Assessing and Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Local Government: Evidence for Portuguese Municipalities

In this paper we measure the relative efficiency of Portuguese local municipalities in a non-parametric framework approach using Data Envelopment Analysis. As an output measure we compute a composite local government output indicator of municipal performance. This allows assessing the extent of municipal spending that seems to be “wasted” relative to the “best-practice” frontier. Our results suggest that most municipalities could achieve, on average, the same level of output using fewer resources, improving performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending. Inefficiency scores are afterwards explained by means of a Tobit analysis with a set of relevant explanatory variables playing the role of non-discretionary inputs..local government; expenditure efficiency; technical efficiency; DEA; Tobit models.

Assessing Hospital Efficiency: Non-parametric Evidence for Portugal

We compute DEA efficiency scores and Malmquist indexes for a panel data set comprising 68 Portuguese public hospitals belonging to the National Health System (NHS) in the period 2000-2005, when several units started being run in an entrepreneurial framework. With data on hospital services’ and resource quantities we construct an output distance function, we assess by how much can output quantities be proportionally expanded without changing input quantities Our results show that, on average, the NHS hospital sector revealed positive but small productivity growth between 2000 and 2004. The mean TFP indices vary between 0.917 and 1.109, implying some differences in the Malmquist indices across specifications. Furthermore, there are significant fluctuations among NHS hospitals in terms of individual efficiency scores from one year to the other.Public hospitals; Data Envelopment Analysis; Malmquist indices; Portugal.

Evaluation of the implementation process of a new mathematics curriculum for Grades 1-­‐9: A discussion of the main results

Recently, a new Mathematics curriculum for basic education (Grades 1-9) has been introduced in the Portuguese educational system. This curriculum was designed to bring together some disperse curricular documents and to substitute the former one that was being used since the early 90s. But, above all, the new curriculum was aimed at providing a more sustained development of students’ mathematical learning based upon recent international recommendations for mathematics teaching and learning. The new curriculum implementation was strongly supported by a special designed programme aimed at providing scientific and pedagogical support to all teachers of Grades 1-9 throughout all the schools of the country. Before its generalization to all basic education schools of the country, the new curriculum had been put into practice by 40 teachers of the different grade levels for a three-year period. These teachers had the opportunity to attend a number of workshops and to share their experiences in a variety of contexts. In fact, they functioned as a true network, working in close collaboration. Besides they were also in touch with the authors of the new curriculum to insure that it was put into practice according to the authors’ proposal. At the same time the Ministry of Education appointed a team of three mathematics educators to conduct a three-year evaluation study of the whole process of implementation of the new curriculum. An overview of this evaluation study will be presented: Besides, teachers’ classroom practices as well as the ideas they shared through their collaborative work, will be also presented and discussed. This discussion will illustrate some of the features of the new curriculum. As a matter of fact, data seem to suggest that some improvements are already visible, namely regarding students’ attitudes and competences and teachers’ practices. Tasks selected and used by the teachers, teaching strategies they used, and students’ work on those tasks will also be presented and analysed

O paradigma sistémico de eficácia organizacional

O paradigma sistémico de eficácia baseia-se numa cultura de desenvolvimento na qual a flexibilidade e a adaptabilidade são factores determinantes dada a ênfase colocada no ambiente e na tecnologia. Por isso, os líderes das organizações que se enquadram nesta dimensão valorizam e suportam estratégias de flexibilidade, crescimento, inovação e criatividade.In this article it is exposed the result of a bibliographical research and consequent literature revision concerning the study of a effectiveness dimension that seats in the open system. In this paradigm it stands out the systems general theory and the contingency theory. Besides these theories, the populations ecology, the resources dependence, the institutional and the stakeholders satisfaction theories are recent developments that contribute to the theme’s study and, therefore, can not be ignored. This effectiveness dimension emphasises the adaptability and flexibility as means to reach ends like growth, external legitimacy and resources acquisition that are needed to the organization survival

Planeamento estratégico das instituições portuguesas com ensino superior agrário: uma análise descritiva

