Micro wholesaling businesses involved in the sector of confectionary products - strategies of survival and growth

It can be argued that the problematic situation where micro Greek wholesaling businesses find themselves has been a result of the strong presence of supermarkets and superstores in the last years. The researcher attempts to picture the current market reality that constitutes the background of the Thesis by posing the main research question: "How can micro Greek wholesaling businesses involved in the confectionary products' sector identify and implement suitable survival and growth strategies in order to cope with increasing competition in a market characterized by a large expansion of supermarkets and chain stores?". The factors that triggered research are related to the researcher's avocation with the sector of confectionary products; having worked in a micro family wholesaling enterprise in the past (and still involved in it occasionally when demand for confectionary products is increased), the survival and growth prospects of this firm constitutes an issue of high importance for the researcher and his family. The researcher believes that the study of similar wholesaling firms-case studies would highlight potential survival and growth strategies, useful for the family business; in this way, he holds the view that he contributes to the solution of an intense family problem. Apart from the personal interest for the survival and growth of micro wholesaling firms, it can be argued that the confectionary products' sector is a dynamic field that provides the opportunities to a researcher to evolve to a consultant or a specialist practitioner

Enhancing social impacts of third sector organizations amid the Covid-19 pandemic

The effectiveness achieved by Third Sector Organizations (TSOs) is directly linked to goals based on their missions and results generated by their actions, which can positively or negatively impact their beneficiaries. Even in normal situations, there is already a difficulty in gathering resources to maintain their operations. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic tends to worsen this situation depending on their social innovation and resilience capacities. From such an issue, the present study identifies strategies and lessons learned by Portuguese and Brazilian TSOs that were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, an assessment is made on what they did to maximize the positive social impacts and minimize the negative ones, considering the crisis management theory. Then, a qualitative phenomenological-type exploratory research was conducted, whose data was collected primarily from in-depth interviews and secondarily from documents published in the TSOs’ websites. The data collected from thirty-two Portuguese and Brazilian TSOs were assessed by means of content analysis, based on existing theory and on new subjects arisen from the reported experiences. The results have shown that, regardless the institutional model, most of them were not prepared to deal with that crisis. Besides, they had been reacting as the effects were underway, seeking to maximize the positive social impacts and to minimize the negative ones. Additionally, it is highlighted the importance of a flexible management to adapting to a new challenge in order to achieve different priority goals and to meet the main beneficiaries’ needs during the pandemic. Although in an early-stage research, interesting results have already been found, which can lead to contributions to management, governance, leadership, strategy, social innovation, sustainability and, ultimately, to the design of a crisis management model for TSOs. This research also calls for complementary future works.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

On the independence number and Hamiltonicity of uniform random intersection graphs

AbstractIn the uniform random intersection graphs model, denoted by Gn,m,λ, to each vertex v we assign exactly λ randomly chosen labels of some label set M of m labels and we connect every pair of vertices that has at least one label in common. In this model, we estimate the independence number α(Gn,m,λ), for the wide range m=⌊nα⌋,α<1 and λ=O(m1/4). We also prove the Hamiltonicity of this model by an interesting combinatorial construction. Finally, we give a brief note concerning the independence number of Gn,m,p random intersection graphs, in which each vertex chooses labels with probability p

Performance evaluation of Brazilian social organizations according to the best international practices

Brazil, social organizations demonstrate the results generated to the various beneficiaries by measuring their performances based on the objectives, goals and indicators agreed with their supervisory bodies. Therefore, the adoption of best performance evaluation practices is important to ensure adherence to legal and regulatory standards and to support decision making in approving their annual accounts in order to maintain their qualifications and legitimize themselves for the receipt of new investments and financing. Thus, the objective of this research is to demonstrate if the forms of performance measurement used by the social organizations linked to the Ministry of Education in Brazil adhere to the best international practices. In this way, this work presents contributions by establishing a theoretical reference for performance measurement and comparing it with the methodologies applied in Brazil, by conducting a qualitative exploratory research based on multiple case studies in which the secondary data obtained were treated in the form of content analysis. The results showed that the performance evaluation practices adopted by the analyzed institutions do not adhere to international benchmarking. Additionally, this research points out ways to evolve the methodology currently adopted and brings up other fragilities related to transparency, control and supervision by the supervising Ministry.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Maximum Cliques in Graphs with Small Intersection Number and Random Intersection Graphs

