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A transparência assenta na disponibilização de informação sobre a gestão, sendo imprescindível a uma boa governação pública. Dada a divulgação do Índice de Transparência Municipal (ITM) relativo aos anos de 2013 a 2017, a presente investigação tem como objetivo estudar as determinantes que influenciam este índice, naquele período. Para a realização do estudo utilizaram-se dados dos 308 municípios portugueses, sendo o valor do ITM a variável que se pretende explicar. Para a respetiva análise, recorreu-se à análise estatística via modelos de regressão linear múltipla com dados em painel. Como principal conclusão da investigação realizada retira-se que as variáveis despesa efetiva per capita, taxa de população idosa e percentagem de abstenção, demonstraram ser determinantes do índice de transparência municipal para os anos em análise. O presente estudo pretende contribuir para o conhecimento no âmbito da transparência dos governos locais em Portugal.

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Public governance must ensure financial sustainability. This investigation aims to assess Portuguese local governments financial sustainability as the ability to service the upcoming obligations in commercial transactions (under the Late Payment Directive framework) and to study if accounting information enables public local governance with greater transparency and accountability about their financial sustainability. The study will focus on the 308 Portuguese local governments from 2009 to 2017. The number of local governments with average payment periods (PMPs) within 30 days had an increasing tendency. However, their adjusted average payment periods greatly exceed the 30 days, which means limited financial sustainability. In 2017, only 29% of the local governments have an adjusted PMP within 30 days against the 63% if it is used the officials PMPs. Therefore, accounting information does not enable public governance with greater transparency and accountability about Portuguese local government financial sustainability.

One of the measures that emerged within the scope of the European audit reform was the report of key audit matters (KAM) with the objective of providing greater transparency in the auditor's reports. In 2015 the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) approved the international standard on auditing (ISA) 701- Communicating KAM in the independent auditor's report. This chapter aims to analyse the evolution of the KAM report, in companies listed on Euronext Lisbon, from 2016 to 2019, and the impact of auditor rotation on that report. For this purpose, a mixed methodology was used with the KAM categorization followed by descriptive statistics. Through the research developed about the evolution of the report, it has been concluded that there was a decrease in the number of KAM reported during the period and that the majority of KAM reported each year are reported again in the following year. Regarding the impact that the audit firm change may have on KAM report, it was not possible to make a direct relationship between the audit firm change and KAM report.

A necessidade de gerir a dívida dos municípios traduz-se, em Portugal, na existência de um framework legal consubstanciado, nomeadamente, no respetivo regime financeiro. O regime em vigor (desde 2014), estabelece limites à divida total e define mecanismos de prevenção do endividamento. Esta investigação analisou os municípios portugueses que ultrapassaram o limite ao endividamento e, em que medida, aqueles indicadores de alerta precoce permitem identificar a situação de incumprimento em cada um dos períodos estudados (2011 a 2013 e 2014 a 2016). O indicador da taxa execução da receita tem vindo a melhorar significativamente desde 2014, parecendo estar a contribuir para a elaboração de orçamentos menos sobreavaliados. Quanto à eficácia dos indicadores, conclui-se que no período de 2014 a 2016, ambos são estatisticamente significativos em termos de correlação. No entanto, o indicador “dívida total maior ou igual à média da receita corrente” revelou-se mais eficaz na identificação dos municípios em incumprimento.

The COVID-19 pandemic led, in Portugal as well in other countries, to an abrupt transition to online classes in higher education, with no consideration for the specific students’ conditions. Therefore, this study aims to assess the students' perspective on online learning classes carried out during the lockdown in 2020. The analysis is based on 2,107 valid answers from students of seven Portuguese higher education institutions that took synchronous online classes. Principal component analysis and binary logistic regression were the main quantitative methods used. This study identified five factors that, in all cases, significantly explain the students’ perspective on the transition to online classes. These factors include not only pedagogical matters (teachers’ overall quality) but also elements related to personal or motivational students’ characteristics (performance and autonomy; constraints and obstacles to socialization; self-confidence while attending online classes) and technological issues (Internet access conditions). Notwithstanding, self-confidence is not a relevant factor for students that had technical limitations in what concerns infrastructural matters. Therefore, besides confirming the factors behind the success of online classes, this research is relevant for highlighting the need to assure that students have the proper conditions regarding technical infrastructures to improve the overall quality of online classes. Keywords: COVID-19, emergency remote teaching, higher education, technical infrastructures, students’ perspective.

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