21st century quality: Looking into the “Crystal ball”

The discussion of possible scenarios for the future of Quality is on the priority list of major Quality Practitioners Societies. EOQ – European Organization for Quality (EOQ, 2014) main team for its 58th EOQ-Congress held June 2014 in Göteborg was “Managing Challenges in Quality Leadership” and ASQ - American Society for Quality (ASQ, 2015) appointed “the Future of Quality” for Quality Progress Magazine November 2015 issue. In addition, the ISO 9001:2008 revision process carried by ISO/TC 176 aims to assure that ISO 9001:2015 International Standard remains stable for the next 10 years (ISO, 2014) contributing to an increased discussion on the future of quality. The purpose of this research is to review available Quality Management approaches and outline, adding an academic perspective, expected developments for Quality within the 21st Century. This paper follows a qualitative approach, although data from international organizations is used. A literature review has been undertaken on quality management past and potential future trends. Based on these findings a model is proposed for organization quality management development and propositions for the future of quality management are advanced. Firstly, a state of the art of existing Quality Management approaches is presented, for example, like Total Quality Management (TQM) and Quality Gurus, ISO 9000 International Standards Series (with an outline of the expected changes for ISO 9001:2015), Six Sigma and Business Excellence Models.Secondly, building on theoretical and managerial approaches, a two dimensional matrix – Quality Engineering (QE - technical aspects of quality) and Quality Management (QM: soft aspects of quality) - is presented, outlining five proposed characterizations of Quality maturity levels and giving insights for applications and future developments. Literature review highlights that QM and QE may be addressing similar quality issues but their approaches are different in terms of scope breadth and intensity and they ought to complement and reciprocally reinforce one another. The challenges organizations face within the 21st century have stronger uncertainty, complexity, and differentiation. Two main propositions are advanced as relevant for 21st Century Quality: - QM importance for the sustainable success of organizations will increase and they should be aware of the larger ecosystem to be managed for improvement, possibly leading to the emergence of a new Quality paradigm, The Civilizacional Excellence paradigm. - QE should get more attention from QM and the Quality professionals will have to: a) Master and apply in wider contexts and in additional depth the Quality Tools (basic, intermediate and advanced); b) Have the soft skills needed for its success; c) Be results oriented and better understand and demonstrate the relationships between approaches and results These propositions challenge both scholars and practitioners for a sustained and supported discussion on the future of Quality. “All things are ready, if our mind be so.” (Shakespeare, Henry V, circa 1599).

Modelling resilience in supply chain

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Industrial

Proposals to increase foot traffic at Sonae Sierra shopping centers

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

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.

The Future of services: Uncovering latent needs through trend analysis

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

The employee policy manual

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

Drivers of participation in collaborative consumption ventures

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

Process virtualization theory (PVT) and institutional theory (INT) to explain SAAS adoption

Software as a service (SaaS) is a service model in which the applications are accessible from various client devices through internet. Several studies report possible factors driving the adoption of SaaS but none have considered the perception of the SaaS features and the pressures existing in the organization’s environment. We propose an integrated research model that combines the process virtualization theory (PVT) and the institutional theory (INT). PVT seeks to explain whether SaaS processes are suitable for migration into virtual environments via an information technology-based mechanism. INT seeks to explain the effects of the institutionalized environment on the structure and actions of the organization. The research makes three contributions. First, it addresses a gap in the SaaS adoption literature by studying the internal perception of the technical features of SaaS and external coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures faced by an organization. Second, it empirically tests many of the propositions of PVT and INT in the SaaS context, thereby helping to determine how the theory operates in practice. Third, the integration of PVT and INT contributes to the information system (IS) discipline, deepening the applicability and strengths of these theories.

Psychological safety, authentic leadership and social networks : A psycho-structural approach to the study of groups

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia na área de especialização de Psicologia das Organizações apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

How premium brands should do to upgrade and move to a luxury status

Premium brands’ upgrade process to luxury is a phenomenon still not well analysed. A literature review allowed assessment of what distinguishes premium and luxury brands. We infered five propositions then tested through a case study research. The research investigated three Portuguese brands that successfully moved from premium to luxury - Claus Porto, Josefinas and Vila Joya. We conclude that acquiring social status is the most essential and difficult feature to deal with, when migrating from premium to luxury as it depends on voluntary and involuntary factors.

