IMPETUS wearable strategy : competitive advantage in the Portuguese fashion industry

What is in the origin of the competitive advantage that IMPETUS had been crafting over the past 43 years? The Resource-Based Theory defended that a company can obtain its competitive advantage through the internal organization of its critical resources, though failed to deem the changing environment. In a complementary perspective, defining Dynamic Capabilities as the firm capability to internally and externally combine competencies to meet changing environments came to introduce the external dimension to the organization. IMPETUS, apart from being a Portuguese Group in the textile industry, is also the name of a brand specialist in male underwear. Reaching a total turnover of nearly €41,6 million and relying 95% on international markets, IMPETUS has been standing out in the Portuguese fashion industry. Innovation etched in the genetic code with a twist of diversification in its business areas seem to speak for the differentiation strategy settled during the past years. This dissertation purposes a journey into the company history. Aside from acknowledging which are the differentiation factors that this underwear specialist was capable of setting out, one must analyze its performance to identify what are the resources and capabilities that rely on, indeed, its competitive advantage. In this odyssey, one can deeper understand the elements inherent to this established wearable strategy and its dynamics in the textile changing environment.O que é que está na origem da vantagem competitiva que a IMPETUS tem vindo a desenvolver nos últimos 43 anos? A Teoria Baseada nos Recursos argumenta que é através da organização interna dos seus recursos críticos que uma empresa consegue obter vantagem competitiva, apesar de não considerar envolventes em mudança. Complementarmente, ao definir Capacidades Dinâmicas como a capacidade, interna e externa, das empresas combinarem competências para responder às mudanças na envolvente, introduziu a dimensão externa à organização. Representado não só o nome de um grupo português da indústria têxtil, IMPETUS é igualmente o nome da marca especialista em roupa interior masculina. Com um volume de negócios perto dos €41,6 milhões em cerca de 95% de mercados internacionais, a IMPETUS tem vindo a destacar-se na indústria da moda. Inovação assente no código genético com diversificação das áreas de negócio parecem definir a estratégia diferenciadora que a empresa tem vindo a construir. A presente dissertação propõe uma viagem à história da empresa. Para além de reconhecer os fatores diferenciadores que a IMPETUS foi desenvolvendo, deve considerar-se todo o seu desempenho, de modo a identificar quais são os recursos e capacidades em que assenta a vantagem competitiva. Com esta odisseia é possível compreender quais os elementos inerentes a esta, já estabelecida estratégia vestível, bem como a sua dinâmica no ambiente têxtil em mudança

Evaluating Generative Ad Hoc Information Retrieval

Recent advances in large language models have enabled the development of viable generative information retrieval systems. A generative retrieval system returns a grounded generated text in response to an information need instead of the traditional document ranking. Quantifying the utility of these types of responses is essential for evaluating generative retrieval systems. As the established evaluation methodology for ranking-based ad hoc retrieval may seem unsuitable for generative retrieval, new approaches for reliable, repeatable, and reproducible experimentation are required. In this paper, we survey the relevant information retrieval and natural language processing literature, identify search tasks and system architectures in generative retrieval, develop a corresponding user model, and study its operationalization. This theoretical analysis provides a foundation and new insights for the evaluation of generative ad hoc retrieval systems.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Assortment Size and Performance of Online Sellers: An Inverted U-Shaped Relationship

This paper investigates the role of assortment size in sellers’ performance in the e-commerce context, which has been primarily associated with lowered search costs and switching costs. However, in contrast to the findings in the literature, our theoretical analysis postulates an inverted U-shaped association, showing that performance of online sellers increases and then decreases as the assortment size becomes larger. The nonlinear effect can be effectively explained by the interplay between the benefits derived from simultaneous consumer utility and the liabilities derived from the competition-intensifying effect. Additionally, the optimal level of assortment size is reduced when market density or product uncertainty is high. Using a data set of 10,000 online sellers from a large e-commerce platform, our hypotheses concerning the inverted U-shaped curve and moderation effects of market density and product uncertainty are statistically supported. Our research contributes to the assortment literature by revealing the special effects of assortment size in the online retailing context, and provides practical implications for online sellers’ assortment planning and optimization under both general settings and specific conditions

What we talk about when we talk about "global mindset": managerial cognition in multinational corporations

Recent developments in the global economy and in multinational corporations have placed significant emphasis on the cognitive orientations of managers, giving rise to a number of concepts such as “global mindset” that are presumed to be associated with the effective management of multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper reviews the literature on global mindset and clarifies some of the conceptual confusion surrounding the construct. We identify common themes across writers, suggesting that the majority of studies fall into one of three research perspectives: cultural, strategic, and multidimensional. We also identify two constructs from the social sciences that underlie the perspectives found in the literature: cosmopolitanism and cognitive complexity and use these two constructs to develop an integrative theoretical framework of global mindset. We then provide a critical assessment of the field of global mindset and suggest directions for future theoretical and empirical research