In this paper, we relate the problem of finding a maximum clique to the intersection number of the input graph (i.e. the minimum number of cliques needed to edge cover the graph). In particular, we consider the maximum clique problem for graphs with small intersection number and random intersection graphs (a model in which each one of $m$ labels is chosen independently with probability $p$ by each one of $n$ vertices, and there are edges between any vertices with overlaps in the labels chosen). We first present a simple algorithm which, on input $G$ finds a maximum clique in $O(2^{2^m + O(m)} + n^2 \min\{2^m, n\})$ time steps, where $m$ is an upper bound on the intersection number and $n$ is the number of vertices. Consequently, when $m \leq \ln{\ln{n}}$ the running time of this algorithm is polynomial. We then consider random instances of the random intersection graphs model as input graphs. As our main contribution, we prove that, when the number of labels is not too large ($m=n^{\alpha}, 0< \alpha <1$), we can use the label choices of the vertices to find a maximum clique in polynomial time whp. The proof of correctness for this algorithm relies on our Single Label Clique Theorem, which roughly states that whp a "large enough" clique cannot be formed by more than one label. This theorem generalizes and strengthens other related results in the state of the art, but also broadens the range of values considered. As an important consequence of our Single Label Clique Theorem, we prove that the problem of inferring the complete information of label choices for each vertex from the resulting random intersection graph (i.e. the \emph{label representation of the graph}) is \emph{solvable} whp. Finding efficient algorithms for constructing such a label representation is left as an interesting open problem for future research

Performance evaluation of Brazilian social organizations according to the best international practices

In Brazil, social organizations demonstrate the results generated to the various beneficiaries by measuring their performances based on the objectives, goals and indicators agreed with their supervisory bodies. Therefore, the adoption of best performance evaluation practices is important to ensure adherence to legal and regulatory standards and to support decision making in approving their annual accounts in order to maintain their qualifications and legitimize themselves for the receipt of new investments and financing. Thus, the objective of this research is to demonstrate if the forms of performance measurement used by the social organizations linked to the Ministry of Education in Brazil adhere to the best international practices. In this way, this work presents contributions by establishing a theoretical reference for performance measurement and comparing it with the methodologies applied in Brazil, by conducting a qualitative exploratory research based on multiple case studies in which the secondary data obtained were treated in the form of content analysis. The results showed that the performance evaluation practices adopted by the analyzed institutions do not adhere to international benchmark. Additionally, this research points out ways to evolve the methodology currently adopted and brings up other fragility related to transparency, control and supervision by the supervising Ministry.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Determining Majority in Networks with Local Interactions and Very Small Local Memory

We study here the problem of determining the majority type in an arbitrary connected network, each vertex of which has initially two possible types (states). The vertices may have a few additional possible states and can interact in pairs only if they share an edge. Any (population) protocol is required to stabilize in the initial majority, i.e. its output function must interpret the local state of each vertex so that each vertex outputs the initial majority type. We first provide a protocol with 4 states per vertex that always computes the initial majority value, under any fair scheduler. Under the uniform probabilistic scheduler of pairwise interactions, we prove that our protocol stabilizes in expected polynomial time for any network and is quite fast on the clique. As we prove, this protocol is optimal, in the sense that there does not exist any population protocol that always computes majority with fewer than 4 states per vertex. However this does not rule out the existence of a protocol with 3 states per vertex that is correct with high probability (whp). To this end, we examine an elegant and very natural majority protocol with 3 states per vertex, introduced in [2] where its performance has been analyzed for the clique graph. In particular, it determines the correct initial majority type in the clique very fast and whp under the uniform probabilistic scheduler. We study the performance of this protocol in arbitrary networks. We prove that, when the two initial states are put uniformly at random on the vertices, the protocol of [2] converges to the initial majority with probability higher than the probability of converging to the initial minority. In contrast, we present an infinite family of graphs, on which the protocol of [2] can fail, i.e. it can converge to the initial minority type whp, even when the difference between the initial majority and the initial minority is n − Θ(ln n). We also present another infinite family of graphs in which the protocol of [2] takes an expected exponential time to converge. These two negative results build upon a very positive result concerning the robustness of the protocol of [2] on the clique, namely that if the initial minority is at most n7, the protocol fails with exponentially small probability. Surprisingly, the resistance of the clique to failure causes the failure in general graphs. Our techniques use new domination and coupling arguments for suitably defined processes whose dynamics capture the antagonism between the states involved