Improvisation in tightly controlled work environments: The case of medical practice

We present a qualitative analysis of organizational improvisation and provide a preliminary insight into the following question: how is improvisation present in tightly controlled work environments? We conducted in situ observations of, and interviews with, several emergency medical teams and complemented this information with statistical and media data. Using grounded theory, we developed four propositions that were arranged into a model that allowed the identification of two use levels of established routines: (1) the visible side that accommodates contextual requirements, and (2) the improvisational side that provides a response to activity characteristics. This dual process is related to the existence of pressures that operate at the institutional level with practical needs emerging from the operational domain. In contrast with most of the literature, this study reveals that the presence of a broad procedural organizational memory does not restrict improvisation but enables a bureaucratic system to produce flexible improvised performance.

A transformação dos valores em valor: a internet como "atrium" para a comunicação da resposabilidade social

A presente investigação pretende avaliar os objectivos da comunicação empresarial sobre responsabilidade social e identificar os traços comuns da linguagem utilizada. Utilizando os sítios de internet como fontes de dados, procurou-se estabelecer um mapa conceptual desta comunicação que permitisse identificar os objectivos que lhe estão subjacentes. Para a investigação foi seguido o método preceituado pela Grounded Theory sobre as declarações relativas a responsabilidade social das empresas recolhidas nos sítios de internet das 10 empresas consideradas como melhores em termos de responsabilidade social e das 10 maiores empresas a actuar em Portugal. Os resultados obtidos permitem relevar o papel único da internet como espaçofronteira entre a empresa e o seu meio envolvente, um espaço de confirmação para os stakeholders internos e de legitimação perante os stakeholders externos. A comunicação estabelecida através da internet tem como principal objectivo a construção de uma identidade organizacional que possibilite a sobrevivência no longoprazo, organizando as empresas esta comunicação por stakeholder e dando prioridade àqueles que maior impacto têm na sua acção.

Levantamento e Caracterização de Projectos Musicais Implementados em Estabelecimentos Prisionais Femininos Portugueses (2005 a 2010)

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Ciências Musicais na especialidade de Ensino e Psicologia da Música

Adaptation as a part of system resilience. insights from fish producers organizations in Portugal

Complex problems of globalized society challenge its adaptive capacity. However, it is precisely the nature of these human induced problems that provide enough evidence to show that adaptability may not be on a resilient path. This thesis explores the ambiguity of the idea of adaptation (and its practice) and illustrates the ways in which adaptability contributes to resilience of social ecological systems. The thesis combines a case study and grounded theory approach and develops an analytical framework to study adaptability in resource users’ organizations: from what it depends on and what the key challenges are for resource management and system resilience. It does so for the specific case of fish producers’ organizations (POs) in Portugal. The findings suggest that while ecological and market context, including the type of crisis, may influence the character of fishers’ adaptation within POs (i.e. anticipatory, maladaptive and reactively adaptive), it does not determine it. Instead, it makes agency even more crucial (i.e. leadership, trust and agent’s perceptions in terms of their impact on fishers’ motivation to learn from each other). In sum, it was found that internal adaptation can improve POs’ contribution to fishery management and resilience, but it is not a panacea and may, in some cases, increase system vulnerability to change. Continuous maladaptation of some Portuguese POs points at a basic institutional problem (fish market regime), which clearly reduces fisheries resilience as it promotes overfishing. However, structural change may not be sufficient to address other barriers to Portuguese fishers’ (PO members) adaptability, such as history (collective memory) and associated problematic self-perceptions. The agency (people involved in structures and practices) also needs to change. What and how institutional change and agency change build on one another (e.g. comparison of fisheries governance in Portugal and other EU countries) is a topic to be explored in further research.

Good vibrations

The work reported in this thesis addresses the research question of when and how positive psychological states impact positive behavior and positive organizational development. We present two theoretical essays and three empirical studies to find possible answers to this question and we use a multitude of methodologies with different epistemological assumptions, including quantitative correlation analysis, social network analysis and qualitative grounded theory analysis. In the whole, our work shows that positive psychological states are fundamental to promote individual and organizational higher-levels of performance and well-being. It also points that the capability to induce positive psychological states in others (an “alter-positive” approach) is a powerful way to develop outstanding individuals and organizations. In a broader sense, it stresses the need to promote good vibrations as a fundamental route to create a better world.

Self-organization and complexity theory to support evolvable production systems

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

An Ethos Theory of Party Positions on European Integration: Poland and Beyond

Since 1989, five parliamentary elections have been the stage for the foundation and demise of political parties aspiring to govern the new democratic Polish state. The demise of the AWS before the 2001 elections after ten years of attempts to create a centre-right core party resulted in a new splintering of the right-wing, and the centre-right became again devoid of a pivotal formation. While Eurosceptic parties in average gain 8 percent of the vote, in the 2001 Polish parliamentary elections Eurosceptic parties gained around 20 percent of the vote. In Poland right-wing parties show an unusual propensity for Euroscepticism. The persistence and increased importance of nationalism in Poland, which has prevented the development of a strong Christian democratic party, effectively explains the levels of Euroscepticism on the right. After the autumn 2005 parliamentary elections the national conservative party, Law and Justice, formed a governing coalition with the national Catholic League of Polish Families, creating one of the first Eurosceptic governments. Although this work does not intend to provide a theorisation of party systems development, it shows that the context of European integration fostered nationalists’ divisiveness of, and provoked the splitting of the right the unusual propensity of parties for Euroscepticism makes Poland a paradigmatic case of the kind of conflicts over European integration emerging in Central and Eastern European party systems.

Every normal logic program has a 2-valued semantics: theory, extensions, applications, implementations

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Doutoramento em Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Informática

Health care marketing: the theory of planned behavior applied to patients' choise between private and public providers in the portuguese health care system.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Master in Statistics and Information Management.

Depositions of rulers in the later middle ages: on the theory of th "useless ruler" and its practical utilization

pp. 157-168

“The past is a foreign country”? Acculturation theory and the anthropology of globalization

Etnográfica, 15 (2): 313-336

Understanding the internet banking adoption by Portuguese customers - a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and perceived risk application.

Trabalho de Projeto apresentado como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação

Men’s purchase intention of shampoo: a model based on the theory of planned behavior and self-concept

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

A technology diffusion perspective of Enterprise Resource Planning across European Small and Medium Enterprises: from determinants to Use to Value

Tese apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Gestão de Informação

Lime mortars with brick dust and grounded particles for ancient masonry: development and evaluation

HMC08 - 1st Historical Mortars Conference: Characterization, Diagnosis, Conservation, Repair and Compatibilit, LNEC, Lisbon, 24-26 September 2008