Stakeholders' Impact on Turnaround Performance: The Case of German Savings Banks

This study explores how savings banks as powerful stakeholders of SMEs in Germany assess turn-around performance. It tests the impact of the support provided by German savings banks and distressed SMEs’ actions with survey data from corporate advisors. The results show that structural and continuing support foster turnaround performance. This support is conducive in the initial stage of turnaround but negligible in the recovery stage. Contributing to stakeholder theory and turnaround management, the findings shed light on the factors that motivate a selected stakeholder’s involvement and SMEs’ ability to engage in actions fostering this stakeholder’s support for a turnaround

Knowledge-Augmented Large Language Models for Personalized Contextual Query Suggestion

Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at tackling various natural language tasks. However, due to the significant costs involved in re-training or fine-tuning them, they remain largely static and difficult to personalize. Nevertheless, a variety of applications could benefit from generations that are tailored to users' preferences, goals, and knowledge. Among them is web search, where knowing what a user is trying to accomplish, what they care about, and what they know can lead to improved search experiences. In this work, we propose a novel and general approach that augments an LLM with relevant context from users' interaction histories with a search engine in order to personalize its outputs. Specifically, we construct an entity-centric knowledge store for each user based on their search and browsing activities on the web, which is then leveraged to provide contextually relevant LLM prompt augmentations. This knowledge store is light-weight, since it only produces user-specific aggregate projections of interests and knowledge onto public knowledge graphs, and leverages existing search log infrastructure, thereby mitigating the privacy, compliance, and scalability concerns associated with building deep user profiles for personalization. We then validate our approach on the task of contextual query suggestion, which requires understanding not only the user's current search context but also what they historically know and care about. Through a number of experiments based on human evaluation, we show that our approach is significantly better than several other LLM-powered baselines, generating query suggestions that are contextually more relevant, personalized, and useful

Os impactos da sazonalidade no turismo em empresas familiares : o caso da Ilha Terceira : Açores

Tourism services are the fastest growing industry worldwide and a key sector for some destinations, especially for remote areas where they play a central role given the lack of economic alternatives. Tourism seasonality is a complex phenomenon and it´s one of the biggest challenges faced by this industry. It is, as well, a recognized problem for most family businesses that are especially dominant in peripheral regions. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the seasonality of tourism in family businesses, fundamentally in a supply-side perspective. Their impacts and mitigation responses are of great importance for the survival and growth of businesses, families and destination in general. To carry out this study, firstly tourism seasonality in Terceira Island in Azores was measured and characterized, and then nine semi-structured interviews were prepared and applied to nine managers of family businesses in some sub-sectors of tourism and hospitality. Other data sources were used to triangulate the research. This multiple cross-case-study had a qualitative data analysis and was interpreted by a critical realism perspective. This study serves to support and extend the conceptual framework of tourism seasonality mitigation strategies in family businesses, with the model “cope, combat and capitulate”, adding collaborative strategies and other strategies from the literature of service management in order to face irregular capacity fluctuations. In this manner, it has implications for science, family businesses, as well to other stakeholders and developers of public policies connected to tourism.Os serviços de turismo são a indústria mundial que mais cresce e um sector fundamental para alguns destinos, especialmente para as regiões periféricas onde desempenham um papel fulcral dada a falta de alternativas económicas. A sazonalidade no turismo é um fenómeno complexo, sendo um dos maiores desafios enfrentados por esta indústria. É também um reconhecido problema pela maioria das empresas familiares que são especialmente dominantes em zonas periféricas. O objectivo desta dissertação é o de investigar a sazonalidade do turismo em empresas familiares, fundamentalmente numa perspectiva do lado da oferta. Neste sentido, os seus impactos e respostas de mitigação são de grande importância para a sobrevivência e crescimento das empresas, famílias e destino em geral. Para levar a cabo este estudo, primeiramente a sazonalidade na ilha Terceira nos Açores foi medida e caracterizada, e de seguida nove entrevistas semi-estruturadas foram elaboradas e aplicadas a gestores de empresas familiares em vários sub-sectores do turismo. Outras fontes de dados foram utilizadas para triangular a investigação. Este estudo de casos múltiplos e transversais teve uma análise qualitativa dos dados e foi interpretada através de realismo crítico. Este estudo serve para suportar e alargar o quadro conceptual da sazonalidade no turismo em empresas familiares, com o modelo de “combat, cope and capitulate” adicionando estratégias de colaboração e outras estratégias da literatura de gestão de serviços para fazer face a flutuações irregulares da procura. Desta forma tem implicações para a ciência, para as empresas familiares como também para outros stakeholders ligados ao turismo e à elaboração de políticas públicas