O estudo do planeamento estratégico das instituições portuguesas de ensino superior agrário é o tema central deste seminário. Para a realização do estudo, foi enviado um inquérito por correio electrónico a todos os gestores de topo. Esse questionário continha questões contextuais acerca do inquirido e da organização; e, questões específicas acerca do processo de planeamento estratégico, particularmente, da definição da missão, da definição de objectivos, da análise interna, da análise externa, das alternativas estratégicas e do controlo. Os resultados mostram que, no Ensino Superior Agrário, a declaração da missão é importada da legislação acerca da missão para o ensino superior e está, explicitamente, formulada; os objectivos organizacionais são definidos de modo a estarem, devidamente, articulados com a declaração de missão e com os objectivos específicos para cada unidade orgânica; a análise interna consiste na elaboração de listas de pontos fortes e pontos fracos da organização, obtidos por consenso num processo participativo; a análise externa consiste na elaboração de uma listagem de ameaças e oportunidades com recurso a dados estatísticos acerca do ambiente externo; a decisão estratégica baseia-se em alternativas estratégicas delineadas num processo de planeamento deliberado baseado nos fundamentos das escolas prescritivas; a orçamentação envolve a aplicação de incrementos ou decrementos face ao exercício anterior e a afectação de recursos a programas concretos do plano estratégico; o plano estratégico inclui o conjunto dos programas de acção que pretendem implementar-se e cuja realização está condicionada pela obtenção de recursos ou pelo consenso; por fim, o controlo estratégico é inexistente.The study of the strategic planning in the Portuguese institutions of agrarian higher education is the central theme of this article. It was developed a questionnaire that was sent by e-mail to all top managers. The questionnaire contained contextual questions about personal and organizational aspects; and, specific questions about the strategic planning process, namely, mission statement, strategic objectives, environmental analysis, strategic alternatives and strategic control. The results reveal that, in the Agrarian Higher education, the mission statement is lying on the law; strategic goals are defined, in an articulated way, with the mission and specific objectives for each organic unit; internal analysis is a list of strengths and weaknesses; external analysis is a list of opportunities and threats; strategic decision is based on strategic alternatives that are delineated in a deliberate planning process based in the prescriptive schools; budgeting process involves the application of increments or decrements face to the previous year and the resources affectation to action programs; strategic plan includes the action programs that are intend to be implemented by the organization and whose accomplishment is conditioned by the resources availability or by consensus; finally, strategic control doesn't exist

Organização da floricultura transmontana

Em Trás-os-Montes, o negócio das flores surge como uma actividade agrícola em franco crescimento cujo vector assenta na penetração de mercados. Apesar das condições climatéricas adversas, da concorrência nacional e comunitária e do poder negocial dos clientes, o aumento do poder de compra do consumidor e a disponibilidade de fundos comunitários surgem como oportunidades que os jovens agricultores não querem desperdiçar. O grande dinamismo a que se assiste permite perspectivar um desenvolvimento da actividade a todos os títulos notável, surgindo a inovação, o desenvolvimento do mercado, o crescimento concentrado e o desenvolvimento do produto como estratégias alternativas capazes de modelar o futuro da agricultura transmontana.In Trás-os-Montes, flower’s business is growing based in a market penetration vector. Despite the adversity of climacteric factors, national and EU concurrency and business power of clients, the growth of consumer buying power and the disposability of EU funds are the opportunities that young farmers don’t want to waste. The great dynamism that characterise the business allows to perspective a remarkable development. Alternative strategies like innovation, market development, concentrate growth and product development are capable to modelling the future of floriculture in Trás-os-Montes

Impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the intention to create a new business: a cross-sectional study in Portuguese higher education students

Individuals with a higher level of self-efficacy have more entrepreneurial intention to settle on their own, creating and managing their own career. This study aimed to know the level of entrepreneurial selfefficacy of higher education students and to verify the impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intention or creation of new businesses. To achieve these objectives, a cross-sectional, quantitative and analytical study was carried out based on a probabilistic sample of 2107 students from a rtuguese higher education institution located in the Northern Interior of Portugal. The margin of error was 1.84%. To collect the data, a questionnaire was directly applied to the students, in the classroom in the presence of the teacher, from October 2018 to January 2019. Students’ participation was voluntary and the anonymity and data confidentiality were guaranteed to all participants. The questionnaire had three sections. The first section included sociodemographic variables (gender, age and nationality) and academic variables (scientific area of the course, course degree, year attended, attendance mode and course with or without integrated internship). The second section included the entrepreneurial selfefficacy scale [1]. This scale consists of 23 items related to the individuals' ability to perform tasks, and the answers were coded by a Likert scale ranging from 1 (totally incapable) to 7 (fully capable). Finally, the third section comprised a scale consisting of four items that aimed to evaluate the entrepreneurial intention of the students [2]. The answers were coded using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (a little) to 7 (a lot). A linear regression model was estimated in order to verify if Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (X) is a predictor of Entrepreneurial intention (Y). Students were aged between 17 and 52 years old and attended a degree course within four different scientific areas, existent in the institution, namely Education (60.5%), Technologies and Management (21.2%), Agriculture (6.3%) and Health (12.0%). The majority was female (54.0%), Portuguese (82.9%) and attended a graduation degree (88.8%) in an ordinary full-time attendance mode (96.4%). The students registered a moderate level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. In fact, it was observed that 20.4% of the students registered a high level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy; 64.5% showed a moderate level, and, the remaining 15.1% revealed a low level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The estimated regression model was statistically significant. It was found that Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is a predictor of Entrepreneurial intention (creation of new businesses). Moreover, the value of Adjusted R2 shows that this predictor account for 43.9% of Entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy contributes to the generation of ideas and the creation of new businesses with success. Therefore, higher education institutions should be able to improve students’ entrepreneurial skills.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and the ERDF under the program PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2019)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Economic literacy: a longitudinal study in Portuguese undergraduate students

