Search

Introducción: La innovación para emprender modelos de negocios responsables y sostenibles es la máxima actual en la lista de prioridades de la Unión Europea, en consonancia con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible marcados por las Naciones Unidas en su Agenda internacional para el 2030. La creación y desarrollo de proyectos y empresas conscientes de su impacto en el planeta a corto, medio y largo plazo generan mucho más valor cuando este liderazgo proviene de una vocación empresarial femenina, al optimizar el valor de la diversidad en la gestión de los recursos, tradicionalmente dirigidos por el ecosistema masculino. Metodología: se aplica una triangulación metodológica con entrevistas en profundidad a informantes clave internacionales, análisis de contenidos digitales en las regiones de Andalucía (España) y Aveiro (Portugal) y la revisión de literatura científica previa. Resultados: las nuevas startups hispano lusas siguen siendo lideradas mayoritariamente por hombres, mientras que la cuota de liderazgo emprendedor femenino abarca en torno a un 26,5% del total de la muestra. Discusión: aunque exista un amplio rango de mejora en presencia y comunicación, las mujeres están incrementando su actividad emprendedora e innovadora. En todo caso, la co-responsabilidad con la comunidad y el cuidado del legado medioambiental son valores de diferenciación profesional aún latentes. Conclusiones: la investigación pone de manifiesto datos objetivos actuales internacionales referentes a la comunicación digital corporativa, que permiten ofrecer una visión completa sobre la realidad de las mujeres que están apostando por modelos de negocios cuya misión, visión y valores se centran en la sostenibilidad., the top of the list of the European Union's priorities, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in its international Agenda expected to be reached by 2030. The creation and development of activities, projects, and companies aware of their impact on the planet in the short, medium, and long term, generate much more value when this leadership comes from a female entrepreneurial vocation, by enriching and optimising the value of diversity in the management of resources, traditionally directed by the male ecosystem. Methodology: a methodological triangulation is applied through in-depth interviews with international key informants, analysis of digital contents in the regions of Andalusia (Spain) and Aveiro (Portugal) and the review of previous scientific literature. Results: The new Spanish-Portuguese startups are still mostly led by men, while the share of female entrepreneurial leadership represents the 26.5% of the total sample. Discussion: although there is a wide range of improvement in presence and communication, women are increasing their entrepreneurial and innovative activity. In any case, co-responsibility with the community and care for the environmental legacy are still latent values for professional differentiation. Conclusions: the research highlights current international objective data on entrepreneurial corporate digital communication, providing a complete picture of the reality of women who are committing to business models whose mission, vision and values are focused on sustainability

Happiness at work has been increasingly attracting the attention of academics and human resources managers. Literature on the topic provides clear evidence of the benefits for companies resulting from the adoption of strategies that promote happiness among employees. Despite its growing popularity, companies that define and implement a happiness strategy within their internal marketing are still scarce, particularly small and medium companies (SMEs). This paper illustrates the impact of happiness at work perceived by employees of SMEs at three levels: in themselves, in customers, and in the business’s success, in the particular case of companies that do not implement such strategies. The research question was: what is the perception of employees on happiness at work outcomes when the company has no explicit strategy to promote it? This article includes a qualitative study comprising twelve semi-structured interviews with employees who directly deal with customers while working in various B2C companies that do not have a defined strategy to stimulate happiness at work. The study shows employees’ acknowledgment of the multidimensional impacts of happiness at work, which makes them more motivated, productive, and more able to influence their relationships with customers positively. Based on these findings, even when lacking clear corporate strategies to improve happiness at work, the company is still expected to benefit in terms of customer loyalty and overall profitability, as well as in terms of employees’ affective commitment.

Social media strategies are commonly adopted by large and SMEs due to the expected impacts on customer engagement, branding, sales, and overall company performance. One particularly interesting strategy conducted on social media is real-time marketing (RTM) that enables the company to get involved in the discussion of trending topics. The main aim of this chapter is to analyze RTM impacts on user engagement in the case of socially relevant topics, particularly Women's Day. It provides an analysis of publications by the 25 most valuable brands in Brazil (comprising both large companies and SME) and explores the interconnections between RTM publications and CSR policies. One main conclusion is that companies should approach socially relevant dates in accordance with their CSR policies, and that successful RTM initiatives can comprise alternative approaches: promotional actions, tributes, and CSR. The findings of this chapter are particularly relevant for SMEs, considering the democratic nature of RTM and overall social media strategies.

