Transverse Vibrations in Beams Supported by a Piece-Wise Homogeneous Visco- Elastic Foundation

Transversal vibrations induced by a load moving uniformly along an infinite beam resting on a piece-wise homogeneous visco-elastic foundation are studied. Special attention is paid to the additional vibrations, conventionally referred to as transition radiations, which arise as the point load traverses the place of foundation discontinuity. The governing equations of the problem are solved by the normalmode analysis. The solution is expressed in a form of infinite sum of orthogonal natural modes multiplied by the generalized coordinate of displacement. The natural frequencies are obtained numerically exploiting the concept of the global dynamic stiffness matrix. This ensures that the frequencies obtained are exact. The methodology has restrictions neither on velocity nor on damping. The approach looks simple, though, the numerical expression of the results is not straightforward. A general procedure for numerical implementation is presented and verified. To illustrate the utility of the methodology parametric optimization is presented and influence of the load mass is studied. The results obtained have direct application in analysis of railway track vibrations induced by high-speed trains when passing regions with significantly different foundation stiffness.

Positive solutions to find a job: Cultural mismatches between companies and employees

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

(Un)ethical leadership, organizational identification and sensemaking: the BES case and its impact on employees

This paper provides an ongoing analysis to one of the biggest ethical and financial scandals in Portugal – Banco Espírito Santo (BES). BES was considered one of the three best banks but it went bankrupted and its employees were transferred to a new entity – Novo Banco. This study was conducted in order to provide an understanding of the employees’ side, which has been forgotten so far. An ethical scandal (sensebreaking) creates ambiguity and uncertainty which triggers new sensemaking processes in order to understand and derive meaning from the new reality. The methodology followed was semi-structured interviews to employees both from the branches and the central services. We found evidence that in organizations with strong identification, unethical behavior has a significant impact on followers’ – the new process of sensemaking is particularly important in this situation because employees suffer more from the disruption of their reality.

Managing talent through developmental job experiences (DJE): The mediating role of DJE between HPWS and employees' outcomes

In the competitive landscape of the 21st century, effectively managing human capital in firms is considered to be a potential source of sustainable performance. Therefore, in this study, we tested the influence of high-performance work systems, as a talent management tool, on employees’ experience of developmental jobs. Then, we tested the mediating effect of such experiences on employees’ engagement, exhaustion, performance and turnover intention. With a sample of 254 employees of a diversity of companies and sectors of activity, our findings demonstrated that high-performance practices increase engagement, via the promotion of developmental experiences of fit, which improves performance and decreases turnover intention. Besides, those practices do not control for the pressure dimension of the developmental job experiences that increases exhaustion and turnover intention despite not worsening performance.

A mediated moderation study to explain the negative relationship between job insecurity and employee supportive voice

Double degree