Obstacles and Opportunities Foreign Graduates Meet In Dalarna Labour Market, Sweden

Foreign graduates have been part of the success stories of many developed countries. This is as a result of their immeasurable deposit of ideas, knowledge, and innovation in the host country. Though the process of these foreign graduates penetrating and integrating into the labour market of the host country could be slow and rough as they encounter some obstacles on the way; they still strive to break through and be part of the country’s workforce because they foresee some opportunities therein. This research study is about the obstacles and opportunities foreign graduates meet in Dalarna labour market. The study investigated and identified the obstacles and opportunities foreign graduates meet in Dalarna labour market. For a thorough execution of this research, we collected primary data by handing questionnaires to 65 foreign graduates searching for jobs in Dalarna region and interviewed eight people, among which seven were foreign graduates and one of them was a staff at Arbestförmedlingen (Employment Agency) to give us a general view of the Dalarna labour market. We read previous research works and related articles to understand the topic in order to get an overview of the terminologies and concept to apply. This study concluded that language is a major obstacle foreign graduates meet in the Dalarna labour market. Other possible obstacles include culture, poor integration policies, lack of a placement bureau, lack of trust, limited opportunities, favoritism, lack of jobs, lack of references and experience. On the other hand factors like job availability, outgoing labour force and unskilled labour are possible opportunities foreign graduates meet in the Dalarna labour market. Furthermore flexible work time, good working atmosphere, experience, social security/welfare, good standard of living, family friendly region, higher wages, job security and cheap cost of living are also possible benefits that foreign graduates get in Dalarna.

What Happens When IKEA Comes to Town?

Using data from 2000-2011, the effects of a new IKEA store on retail revenues, employment, and inflow of purchasing power in the entry municipalities, as well as in neighboring municipalities were investigated. A propensity score matching method was used to find non IKEA entry municipalities that were as similar as possible to the entry municipalities based on the situation before entry. Our results indicate that IKEA-entry increased entry-municipality durable-goods revenues by about 20% and employment by about 17%. Only small and, in most cases, statistically insignificant effects were found in neighboring municipalities.

Modelling and Administration of Contract-Based Systems

Mirroring the paper versions exchanged between businesses today, electronic contracts offer the possibility of dynamic, automatic creation and enforcement of restrictions and compulsions on agent behaviour that are designed to ensure business objectives are met. However, where there are many contracts within a particular application, it can be difficult to determine whether the system can reliably fulfil them all; computer-parsable electronic contracts may allow such verification to be automated. In this paper, we describe a conceptual framework and architecture specification in which normative business contracts can be electronically represented, verified, established, renewed, etc. In particular, we aim to allow systems containing multiple contracts to be checked for conflicts and violations of business objectives. We illustrate the framework and architecture with an aerospace example.

Geração e qualidade do emprego no setor terciário da região metropolitana de são Paulo

Este artigo analisa a adequação dos diversos ramos do setor terciário da Região Metropolitana de São Paulo (RMSP) à políticas de emprego. Existe um trade-off entre geração e qualidade do emprego, assim, o modelo - apresentado na primeira seção do trabalho - leva em conta ambas as dimensões. A qualidade é função do rendimento médio, grau de escolaridade, cobertura de carteira de trabalho assinada e tempo de permanência, todos relativos ao posto de trabalho. Na segunda seção, apresenta-se os dados para 1997, provenientes da PED - Pesquisa de Emprego e Desemprego - elaborada em conjunto pela Fundação SEADE e pelo DIEESE. A seção seguinte descreve o tratamento estatístico aplicado às informações. Os resultados por ramo são analisados na quarta seção. Por fim, divide-se o setor terciário da RMSP em três grupos: alta, média e baixa adequação à políticas de emprego.