Despite the current importance of international retirement migration for both academics and practitioners, the extant literature on the topic is still scarce and mostly focused on short-period migration flows from wealthy and northern countries to cheaper and warm-weather destinations. This article aims at shedding light on the role of tourism in prospective migrants’ decision-making process, considering the framework provided by the push-pull model, which is often used to explain both migration and tourism. A qualitative study was conducted, comprising ten in-depth interviews with 45+ year-old Brazilian citizens who intend to move to Europe after retirement. Results show that tourism is important for prospective migrants to evaluate possible migration destinations, as some of the most relevant migration pull factors (e.g., safety) are easily assessed during tourism experiences. Participants in this study also carefully plan tourism activities prior to their decision to migrate in order to get a more realistic notion of what the destination is like for residents. Overall, this study demonstrates that tourism is particularly important for several stages of migrants’ decision-making process.

This chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of websites in business internationalization by exploring how website overall objectives and their coherence with website strategies support website internationalization effectiveness. It provides empirical evidence on the experiences of Portuguese companies shared by 20 managers of large companies and SMEs of various activity sectors. Results show the importance of a clear website strategy (e.g., clear objectives and coherent tactics) for an effective role in internationalization. Findings also confirm that, while many managers are skeptic about the effectiveness of websites as an internationalization touchpoint, namely due to sector characteristics (e.g., type of customers, type of products/services), the website is perceived as an essential tool for reaching, attracting, and involving international customers, supporting other communication instruments such as participating in international fairs and sales force.

Hashtags are commonly used in social media communication not only to categorize conversations but particularly to raise attention and generate debate of certain topics. Hashtag activism is one of the areas that is gaining particular attention from academics and the overall society. The focus of this chapter is hashtag attributes. Particularly, it analyses and compares four hashtags related to violence against women that circulated on social networks during the COVID-19 pandemic: #16Days, #IsolatedNotAlone, #womensupportingwomen, and #NiUnaMenos. The chapter highlights important aspects to increase the effectiveness of communication with the use of hashtags.

In this paper a multivariate integer-valued autoregressive model of order one with periodic time-varying parameters, and driven by a periodic innovations sequence of independent random vectors is introduced and studied in detail. Emphasis is placed on models with periodic multivariate negative binomial innovations. Basic probabilistic and statistical properties of the novel model are discussed. Aiming to reduce computational burden arising from the use of the conditional maximum likelihood method, a composite likelihood-based approach is adopted. The performance of such method is compared with that of some traditional competitors, namely moment estimators and conditional maximum likelihood estimators. Forecasting is also addressed. Furthermore, an application to a real data set concerning the monthly number of fires in three counties in Portugal is presented. published

Retirees have been growing in importance as a consumer segment targeted by the tourism industry, namely because they can minimize the typical seasonality of tourism and increase its sustainability. This study aims to contribute to a more in-depth knowledge of retirees’ behaviour and has two objectives: (i) describe tourist behaviour of seniors prior to and after retirement; (ii) identify and analyse retired consumers’ current motivations and constraints towards tourism. Qualitative research was conducted comprising interviews with 40 Portuguese retirees. The results indicate a diversity of experiences regarding tourism activities both before and after retirement, evidencing that past experience stands out as a determinant of retirees’ tourism behaviour. Moreover, three distinct segments of tourists emerge: the experts, the new tourists, and the non-tourists. published

This chapter builds on the main contributions in the literature that associate tourism with student mobility, particularly in Europe, positioning tourism both as a motivator and an enhancer of mobility’s success, namely by developing transversal skills and loyalty to the host destination (e.g. intention to return to the host destination for tourism or work and its recommendation to peers). A qualitative study was conducted with 32 exchange students that spent one or two semesters at the same Portuguese University by using focus groups for collecting participants’ views and experiences. Data was subject to thematic content analysis. Participants in this study agreed that they travel as much as they can during their mobility, being an essential part of their intercultural experience. Their narratives and dialogues evidenced that travelling contributes to developing transversal skills important for their self-awareness and for their future professional careers, such as time management, money management, and intercultural communication.

