Examining the segment retention problem for the “Group Satellite” case

The purpose of this work is to determine how well, criteria designed to help the selection of the adequate number of market segments, perform in recovering small niche segments, in mixture regressions of normal data, with experimental data. The simulation experiment compares several segment retention criteria, including information criteria and classification-based criteria. We also address the impact of distributional misspecification on segment retention criteria success rates. This study shows that Akaike’s Information criterion with penalty factors of 3 and 4, rather than the traditional value of 2, are the best segment retention criteria to use in recovering small niche segments. Although these criteria were designed for the specific context of mixture models, they are rarely applied in the marketing literature.Information criteria; Latent Class Segmentation.

Corporate brand identity in higher education: a relational perspective

Identity is traditionally defined as an emission concept (Kapferer, 2008). Yet, some research points out that there are external factors that that can influence it (Kennedy, 1975; Markwick e Fill, 1997; Balmer e Gray, 2000). This subject is even more interesting if one considers corporate brands. According to Aaker (2004) the number, the power and the credibility of corporate associations are bigger in the case corporate brands. Literature recognizes the influence of relationships between companies in identity management (Hakansson and Snehota, 1989, 1995; Hakansson and Ford, 2002). Yet, given the increasingly important role of corporate brands, it is surprising that to date no attempt to evaluate that influence has been made in corporate brand´s identity management and reputation. Also Keller and Lehman (2006) highlight relationships and costumer experience as two areas requiring more investigation. The authors argue that corporate brand´s identity can be developed under a relational perspective using relationships with other recognised brands in order to generate positive reputations in stakeholders. Based in relationship and corporate brand identity management, a framework is developed to identify how corporate brands select, develop and invest in relationships with other brands. The context of the proposed relationship concept is the services area (Dwyer et al, 1987; Moorman et al, 1992; Rauyruen et al, 2005 and Hennig-Thurau and Klee, 1997). An empirical qualitative research is designed using two reputational technological higher education institutions (two corporate brands) acting in Portuguese public higher education market.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Innovativeness and network competence : an integration and empirical examination

This paper reports a study of the interdependence of network competence and innovativeness in a product innovation context. Based on a systematic review on innovation literature, authors define two review constructs for innovativeness and network competence. The dimensions of both concepts were validated through a sample of 164 manufacturing Portuguese firms, which provides interesting results concerning the behavior of Portuguese manufacturing companies at the level of network innovation

The dimensions of purchasing competence: a synthesis from literature

Organizational buying behavior has been dramatically changing due to transformations on the nature of industrial competition. This changing environment implies great demands to companies to remain competitive. As firms recognize the purchasing function as an important resource for obtaining high quality levels, fast deliveries and cost savings, it reveals opportunities for the purchasing management to become a business key contributor. This paper presents a critical literature review concerning the new strategic role for purchasing. We develop a construct of purchasing competence using three dimensions identified from literature: purchasing interaction, purchasing importance, and purchasing task execution

The dimensions of purchasing competence

As firms recognize the purchasing function as an important resource for obtaining high quality levels, fast deliveries and cost savings, it reveals opportunities for the purchasing management to become a key contributor. The new product development is one example where acquisition capabilities may confirm to be particularly critical. This paper presents a construct of purchasing competence using three dimensions identified from literature: purchasing interaction, purchasing importance, and purchasing task execution. We discuss the dimensions based on a critical literature review concerning the new strategic role for purchasing. The dimensions of our purchasing competence construct were validated through a sample of 164 manufacturing Portuguese firms

Financial literacy of university students

The current financial crisis highlights real problems profoundly related to the level of financial knowledge. Some studies suggest that many individuals, including small business owners, do not have adequate financial skills to be able to handle their finances. The term "financial literacy" summarizes the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to enable recognition and understanding of the foundations of personal finance. Informed and literate individuals are able to make responsible decisions. Our paper presents the preliminary results obtained with the Portuguese StudentFinance2012 survey. A total of 612 university students from seven different institutions agreed to participate and complete the survey. The sample has an average age of 23.67 years and is gender balanced. Students were classified in three course areas such as engineering, business and management, or design and tourism. Most respondents frequent a degree course, being the university mostly a public institution. A majority of our students has solely funded by their parents or family. By analyzing the total amount of financial products, we obtained an average of 2.57 financial products by student. To analyze financial literacy, our study developed measures such students’ financial involvement, financial knowledge and parents influence and explore it as a function to issues such as age, gender, course area, course type, type of university and parental funding. The results suggest that the financial involvement of students evolves over time (as age increases, the financial involvement also increases) and confirm significant dependence with demographic variables such as gender, age, or course, among others. For the financial knowledge the results are encouraging, with students to show interesting levels of knowledge. We also identified relations of dependence with age, gender and course, among many others. Parental influence was analyzed by the level of agreement with statements related to the perceptions of the influence and behavior of parents about money, budgeting, saving and paying bills. The main results indicate that parents are a positive influence and that students are experiencing a financial behaviour that integrates the family.FEDER Funds through the Operational Programme Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE, and National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology under the Projects FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674 and Pest-OE/EME/UI0252/201

Comparação entre diferentes formas de fornecer micronutrientes às sementes de feijão.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo comparar diferentes formas de aplicação dos micronutrientes: Boro (B), Cobalto (Co) e Molibdênio (Mo) em sementes de feijão. As formas de aplicação avaliadas foram: recobrimento de sementes em leito de jorro, recobrimento em sacos plásticos e o fornecimento via sulco

Evaluation of the ripening stage of Cobrançosa and Galega vulgar olives using different methodologies based on fruit color

This work aims to study three methods to evaluate the olive ripening state based on the colour changes of ‘Cobrançosa’ and ‘Galega Vulgar’ fruits, in early ripening. The relation between colour change and fat content was also performed. The methods under study were: IM – ripening index (Jaén) (with 8 groups of colour); IMS – simplified ripening index with only 3 colour classes; CI – colour index, using the CIE L*a*b* colour system. The results showed that ripening indexes based on the colour of fruits are very useful to characterize the fat accumulation in the olives. The IMS method showed a high correlation with IM. Also it is a rapid method to be used by olive growers for harvest time assessmen