O mercado de trabalho no Mercosul

Inicialmente abordamos as tentativas de integração latino-americana, identificando as duas épocas distintas da problemática em questão. Faz-se menção a vários autores, abrangendo a segunda metade do século XIX e as primeiras décadas do séculos XX, que também defenderam as idéias de união latino-americana. A importância da criação da Comunidade Econômica Européia, a ALALC, A ALADI e o MERCOSUL como impulsionadores da integração. A institucionalização, os mecanismos para implementação e os processos de negociação do MERCOSUL. Em seguida tratamos da globalização e do mercado de trabalhos; a produção internacionalizada marcante no século XX; as novas tecnologias, a cidadania ativa, a reação sindical em novas bases. No terceiro capítulo abordamos a questão trabalhista no MERCOSUL, enfatizando a necessidade de implantação de princípios assegurando benefícios, tendo em vista a tendência comercialista do MERCOSUL. Concluindo, retomamos a relação entre as Centrais e os governos, destacando, ainda, as organizações internacionais como importantes atores no processo de integração. Constatamos o quanto o MERCOSUL está estimulando discussões sobre as possibilidades de alianças entre os atores sociais.

An analysis of quit and dismissal determinants between 1988 and 1999 using the bivariate probit model

Excessive labor turnover may be considered, to a great extent, an undesirable feature of a given economy. This follows from considerations such as underinvestment in human capital by firms. Understanding the determinants and the evolution of turnover in a particular labor market is therefore of paramount importance, including policy considerations. The present paper proposes an econometric analysis of turnover in the Brazilian labor market, based on a partial observability bivariate probit model. This model considers the interdependence of decisions taken by workers and firms, helping to elucidate the causes that lead each of them to end an employment relationship. The Employment and Unemployment Survey (PED) conducted by the State System of Data Analysis (SEADE) and by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies (DIEESE) provides data at the individual worker level, allowing for the estimation of the joint probabilities of decisions to quit or stay on the job on the worker’s side, and to maintain or fire the employee on the firm’s side, during a given time period. The estimated parameters relate these estimated probabilities to the characteristics of workers, job contracts, and to the potential macroeconomic determinants in different time periods. The results confirm the theoretical prediction that the probability of termination of an employment relationship tends to be smaller as the worker acquires specific skills. The results also show that the establishment of a formal employment relationship reduces the probability of a quit decision by the worker, and also the firm’s firing decision in non-industrial sectors. With regard to the evolution of quit probability over time, the results show that an increase in the unemployment rate inhibits quitting, although this tends to wane as the unemployment rate rises.

Megaeventos esportivos: impactos no turismo das cidades sedes.

O presente trabalho visa ilustrar a importância de se analisar os impactos de um megaevento esportivo, como a Copa do Mundo, no turismo do destino sede. A escolha do tema se dá pelo fato de iniciativas como essas terem se tornadas estratégicas nos últimos anos e muito disputadas por governos em todo o mundo. O motivo da escolha do tema se dá especialmente pelo fato do Brasil sediar, em curto espaço de tempo, dois dos principais megaeventos esportivos internacionais: a Copa do Mundo, em 2014, e os Jogos Olímpicos, em 2016. O trabalho, composto por 8 capítulos procura, com base no referencial teórico, identificar os principais impactos dos megaeventos no segmento de turismo do destino sede. Para se atingir este objetivo, utilizou-se o modelo de avaliação proposto por Allen et al (2003), cientista internacional referencia nessa área de estudo. Dentre os possíveis impactos positivos engloba-se a promoção do destino e incremento do turismo, o aumento do tempo de permanência do turista, a lucratividade para o setor, o aumento da renda de impostos, a oportunidade de negócios, investimento em infra-estrutura no destino, a atividade comercial e a geração de empregos pela realização do evento. Por outro lado, dentre os impactos negativos, destacam-se a resistência da comunidade ao turismo, a perda de autenticidade e danos à reputação do destino, exploração, preços inflacionados, custos de oportunidade, má gestão financeira, perda financeira, dentre outros. O método de pesquisa, baseado em Yin (2005), foi o estudo de caso baseado nos dois eventos mais recentes de Copa do Mundo: Alemanha (2006) e África do Sul (2010). O estudo teve um viés qualitativo e os instrumentos de coleta de dados foram diferenciados em cada uma das etapas da pesquisa, englobando pesquisa a dados primários e secundários, consulta à relatórios oficiais e principalmente a consulta a artigos acadêmicos de renomados autores internacionais especialistas em eventos. Foram também consultadas pesquisas de renomadas instituições, tais como Organização Mundial do Turismo OMT (2006), Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV, 2009), FIPE (2005), EMBRATUR e Ministério do Turismo (MTUR), entre outras. Os resultados demonstram que os megaeventos geram oportunidades para o destino sede - de curto, médio e longo prazo - para os diferentes segmentos, em especial para o turismo de eventos e esportivo, seja no âmbito nacional ou internacional. Também observa-se a importância das ações de melhoria não serem pontuais, para que justifiquem o próprio legado do evento em pauta. Por outro lado, verifica-se a importância de se realizar ações que visem mitigar os impactos negativos inerentes a megaeventos, a fim de não se comprometer o turismo do destino ou pais sede, sua reputação, seus cofres públicos e sua comunidade.

