The Stockouts Study: an Examination of the Extent and the Causes in the São Paulo Supermarket Sector

Stockouts remain a significant retail problem. Progress has been limited, as estimates of stockout rates in the past forty years have consistently averaged above 8 percent. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance and extent of the stockout problem in the supermarket sector in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, from the perspective of the supermarket managers themselves. Results suggest that the level of stockouts is high. Generally, the suppliers are mentioned as being the ones mainly responsible for stockouts. These results suggest that managers have significant opportunities to reduce retail stockouts by taking preventative actions

Avaliações subjetivas e relacionais: o equívoco do sistema avaliativo docente para a qualidade dos cursos de pós-graduação MBA

The purpose of this paper was to analyze, from the point of view of the coordination of the programs, how and why the professors evaluations carried out by the students at the end of the courses taught can influence the quality of the lato sensu postgraduate courses in business administration called MBAs. In a qualitative approach, a case study was conducted where individual in-depth interviews were conducted with program coordinators involving more than 6,000 students and 500 teachers within the city of São Paulo. The content analysis of the interviews with the coordinators showed that the evaluation system, currently practiced by the teaching institution of the case studied, is much more associated to an attempt to measure relational and behavioral aspects between student-teacher than to aspects of improvement of quality of the programs or their learning objectives. It was not evident the relation of the accomplishment of the teacher evaluations with a logic of permanent improvement of quality. As an additional output of the research, the main components that could be included in an evaluation system that really focused on a continuous quality improvement program were identified.Key- words: MBA; executive education; teacher evaluation; quality.Este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar, sob a ótica da coordenação de curso, como e porque as avaliações docentes realizadas pelos alunos ao final das disciplinas ministradas podem auxiliar o gestor a melhorar a qualidade dos cursos de pós-graduação lato sensu em Administração de Empresas denominados MBAs. Numa abordagem qualitativa, foi conduzido um estudo de caso em que foram realizadas entrevistas individuais em profundidade com os coordenadores dos programas que envolvem mais de 6.000 alunos e 500 professores da cidade de São Paulo. A análise de conteúdo das entrevistas com os coordenadores mostrou que o sistema avaliativo, atualmente praticado pela instituição de ensino do caso estudado, está mais associado a uma tentativa de mensuração de aspectos relacionais e comportamentais entre aluno-professor do que a aspectos de melhoria de qualidade dos programas ou aos seus objetivos de aprendizagem. Não ficou evidente a relação da realização das avaliações docentes com uma lógica de melhoria permanente de qualidade. Como saída adicional da pesquisa foram identificados os principais componentes que poderiam constar num sistema de avaliação que tivesse foco num programa contínuo de melhoria de qualidade.Palavras-chave: MBA; educação executiva; avaliação docente; qualidade