This paper aims to study the perceptions of Vocational Education and Training (VET) students and VET teachers about the image of vocational education in Portugal and the contributions of VET to the achievement of the goals set in the 2030 Agenda. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted in Portugal in 2020 with a sample of 5 former VET students and 12 VET teachers. The objective was for participants to provide their views, experiences, and opinions on the inclusiveness and quality of VET education at the secondary level and how it may contribute to students’ lifelong opportunities, employability, and social inequality reduction. Various perspectives were offered, including divergent views between teachers and students. Topics such as equity, stigma, social status, employability and empowerment resulting from professional recognition, namely due to continuing studies at a higher level, were also discussed. Overall, this study provides valuable insights on the possible roles of VET in what concerns the 2030 Agenda, demonstrating that this topic deserves urgent attention from researchers. published

A Smart Specialisation Strategy is essentially a way of thinking about local knowledge enhancement and learning enhancement systems and focuses on the principle that knowledge, research and innovation resources, linked to a limited number of priority economic activities, enable economic development. Considering that vocational education and training (VET) can play a critical role in this innovation through the absorption of know-how, the involvement of these two concepts becomes a critical factor in the regional economic transformation. In this sense, this research aims to analyze the alignment between scientific domains and smart strategies, and to check whether they contribute to the accomplishment of the thematic axes and priority areas identified in the National Strategy for Smart Specialisation (ENEI) and in the Regional Smart Specialisation Strategy (EREI). Document and secondary analysis techniques were used, highlighting the challenges, the added value, and the potential development of the Portuguese regions when compared to the training offer. The conclusions provide insights on the need to further elaborate on the funding and approval mechanisms for vocational education and training (VET) programs to ensure the necessary articulation with the smart specialisation strategies defined in national and regional plans. Finally, it should be noted that the analysis of the alignment of the smart specialisation strategy and the Portuguese educational training offer helps to clarify a relevant gap in the literature, since Smart Specialisation Strategy is a key-concept for the country’s economic development. published

Despite the existence of Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes allowing dual certification (general school and vocational diplomas), the main aim of vocational courses is arguably the insertion of young people in the labour market. Still, there is a diversification of pathways for upper secondary vocational students, including continuing studies at a tertiary level. In fact, international statistics point to the increased number of vocational students that choose to pursue studies at a higher level, encouraged, among several motivations, by the quest for social mobility. Despite the relevance of this theme, studies that explore students’ pathways after the completion of upper secondary vocational education are still scarce. To fill this gap, the paper synthesizes and reviews literature contributions with the purpose of identifying the factors that explain the adoption of each of the pathways (working, continuing to study or neither) by upper secondary education VET students. As a result, the article discusses a list of factors associated with career choices after completion of VET secondary studies and proposes a set of questions for future research. Overall, this paper shows that VET deserves urgent consideration by researchers and offers valuable insights for academics, students, parents and decision makers alike. published

This chapter is based on consumer behavior theories and analyses consumers' perspectives about camping as a tourism alternative. It explores motivations and several relevant factors that influence the attitudes and behaviors of tourists regarding camping activities. The methodology was qualitative and used focus groups as a data collection tool. A content and thematic analysis was adopted as data mining technique. Results provide empirical support to the influence of subjective norms, relevant others' preference for camping, and sustainable consumer profile on attitudes toward camping which influence camping intention. Moreover, camping intention, motivations, relevant others' preference for camping, perceived control, and past experience affect camping behavior. Overall, this chapter shows that consumer behavior theories and models provide very interesting cues on campers' decision process, offering alternative and complementing views to the extant literature, namely to the studies using the popular push-pull approach.

Guerrilla marketing is an innovative approach to communicate with customers and to capture their attention essentially due to its inherent creativity, unconventional media, and low cost. Despite the interesting contributions in the literature on this topic, most of what is known about guerrilla marketing is confined to its use and impact on consumers. This study aims to fill a gap identified in the guerrilla marketing literature by conducting an exploratory research study on the propensity of performing guerrilla marketing campaigns in a Business-to-Business (B2B) context. The research objectives of this paper are (i) identifying the perceptions of B2B managers on guerrilla marketing campaigns and (ii) exploring determinants of the adoption of guerrilla marketing campaigns targeted at corporate customers.We present the results of a qualitative research study comprising 12 semi-structured interviews with managers of different business areas. A content analysis was performed using Nvivo software.Participants in this study demonstrated that B2B managers recognize and value the advantages associated with guerrilla communication, which is in many instances seen as useful and viable for the B2B sector. The propensity for adoption is dependent on internal factors such as corporate culture, managers’ and collaborators’ profiles, risk-proneness, market share, and product innovativeness, but also on the sector’s usual practices of innovation and communication. Guerrilla marketing campaigns are more appropriate for attracting new B2B customers and need to be carefully adapted to the targets' profiles and preferences.

