Information systems models in higher education

This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of the process through which information resource, information technology, and organisation actors can contribute to the performance and quality of higher education institutions. Conceptual models will be presented and discussed

Conflict behavior and conflict management in the organizations

Some people think conflict is a topic that should not be discussed and that we should not engage in conflict. Productively engaging in conflict is always valuable. Most people are willing and interested in resolving their conflicts; they just need the appropriate skill set and opportunities in which to practice this skill set. Without a conflict skill set, people want to avoid conflict, hoping it will go away or not wanting to make a “big deal out of nothing.” Research and personal experiences show us that, when we avoid conflict, the conflict actually escalates and our thoughts and feelings become more negative. Through conflict self-awareness we can more effectively manage our conflicts and therefore our professional and personal relationships. Furthermore, by discussing issues related to conflict management, teams can establish an expected protocol to be followed by team members when in conflict. All teams and organizations have a conflict culture (the way the team responds to conflict). However, most teams never discuss what the conflict culture is, therefore providing the opportunity for individual team members to make assumptions that can be counterproductive to the team. Practicing one’s conflict management skills leads to more successful engagement in conflict with outcomes of relief, understanding, better communication, and greater productivity for both the individual and the team. When we manage our conflicts more effectively, we use less energy on the burdensome tasks such as systemic conflict and get to spend more of our energy on our projects at work and building our relationships

Design and radical innovation: a strategic perspective based upon a comparative case study between emergent and traditional industries in Portugal

The survival challenge faced by the Portuguese companies nowadays has promoted Innovation as the main management strategy to be applied. This research reveals the importance and the role of Design as the basic and integrative tool for the success of this strategy, focused on Radical or Breakthrough Innovation. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a conceptual model developed from a comparative case study research, made among Portuguese companies from the emergent sectors connected to new technologies and Portuguese companies from the traditional sectors. That work allowed the definition of the Success Critical Factors to consider for the development of radical new products: integrating new technologies (Science Knowledge), market sensibility (Marketing Knowledge), forecasting new needs or user interfaces and disruptive creativity (Design Knowledge)

Financial interdependencies and causality in the European Union

The main objectives of this paper are the study of foreign direct investment (FDI) among several UE countries, the appreciation of the interdependencies among them, the integration and co-integration of the FDI export series, in order to try to discover whose economies are the financial engines of the EU, the appreciation of the way of absorption of the FDI in the destiny countries of this money, the way that the economies found to regain the equilibrium after a foreign investment stimulus. In methodological terms the paper uses the VAR modelling theory, it optimizes the lag length, it uses the SURE method to estimate the parameters, it appreciates the IRF (functions), it uses the Granger causality and the Cholesky Variance Decomposition to study the degree of dependence or of independence of one economy against the others. Before this, it studies the stationarity, the integration and the co-integration of the series

Reacción del mercado español de valores a la aprobación de la directiva sobre responsabilidad ambiental

La aprobación de la Directiva Europea sobre Responsabilidad Ambiental ha supuesto un impulso decisivo para promover la adopción de compromisos medioambientales por parte de las empresas europeas, dando fuerza al principio de que “quien contamina, paga”. Aunque la efectividad de la norma no será total hasta que se complete su transposición a la legislación de cada Estado Miembro, se ha considerado de interés analizar si el mercado de capitales español ha reaccionado de algún modo a la aprobación de la Directiva en marzo de 2004. Los resultados no prueban que los inversores españoles consideren relevantes las cuestiones medioambientales en sus decisiones de inversión.The approval of the European Directive on Environmental Liability has meant a decisive step to promote the commitment of European companies with the environment, enhancing the “polluters pay” principle. Although the effectiveness of the norm will not be complete until its transposition into the regulatory framework of each Member Estate, it has been considered of interest to analyse whether the Spanish capital market has reacted in some way to the approval of the Directive in march 2004. The results do not prove that Spanish investors are considering environmental issues to be relevant when making investment decisions

Total quality management and public administration: the case of Vila Real town hall

The quality movement is based on a main idea: every good and service must have the maximum quality. To get to the bottom of this movement one has to understand in the first place the implications of its assumptions and how they reflect themselves upon the institutions (Connor, 1997). In most countries, public administration is the economic sector which weights more heavily on employment and also the one which produces more goods and creates more services. Naturally one cannot remain indifferent to this Total Quality Management (TQM) movement in public administration. The Government is aware that "quality is now recognized and accepted worldwide as the client’s satisfaction at an adequate cost and an imperative for all public organizations (…) in view of the public’s and consumers’ growing awareness of their rights.” (DL n.º 166-A/99 de 13 de Maio). In Portugal, public administration faces new and more complex challenges everyday as a result of economic, social and technologic changes the country is going through. Thus it is the aim of the present paper to try and answer some questions, namely: how can the town hall of Vila Real cope with the TQM implementation in a context of change? Are there any obstacles or else favourable conditions to that implementation