Economic literacy can be defined as the ability to use related knowledge and skills to manage financial sources effectively. Economic literacy is about knowing and applying the main economic theories in making rational economic decisions. Higher literacy levels on economy will lead to an increase in society´s and individuals´ economic efficiency and well-being. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact of the General Principles of Economics (GPE) course on students' economic literacy and to identify subjects in which students show greater difficulty. To collect the data, a questionnaire that included socioeconomic variables and the Economic Literacy Test (ELT) developed by the National Council of Economic Education (NCEE) was applied. The ELT includes twenty questions of multiple choice. There were four choices: a correct answer, two incorrect ones and a fourth choice for the students that did not knew the answer. Basically, the ELT is about basic economic concepts and allows to evaluate the literacy of students and adults in four topics, namely consumer economics; production economics; financial economics; government's economic role and international trade. The ELT was applied to all students that were enrolled in GPE, who were present in the first class, in September 2017. At the end of the semester (January 2018), the same questionnaire was applied. GPE is a course of the Languages for International Relations degree from a public higher education institution, located in the northern of Portugal. Of the 95 students enrolled in GPE, 70 completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the semester. Of these, only 45 answered the questionnaire at the end of the semester that corresponds to a response rate of 47.4%. Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 25.0. Descriptive statistics was used to characterize the sample. In order to compare the students’ knowledge level on economics, pre and post-course, the Wilcoxon test was applied. For each question (correct and incorrect answer), the McNemar test was used to compare pre and post-course samples, considering each question, in order to verify if the course was responsible for the changes that occurred between the two moments. For both statistical tests, a significance level of 5% was used. Students were, mainly, female (60%), with a mean age of 19.4 years old (SD = 1.63). Only 20.0% had previous training in economics during high school and 8.9% have already attended the GPE course in previous years without success. Most students came from rural areas (53.0%) and their parents were employed (father: 86.7%; mother: 73.3%), and the monthly income level was up to 1000 euros (59.1%). Most mothers had an educational level between 3rd cycle (33.3%) and high school (31.1%) while the fathers´ educational level ranged between 2nd and 3rd cycles with 24.4% and 33.3%, respectively. The knowledge level pre and post-course was, on average, 12.0 (SD = 2.55) and 12.9 (SD = 3.24) out of 20, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in students' level of knowledge pre and post-course (p-value = 0.091). Students proved to have a fair level of knowledge pre and post-course. At the end of the course, most students showed improvements in the literacy level on economy. However, the improvement was not statistically significant. So, in the future, in order to improve the economic literacy level, some topics must be emphasized by the teacher, namely, financial, consumer and producer economics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Students' expectations about professional higher technical courses: the case of the Bragança’s Higher Agriculture School

Forms of education for adults have two characteristics in common, namely, voluntary participation and the frequency of a course serving a specific purpose. Although some may make the choice and choose to attend a course for social reasons and others may not know clearly what they want, they all have a purpose in mind and, if they cannot reach it, sooner or later they will leave the course. This research had as objectives to know the student’s expectations about the Professional Higher Technical Course they attend; to perceive which attributes they consider to be most important for their choice; and, to identify the factors that contributed the most to the level of satisfaction with the course. A quantitative and cross-sectional study was developed based on a 62 students sample out a 298 students’ universe. To collect the data, a questionnaire was developed according to the literature. The questionnaire was administered by e-mail and in the classroom, during January to July 2017, after obtaining the authorization from the head of the agriculture school. The data were analyzed using SPSS 23.0 software. The Spearman and Mann-Whitney tests were used at a significance level of 5%. The students had a mean age of 21 years old (SD = 4.25), were equally distributed by gender (50%), lived in households composed with 3 people (44.3%), with a monthly income of up to 1000 € (67.3%). Most students were displaced (54.1%), at a distance equal or greater than 50 km from their residence. The distribution of students, by course, was as follows: Veterinary Care (38.7%); Agricultural Production (24.2%); Food Technology (25.8%); Environmental Management (4.8%); Biotechnology and Innovation (3.2%); Viticulture and Enology (3.2%). About 53.2% of the students attended the first year and 41.7% considered that the course has a reasonable degree of difficulty, requiring a lot of effort and work. Regarding the factors that motivated the choice of the course, the most valued were, in descending order of importance, the love for the area (77.0%), the possibility to continue the studies (36.1%), and the career opportunities (37.1%). Most participants were satisfied (36.1%) or very satisfied (26.2%) with the course. Taking into account the location where the course took place, the results show that, in non-displaced courses, the level of satisfaction was higher than that of displaced courses. On the other hand, in non-displaced courses, the factors that are positively and moderately correlated with the level of satisfaction are: the students' opportunities to acquire theoretical knowledge and practical experience in the field, as well as the availability, support and incentive of teachers. For the rest, the level of satisfaction was positively and strongly correlated with factors as the knowledge and competences of the teachers and the methodologies used in the teaching. So, to improve the working conditions of the displaced courses and to intensify the student/school relationship can contribute to improve students’ loyalty toward the institution and to increase their satisfaction level.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and the ERDF under the PT2020 program for the financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2019).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio