awareness-raising actions in the area of Safety and Risk Prevention of first intervention in fire and/or rescue techniques)”, “Training/Awareness actions “I explain””.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Presidency of the Portalegre Polytechnic Institute for the collaboration provided throughout the fieldwork, as well as the interviewees at the Polytechnic.
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Mourato, J., Alves, J., Morais, F., Mourato, I., Maridalho, M. (2020). Social Responsibility at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre: From the Experience Gained to the New Challenges. In: Crowther, D., Seifi, S. (eds) CSR and Sustainability in the Public Sector. Approaches to Global Sustainability, Markets, and Governance. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6366-9_12
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