Omni-channel retail strategies in the luxury world

It’s impossible to neglect the changes that internet and e-commerce caused in the retail sector, by increasing customers’ expectations and forcing retailers to adapt the business to the new digital era. Internet is characterized by the increase in accessibility to everyone, which can be good or not so. For instance, luxury products rely on the sense of exclusivity, instead of being accessible to everyone. Hence, internet represents a challenge for luxury brands once, although they are able to provide a fullness service to their customers, they need to maintain the exclusiveness in which luxury is sustained. Consequently, the appearance of omni-channel was more than a challenge for the luxury sector, in particular, given the need to provide a full integrated experience through different channels. The aim of this dissertation is to find out how important is omni-channel, even in the luxury industry, and how it’s actually implemented based on the case of one of the most successful companies on luxury fashion e-commerce industry – Farfetch. Even though the company started in London, its founder is a Portuguese entrepreneur, and it’s in Portugal where most of its employees work, divided in two offices – Guimarães e Porto. Therefore, a literature review was written on relevant concepts and ideas about luxury, e-commerce and the different channels’ approaches. There were formulated five propositions that were after discussed according to the information gathered about the company and its strategies. In the end, it was possible to identify which propositions are in accordance with theory and which are not, as well as understand which are the most important strategies and trends about omni-channel in the luxury fashion e-commerce sector.

Conflito e trauma: XVI Colóquio de Outono

It has been the main concern of CEHUM, as a Research Centre within the Humanities which operates in an inter and transdisciplinary structure to listen attentively to the “noise of the world” and attempt a global interpretation of the signs of the times issuing from the world around us, as vibrant echoes of many social and cultural pressing issues. Every year each new Colóquio de Outono attempts to give evidence of that concern through the topic chosen for debate, ample enough and challenging enough to trigger a lively multidisciplinary dialogue amongst the diff erent research groups that compose this centre, the participants and our invited guest speakers. Throughout the three days of this 16th Colóquio de Outono we had the privilege to debate the propositions of a vast number of national and international specialists in the manifold fi elds of inquiry here represented, engaging keynote speakers, project advisors, members of research teams and external researchers attached to the various research projects currently running in CEHUM, in the fi elds of literature, linguistics, philosophy, ethics, visual arts, cultural studies, music and performance. Each specifi c fi eld of studies was however never seen isolated, but always embodied in a geo-cultural context and within the scope of a wide variety of critical debates and current theories of knowledge, as a signal of our understanding of the Humanities as a rich and plural territory which engages us all, scholars, researchers, students.

Access as a motivational device: implications for human resource management

This paper analyzes the employment relationship on the basis of the notion of access. We argue that the degree of access provided by a job is an incentive to activate the employee’s self-actualization needs. We investigate the effect of access on the workers’ performance through an agency model and provide a number of propositions with practical implications for personnel policies. Our results are consistent with the intuition emerged from the real business practice as well as with many of the arguments on the substitutive role between monetary and non-monetary incentives frequently reported in the literature.

Five-day plan for smoking cessation using group behaviour therapy.

The "Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking" (FDP) is an educational group technique for smoking cessation. We studied a cohort of 123 smokers (55 men, 68 women, mean age 42 years) who participated in 11 successive FDP sessions held in Switzerland between 1995 and 1998 and who were followed up for at least 12 months by telephone or direct interview. Overall, 102 of the 123 subjects (83%) had stopped smoking by the end of the FDP, and self-declared smoking cessation rate was 25% after one year. The following factors potentially associated with outcome were studied: age, sex, smoking habit duration, cigarettes per day, Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), group size, and medical presence among the group leaders. Smoking habit duration was the only variable which showed a statistically significant association with success: the rate of smoking cessation was higher among patients who had smoked for less than 20 years (34.7% vs. 18.9%, p = 0.049). Stress was the most common cause of relapse. The FDP appears to be an effective smoking cessation therapy. Propositions are made in order to improve the success rate of future sessions.

La philosophie des sciences. Une introduction

Ce livre est une introduction à la philosophie des sciences qui se veut accessible aux étudiants. Il résume l'état actuel de la connaissance, en présentant les différents concepts et en proposant une évaluation des résultats fondés et des questions majeures qui restent ouvertes. Il vise à contribuer au développement d'une nouvelle philosophie de la nature qui prend en considération les théories scientifiques, cherchant à élaborer sur leur base une vision de l'ensemble de la nature : il utilise à cet effet les outils conceptuels de la philosophie analytique. La première partie de l'ouvrage dresse un bilan du débat entre l'empirisme logique et ses critiques. La deuxième partie, la partie principale, présente les principaux sujets de la métaphysique de la nature en se focalisant sur la philosophie de la physique. La troisième partie traite les thèmes de l'unité de la nature ainsi que l'unité des sciences. Cette deuxième édition intègre de nouvelles réflexions sur les Fondements physiques et la causalité. Elle ne considère pas la philosophie de la biologie, qui sera spécifiquement traitée dans un ouvrage à paraître prochainement chez le même éditeur. Chaque chapitre, contient un appareil pédagogique avec résumé, questions d'évaluations et propositions de travail, et l'ouvrage est complété d'un glossaire et d'une bibliographie exhaustive : il est donc particulièrement adapté à un support de cours.