Title: Doing better by doing good – the experience of a community network in Brazil

Authors: Claudia Cristina Bitencourt, Adriano Naves de Brito, Patricia Martins Fagundes Cabral, Luis Humberto de Mello Villwock, Alfredo Culleton, Ieda Rhoden

Addresses: School of Management and Economic Sciences, Av. Unisinos, 950, São Leopoldo, RS 93022 000, Brazil. ' Department of Philosophy, Av. Unisinos, 950, Sao Leopoldo, RS 93022 000, Brazil. ' School of Management and Economic Sciences, Av. Unisinos, 950, Sao Leopoldo, RS 93022 000, Brazil. ' Entrepreneurship Center, Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Building 50, Room 1005, Porto Alegegre, RS 90619 900, Brazil. ' Department of Philosophy, Av. Unisinos, 950, Sao Leopoldo, RS 93022 000, Brazil. ' Department of Psychology, Av. Unisinos, 950, Sao Leopoldo, RS 93022 000, Brazil

Abstract: The aim of this article is to comprehend the sustainability of social system by means of an exploratory study of a Brazilian community network. A number of internal and external members of this network were interviewed in order to identify the gains accruing to each member from their individual participation in the network. Two categories of analysis were selected: gains for the community and gains for the individual. It was noted that doing good |does you good|, a fact which is of decisive importance to the sustainability of social system especially when it is carried out by volunteers.

Keywords: community networks; sustainability; social systems; sustainable development; Brazil; community gains; individual gains; doing good; volunteers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2010.030775

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2010 Vol.4 No.2, pp.209 - 226

Published online: 05 Jan 2010 *

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