Low-pay higher pay and job quality: empirical evidence for Portugal

This paper examines to what extent low pay jobs can be considered of low quality. For this purpose, we use three waves (1997-1999) of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for Portugal. The results indicate that low pay workers report a lower level of job satisfaction when compared with their higher paid counterparts. Moreover, some of the determinants of job satisfaction differ between these two types of workers. This supports the idea that low wage employment mainly comprises low quality jobs and is consistent with the segmented labour market theory, which claims the existence of good and bad jobs. This is, however, at odds with some empirical evidence recently reported for the British labour market where low pay individuals report a higher level of satisfaction, which is more in line with the notion that these workers obtain compensating differences in the form of non-pecuniary benefits

Gestão de recursos humanos e responsabilidade social das empresas

This paper discusses the relationship between Human Resource Management and Corporate Social Responsibility. It begins by addressing the current need to redefine HRM to meet challenges brought about by competition-induced global changes in employment patterns. After a brief retrospect of HRM growth, some contributions to the redefinition of HRM are presented. The business case for Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship has led to a view of employees as key stakeholders in corporate success. The argument is that commitment to CSR has positive effects on employee motivation and work satisfaction. A review of empirical studies shows that in this respect the CSR agenda is in fact largely coextensive with HR ‘good practices’. In spite of this joint concern, HRM has yet to play a significant role in either recognizing or implementing the CSR dimension to employee welfare

Determinação da performance empresarial - Aplicação DEA

A avaliação das organizações e a determinação do desempenho, obtido pelo exercício da gestão, tem sido uma preocupação constante de gestores e accionistas, embora com objectivos diversos. Nos dias de hoje, a questão coloca-se com maior acuidade quer pela competitividade acrescida quer pela dimensão e complexidade das empresas. Pretendemos com este trabalho fazer a aplicação da metodologia DEA - Data Envelopment Analysis - a um departamento de uma empresa do Sector não Financeiro. Com a metodologia utilizada, a DEA, pretendemos obter uma medida, única e simples, de avaliação da eficiência, combinando um conjunto de outputs e de inputs observados, relativos às diferentes unidades homogéneas que pretendemos avaliar. A metodologia DEA, utilizando ponderadores determinados endogenamente, variáveis diversas e produzindo uma medida agregada simples, é particularmente adequada para a avaliação de unidades homogéneas não necessariamente lucrativas.Despite their diverse aims, managers and shareholders are consistently concerned with evaluating and determining the performance of their organizations. Today this question is possibly of greater importance due both to increased competitiveness and greater complexity and size of the enterprises. Our intent with this work is to apply DEA methodology - Data Envelopment Analysis -DEA,our aim is to obtain a unique and simple measure of evaluating efficiency, by combining a group of outputs and inputs related to the different homogeneous units under evaluation. The DEA method, using endogenously determined weights and diverse variables, yielding a simple aggregate measure, is particularly adequate to evaluate homogeneous units which are not necessarily profit motivated

O estágio como instrumento de relacionamento entre a universidade e a empresa

A capacidade da universidade e empresa estabelecerem relações duradouras e mutuamente benéficas é um dos desafios que se colocam numa sociedade cada vez mais exigente para com o papel da universidade. Este artigo identifica três níveis de análise da relação universidade-empresa: i. nível supra-institucional; ii. nível estratégico; e iii. nível operacional. O artigo debruça-se sobre o nível operacional, abordando a forma como num projecto de ensino de graduação em gestão é possível estabelecer diferentes formas de relacionamento entre a universidade e a empresa. Apresentam-se e discutem-se as várias acções baseadas no ensino/aprendizagem que permitem fomentar e operacionalizar a relação universidade-empresa. Para uma dessas acções – a realização dum estágio curricular por parte dos alunos – analisa-se como, num primeiro momento esse estágio era limitador da relação e, num segundo momento, após uma reestruturação curricular, esse estágio passou a fomentar uma relação universidade-empresa baseada na interdependência entre as partes e na reciprocidade de custos e benefícios.The capacity to establish sustainable and mutual advantage relationships between university and enterprise is a challenge raised by a more demanding society. This article identifies three levels of analysis of the university-enterprise relationship: i. supra-institutional level; ii. strategic level; and iii. operational level. The article focuses on the operational level and takes into account how an undergraduate degree in management can boost different sorts of relationships between university and enterprise. Then, it presents and discusses several teaching/learning initiatives that may be used to develop and implement university-enterprise relationships. For one of those actions – internships – the article analyses how they were, in a first moment, a barrier to the relationship, and, in a second moment, after a new plan of studies, how they were managed to foster university-enterprise relationships based on interdependence and reciprocity in costs and benefits