10th and 11th May 2016 Visiting USP Ribeirão Preto & Ourofino – Ribeirão Preto – São Paulo – Brasil
We had two great days in Ribeirão Preto visiting the USP University and Ourofino, a Brazilian Company in the business of agro-sciences and animal care.
At the University we had a great meeting with three professors from the Psychology Department: Carla Guanaes-Lorenzi; Clarissa Corradi-Webster and Laula Vilela e Souza. At the meeting we talked about the interface between Leisure, Tourism and Psychology focusing on the knowledge and practices that aims at the wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Furthermore, we shared our approaches to research methods and found numerous similarities in innovative, relational and creative ways of conducting research. It was great to see that we have common interests in topics such as happiness, experiences to engage participants, co-management, dialogue approaches. We agreed that next steps will be in guarantee that we sign an institutional agreement to be able to promote students exchanges as well as professors and also start developing a common project that might transform into research courses or a project to get funding for collaborative research.
Another activity we had at USP was a short tour around FEA (Faculty of Economics and Management), getting to know the building, classrooms, canteen, etc. We also had the chance to attend a concert performed by local artists.
The afternoon of the 11th May we presented at an event specially organized to receive us at USP. The organizers were 1) Group Organizations and Sustainability (GOS), coordinated by Adriana Cristina Ferreira Caldana; 2) GPublic: Research Center of Contemporary Management and Public Policies Coordinated by João Passador and Claudia Souza Passador, Ph.D. and 3) LAPEPG. The Laboratory of Research and Studies in Group Practices (LAPEPG) Coordinated by Carla Guanaes-Lorenzi. Our NHTV team presented the topic of: New organizational arrangements – Innovative methodologies in Management. The presentation first gave an overview of our university NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences and then provided an overall understanding of the new contemporary context in which organizations, society and communities are placed, presenting and discussing some innovative approaches to organization development.
Last but not least, we had the opportunity to visit Ourofino, a Brazilian company working with agricultural and animal products. We got a tour around the factory with two very inspiring employees, one from the marketing and communication and another one from the innovation department.