Desenvolvimento económico baseado na teoria dos Clusters: o exemplo do calçado em Portugal

Este trabalho aborda o tema dos clusters industriais - concentrações geográficas de empresas interligadas, fornecedores de produtos e serviços, empresas em setores afins e entidades que lhes estão associadas, como as universidades, entidades públicas, associações empresariais. A competitividade resulta da ação das empresas, e estas devem competir e cooperar para criar lucro económico, mas também gerar benefícios para a região e o país. O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar que a aplicação da teoria dos clusters no nosso país, - introduzida na sequência de um estudo pedido em 1994 ao criador desta teoria, o Dr. Michael Porter – teve efeitos muito positivos no desenvolvimento dos últimos 20 anos e que maiores poderiam ter sido esses efeitos, se tivesse sido feita a sua aplicação em todos os setores em que se identificavam vantagens competitivas da nossa economia. Foi realizada uma análise da evolução do mais reconhecido cluster, o da indústria do calçado, cujos resultados apontam para as estratégias a adotar em muitos outros setores da nossa economia. Numa extrapolação, fica claro que as regiões nacionais e os países que contam com clusters industriais são aqueles que apresentam desempenho superior, em termos de intensidade exportadora e valor acrescentado. Estas zonas apresentam ainda níveis elevados de riqueza e longevidade dos seus cidadãos. Em termos europeus, a Alemanha, que tem como grandes clusters os setores automóvel, da automação, da eletrónica e da pesquisa laboratorial, é o melhor exemplo deste facto.

Using importance-satisfaction analysis in evaluating student satisfaction: a case study of economics and administration Faculty of Qafqaz University

Education is one of the main industries in the world, which needs to focus more than other types of industries. As Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world” (www.brainyquote.com). Global economic recession era put serious pressure on private Higher Education Institutions (HEI), which resulted as decrease in the university spending`s budget. Therefore, HEI forced to develop more competitive ways to find new financial resources for rapid technological and organizational changes (Savsar, 2012). Students are the motive of being of Higher Education. The aim of this study is to implement İmportance-Satisfaction Analysis (IPA) matrix to evaluate the student`s satisfaction and assess importance of different attributes in terms of student`s perception. The students that participated in this study enrolled in the present academic year, 2015/2016, in the Economics and Administration Faculty-Qafqaz University. In order to perform study, survey method applied to collect the data and number of received valid questionnaire were 266. Questionnaire used to collect demographic information of students, identify importance given to each attribute and satisfaction degree of each attribute. Descriptive analysis used to identify profile of respondents, also find satisfaction and importance degree for each attributes. To evaluate differences between groups, built association between variables, find relation between variables and answering to the research hypothesis inferential analysis applied. Moreover, IPA matrix was been used to explore the attributes that needs improvement that perceived as attributes that are more important for the students. The result showed that generally students are satisfied with service quality offered by HEI-on sample of the Qafqaz University. In addition, research found that there are no differences in overall satisfaction and importance by department, gender, academic year and grade point average. IPA matrix highlighted the main attributes, which performs well, namely Academic Services and Teaching aspects, and in another hand needs to concentrate in Undergraduate program and External Relations. In addition, research found that loyalty of students is very low and there is a negative correlation between loyalty and satisfaction.

Ratios and indicators that determine return on equity

This study aims to investigate factors that may affect return on equity (ROE). The ROE is a gauge of profit generating efficiency and a strong measure of how well the management of a firm creates value for its shareholders. Firms with higher ROE typically have competitive advantages over their competitors which translates into superior returns for investors. Therefore, seems imperative to study the drivers of ROE, particularly ratios and indicators that may have considerable impact. The analysis is done on a sample of 90 largest non-financial companies which are components of NASDAQ-100 index and also on industry sector samples. The ordinary least squares method is used to find the most impactful drivers of ROE. The extended DuPont model’s components are considered as the primary factors affecting ROE. In addition, other ratios and indicators such as price to earnings, price to book and current are also incorporated. Consequently, the study uses eight ratios that are believed to have impact on ROE. According to our findings, the most relevant ratios that determine ROE are tax burden, interest burden, operating margin, asset turnover and financial leverage (extended DuPont components) regardless of industry sectors.