Although still little-known, glamping has become a nature-based tourism option for people who want a higher level of comfort. The offer of this type of accommodation is growing, namely in Portugal, but there are still few studies that address the motivations and other relevant factors explaining its adoption or refusal by consumers. The present study applied a qualitative approach aimed at exploring consumers’ motivations or obstacles for choosing glamping, and their perceptions as tourists on the differences between glamping and camping. Data were collected through the conduction of focus groups held in 2017 and content analysis techniques for contextualized interpretations were used. The most important motivational driver to go glamping is the direct contact with nature. Glamour, comfort, privacy and a different experience are also important aspects that consumers appreciate. Inversely, the main obstacles are the cost, the limited offer, the lack of knowledge, and the non-authenticity, compared to camping, of the offer.

Breast cancer epidemiological patterns vary in European countries, which present different incidence rates. Data have suggested that the reduction in breast cancer mortality is not only due to the early detection of the disease, but is, in almost equal part, due to screening and to the advances that have been made in molecular medicine and the development of novel therapies. The aim of the present study is to quantify the actual number of cases of breast cancer present in both of the sexes by calculating the prevalence of silent breast cancer in corpses. To achieve this quantification, bilateral subcutaneous radical mastectomies are performed in corpses of either sex above 40 years of age that lacked any clinical manifestation of the disease, and where the breast cancer or its complications was not the cause of death. Only five publications exist in the international literature based on medico-legal autopsies that were designed to define the ‘natural reservoir’ of the disease. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first one to appraise breast tissue via imaging by means of orienting the biopsy incision. In conclusion, to the best of our knowledge, the design of the present study is the first of its type, where image-guided biopsies are used to define the prevalence of silent breast cancer. The study aims to demonstrate that the ‘disease reservoir’ is, in reality, higher than was originally considered to be so. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute towards an improved definition of the disease by determining which tumour profiles potentially do not benefit from aggressive treatments (for example, in case where a high prevalence of low-grade ductal carcinoma in situ is to be detected). According to our pilot study, this analysis represents a feasible protocol.

A lot has been said about the digital natives and their natural way of integrating the internet in their daily activities. Millennials have been considered a unique segment of consumers by researchers and practitioners alike, due to their ability and propensity to adopt and adapt new media to their daily routine. Although it is expectable that they are particularly keen on embracing IoT, extant literature is scarce on their views on the adoption of IoT to their home, work, and leisure activities. In this chapter, the authors analyze the potential of the millennial segment to IoT products and services. Results of a qualitative study with Portuguese consumers are included and provide interesting cues to marketers working with IoT offers.

In this paper, an integer-valued autoregressive model of order one (INAR(1)) with time-varying parameters and driven by a periodic sequence of innovations is introduced. The proposed INAR(1) model is based on the signed thinning operator defined by Kachour and Truquet (2011) and conveniently adapted to the periodic case. Basic notations and definitions concerning the periodic signed thinning operator are provided. Based on this thinning operator, Chesneau and Kachour (2012) established a signed INAR(1) model. Motivated by the work of Chesneau and Kachour (2012), we introduce a periodic model, denoted by S-PINAR(1), with period s. In contrast to conventional INAR(1) models, these models are defined in \(\mathbb {Z}\) allowing for negative values both for the series and its autocorrelation function. For a proper \(\mathbb {Z}\)-valued time series, a distribution for the innovation term defined on \(\mathbb {Z}\) is required. The S-PINAR(1) model assumes a specific innovation distribution, the Skellam distribution. Regarding parameter estimation, two methods are considered: conditional least squares and conditional maximum likelihood. The performance of the S-PINAR(1) model is assessed through a simulation study.

This research aims to explore the importance of tourism activities for student mobility, considering the decision process, the experience of the students while on mobility, and their loyalty to the host region, including their cooperation in promoting local attractions among relatives and friends. We present qualitative results obtained from focus groups with Erasmus students from diverse countries inside and outside Europe, who spent at least one semester in the University of Aveiro, Portugal. The discussions explored students’ perceptions, experiences and practices before and during the mobility. Our results include evidence on how traveling opportunities are an inherent part of Erasmus students’ mobility. Overall, their tourist activities are shown as strong enhancers of the learning process while on mobility, despite competing with limited resources of time and money. Traveling is also an opportunity to spend time with family and friends, namely with other mobility students at the same host university, fostering integration and a higher degree of satisfaction with the mobility experience. In turn, the extended exposure to a different language and culture transform mobility students into ideal ambassadors of the host country, contributing significantly to the promotion of their mobility destinations. published

