Case study - balanced scorecard targets

Dissertação de Mestrado, Finanças Empresariais, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Algarve, 2014

Building genre knowledge: a case study of efl student perceptions of the argument essay

Dissertação de mest. em Didáctica das Línguas e Culturas Modernas Especialização Inglês, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Univ. do Algarve, 2003

Intervention for organizational innovation: a case study

This article is intended to report an intervention in a SME of the IT sector, aiming at an organizational change process towards a greater proactivity of employees. The presentation of the case includes the diagnosis, intervention, and the beginning of the implementation of innovation projects, based on an adapted model of third generation large-group organizational change methods. In addition to the steps followed, small-world analysis techniques were used, with the intention of determining the existing communication networks; also, a content analysis of collected success stories was made, in order to suggest strong points for a future organizational culture. The results clarified the desirable characteristics of an intervention method with large groups, adapted to Portuguese companies, and effective in organizational innovation project design. The analysis of the success stories helped to determine the strengths of an orientation for the future, while the use of measures of small-world networks allowed us to analyze the existing informal organization. Although this study does not include the completion of the projects, due to difficulties in the company, it can provide a solid basis for application in future interventions.

EUNIS habitat's thresholds for the Western coast of the Iberian Peninsula — A Portuguese case study

The European Nature Information System (EUNIS) has been implemented for the establishment of a marine European habitats inventory. Its hierarchical classification is defined and relies on environmental variables which primarily constrain biological communities (e.g. substrate types, sea energy level, depth and light penetration). The EUNIS habitat classification scheme relies on thresholds (e.g. fraction of light and energy) which are based on expert judgment or on the empirical analysis of the above environmental data. The present paper proposes to establish and validate an appropriate threshold for energy classes (high, moderate and low) and for subtidal biological zonation (infralittoral and circalittoral) suitable for EUNIS habitat classification of the Western Iberian coast. Kineticwave-induced energy and the fraction of photosynthetically available light exerted on the marine bottom were respectively assigned to the presence of kelp (Saccorhiza polyschides, Laminaria hyperborea and Laminaria ochroleuca) and seaweed species in general. Both data were statistically described, ordered fromthe largest to the smallest and percentile analyseswere independently performed. The threshold between infralittoral and circalittoral was based on the first quartile while the ‘moderate energy’ class was established between the 12.5 and 87.5 percentiles. To avoid data dependence on sampling locations and assess the confidence interval a bootstrap technique was applied. According to this analysis,more than 75% of seaweeds are present at locations where more than 3.65% of the surface light reaches the sea bottom. The range of energy levels estimated using S. polyschides data, indicate that on the IberianWest coast the ‘moderate energy’ areas are between 0.00303 and 0.04385 N/m2 of wave-induced energy. The lack of agreement between different studies in different regions of Europe suggests the need for more standardization in the future. However, the obtained thresholds in the present study will be very useful in the near future to implement and establish the Iberian EUNIS habitats inventory.