How bank business models relate with risk?: The case of Portugal in times of financial crisis

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

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.

Basel III new capital requirements, impacts and bank behavior

For some years, researchers could not find a clear effect of capital adequacy on the risk profile of banks, as shareholders could increase the riskiness of the assets (qualitative effect), crowding-out the effect of reduced leverage (volume effect). Some shareholders might have the will to increase the riskiness of the assets, but they may lack the power to do so. Considering only ”powerful” shareholders, definitive conclusions were drawn but with constant ownership profile. In this paper I investigate whether there is a significant change in the type of shareholders in response to regulatory capital shocks and, if so, will the banking system be in the hands of more “desired” shareholders. I find that ownership profile responds to a regulatory shock, changing the risk appetite of the ruling power at the bank. I find more banks and the government in the ownership of undercapitalised banks and much less institutional shareholders and free float. I claim that these new shareholders may not the desired ones, given the objective of the regulatory change, as they are associated with a preference for more leverage. One possible explanation for this crowding-out effect is that regulators are trying to contain idiosyncratic risk (more linked to the riskiness of the assets) with a rule that contains systematic risk (capital adequacy). This has a distorting effect on ownership. Another insight can be drawn from the tests: supervisors should be aware of significant ownership movements that cause the crowding-out.

Relatório de estágio na Caixa Geral de Depósitos

This report will describe the activities undertaken during my internship at the Personnel Department (DPE-UPE4.1) in Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), Lisbon, between September 22, 2014, and February 28, 2015. I consider that it is important to note from the outset i) that the subject of my training was suggested by my supervisor in the DPE and accepted by me; and ii) that the internship consisted essentially of carrying out research and information gathering into the different social systems that coexist within the bank and the application of each legal system in solving concrete situations of the CGD employees. The research and analysis of information was important not only for my study but for the CGD itself, as it enables the department to have such an important matter, full of specific characteristics, condensed into a single document, i.e. this report. This is a complex reality. The various welfare systems differ according to the contractual agreement linking the employee to the employer at the date when the labour contract is signed, and also the unique/singular characteristics of the CGD. In the early stage I started by trying to understand the financial institution and its organization and role and the department where I worked. So I analyzed the CGD Statutes and the legal measures that crystallized the scheme for its employees and I also researched its domestic and international operations. The first month was devoted to the research and analysis of such legislation to understand the creation of the CGD and its path to date. In the second and third months I studied the legal social systems that are applied to different groups of CGD workers. This period was quite important to identify and understand the differences between those regimes of CGD employees as well as the procedure inherent in each case. I highlighted the non-implementation of “the social protection regime of convergence” to the workers of this institution; the differences regarding the allocation of sickness subsidies paid to workers who belong to Social Security and CGA contributors, as well as the enforcement of internal rules to all the workers when a work-related accident happens.Then I focused on to assessing and examining external legislation and several internal regulations in order to obtain solutions to questions raised and situations involving by the workers, in order to understand how the DPE solves these situations. Over the last three months of internship, after this more theoretical work, I began the analysis of concrete situations involving employees carrying out their duties in Portugal and abroad. Some of these situations had been received by the department before the beginning of my internship and others over this period. When I was “working” in the DPE I analyzed “cases” that had been solved and some others without a final solution because they were still in courts. As for the last ones (new cases) I was able to follow their assessment and sometimes their outcome. Some of them became study cases for me. Over these five months of my internship, several cases were analyzed and discussed by legal experts of DPE in which I could participate. I always worked hard. I know that this action contributed to elucidate me about the treatment of the issues, and allowed me to have a direct contact with some workers and be part of a dynamic work team. For these reasons, my internship report is not merely descriptive of activities. It consists of an analysis of rules (legislation) and a regulatory framework of activities and it is also a description of several specific situations solved or in a solution process. Through this work I intend to make known the particular reality of a modern Portuguese financial institution not only because of its importance in our country but also such a large number of employees work here (in Portugal and abroad). I should add that throughout my internship I was allowed to attend conferences, within the scope of the bank in order to get a broader view of some issues related to the daily life of the DPE and the CGD. So, I participated in I Jornadas Bancárias and the Conferência Internacional do Contrato a Termo, given that the CGD is a bank and the DPE deals with legal and labour relations.

Improving Millennium Bank's personal finance manager

Double Degree