[EN] At the celebration of its 30th anniversary, Erasmus is recognised as the most successful exchange program ever implemented. The prospects of attaining a common European consciousness challenged the program's ability to blend together knowledge, attitudes and skills in a winning combination. It is no longer sufficient to communicate and integrate: mobility should actively foster skills to support students's professional career at national and international levels. Although literature on mobility is vast and interesting, studies on the impact of the mobility experience in the students' future employability profile rarely provide first-hand data on their expectations in this regard. This exploratory research comprises a qualitative focus group approach with Erasmus students during their exchange period in a Portuguese university and collected some insightful data on how students consider their mobility in terms of new learning outcomes, the professional value of the experience and the development of new skills. Results indicate that students seem to be quite aware of the positive implications of mobility in their professional careers and of the set of skills developed during that period. Overall, this article contributes to demonstrating the importance of assessing skills development during Erasmus mobility experiences. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are provided., This work is financially supported by National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project UID/CED/00194/2013.

Internationalization is a broad concept encompassing multiple facets. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) collaborators are key actors of the internationalization process and outcomes, being essential for education managers to promote internationalization initiatives, namely among their teachers. Nevertheless, the literature indicates that the number of teachers involved in those initiatives is still modest. It is therefore of utmost importance to understand how teachers initiate and maintain mobility assignments, so that HEI can implement effective strategies to promote this facet of internationalization. In this paper, we explore the teacher mobility topic through the lens of the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior. These two theories have been widely used to explain how people initiate and maintain behaviors, and are particularly relevant to understand teacher mobility. The paper includes results from phenomenological interviews with teachers that had one or more mobility experience under the Erasmus programme. The narratives of the participants in the study evidence the importance of prior intentions, attitudes and subjective norms in the resolution to undertake international assignments. Self-efficacy was also shown as determinant in the decision process of first and subsequent mobility initiatives. This paper also provides cues on how HEI can facilitate and encourage mobility experiences amongst their teaching staff. published

Teachers’ mobility is one of the facets of Higher Education Institutions internationalization, and despite its importance in implementing the program's purposes it is still disregarded by researchers, with most mobility studies focusing on students. This research concentrates on highly active mobility teachers and aims to delve into their experiences, namely by identifying facilitators and goals for this repeated internationalization and by analyzing the outcomes of these initiatives in their personal lives, professional activity, home and host students, and for their Universities as a whole. This study adopts a qualitative exploratory approach. Having as sample universe the teachers of one Portuguese University that in a 7-year period (2009-2016) engaged in mobility experiences under the Erasmus program (N = 107), 8 were identified as having the highest number of initiatives and were invited to participate in this study. From these mobility champions, 5 accepted, resulting in 5 phenomenological interviews. Data was collected in January 2017. The participants shared an integrated view of the Erasmus mobility, being essential for its success the additional opportunities of joint research and the strengthening of international relationships and networks. Prior relations with teachers from the host University and ongoing research projects stood out among the facilitators. The opportunity to observe and get to know other cultural settings was also mentioned as one determinant stimulus. Still, the outcomes in terms of teaching methodologies and best practices as well an effective impact in home students seemed residual. Moreover, the ability to encourage other teachers to join the program was very limited, often confined to close colleagues and research partners. Despite its exploratory nature, this study demonstrates the relevance of further research on mobility champions to assess the success and possible pitfalls of repeated mobility experiences in terms of extended institutional outcomes and well as individual gratification of the teachers involved. Based on the results, we suggest the consideration of a wider set of outcomes in the appraisal of mobility initiatives, as well as the widespread of champions’ insights on the topic in order to motivate inexperienced teachers to embrace internationalization. Hopefully this paper is able to inspire not only research but also teaching mobility initiatives. published

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it intends to assess the level of comparability of the fair value-based valuation criteria for biological assets of Portuguese dairy farms after the adoption of the Portuguese Accounting Standardization System. Second, it presents an innovative valuation model to assess the fair value of dairy herds.Design/methodology/approach– The paper conducts a multiple case study at dairy farms in the central region of Portugal which had adopted the new Accounting Standardization System. Data were captured through interviews to assess how dairy farms were using the new valuation criteria required by this recent accounting frame of reference. A proposal for a model to measure fair value is presented.Findings– Main findings indicate that market values for dairy production animals are inconsistent, reducing financial information comparability levels. To solve these problems, the authors propose a new model to assess fair value based on the net present value (NPV) of future cash-flows. This is a possible method to measure bovines that are in a breeding stage and it will assure the comparability of financial statements among dairy farms.Research limitations/implications– The study is confined to one case study and one country, not allowing generalization.Originality/value– Results indicate the need to harmonize one possible method for measuring cattle that are in a breeding stage. In order to overcome these shortcomings, a model was designed to calculate the fair value of dairy production based on the NPV of future economic benefits.