Conditional treatment and its effect on recidivism

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of the 1985 ”Employment Services for Ex-Offenders” (ESEO) program on recidivism. Initially, the sample has been split randomly in a control group and a treatment group. However, the actual treatment (mainly being job related counseling) only takes place conditional on finding a job, and not having been arrested, for those selected in the treatment group. We use a multiple proportional hazard model with unobserved heterogeneity for job seach and recidivism time which incorporates the conditional treatment effect. We find that the program helps to reduce criminal activity, contrary to the result of the previous analysis of this data set. This finding is important for crime prevention policy.

Growth process in business and social entrepreneurship: the case of Brazil

The purpose of the dissertation is to investigate in depth the difference between the challenges social and business entrepreneurs face in the growth phase of their business in the particular environment of Brazil. This objective has been achieved through a two-steps methodology. The first step is a set of in-depth interviews carried out with industry experts such as professors, venture capitalists, consultants, fund managers or people involved in the support of growing startups (i.e. accelerators). These interviews allowed, first, to build a general perspective on the environment entrepreneurs operate into and to identify a list of challenges entrepreneurs face in the growth process of their business. This list was completed with the additional challenges identified in the previous literature. The second step of the methodology was to test the relevance of these challenges in the mind and experience of social and traditional entrepreneurs. A questionnaire was then submitted to 145 social and 286 traditional entrepreneurs. The results were statistically analyzed to test the relative relevance of these challenges for one group of entrepreneurs with respect to the other. The outcome of the analysis was significant. The most relevant challenges identified were, for both groups, taxation, bureaucracy, finding the right employees, creating effective teams, measuring firm performance and social value creation and obtaining funds. On the other side motivation, innovation, competition and lack of market space for growth represented the least relevant issues in the minds of entrepreneurs. This rank however did not differ significantly from social to traditional entrepreneurs. This testifies that in Brazil social and traditional entrepreneurs face the same set of challenges despite the widespread belief of the opposite.

Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in Brazil through private equity and venture capital public policies

It is well documented the positive impact of the Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE/VC) industry on the creation and development of highly successful innovative companies in a few countries, mainly in the United States. PE/VC firms provide not only capital to startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that usually have financing gap, especially in emerging markets, but also strategic resources that enable these enterprises to commercialize innovation. As consequence, government incentive and nurture of local PE/VC industries would be expected in emerging economies due to innovation‟s importance to economic growth. This paper aims to identify if the Brazilian government has supported local PE/VC industry throughout the years in order to foster favorable conditions to creating and developing successful innovative businesses. It also analyzes Brazil‟s main public policies towards PE/VC and if they encompass all the three stages of its cycle – fundraising, investing and exiting. I conducted an empirical research which collected primary data from a sample of 127 PE/VC firms (90% of the population) operating in Brazil as of June, 2008. All firms answered a webbased questionnaire that collected quantitative data regarding their investment vehicles, portfolio companies, investments and exits. I compared the data obtained from the survey with the main local governmental PE/VC support programs. First, I confirmed the hypothesis that the Brazilian government has been using the PE/VC industry as a public policy towards entrepreneurship and innovation. Second, I identified that although PE/VC public policies in Brazil are mostly concentrated in fundraising phase, they have been able to positively impact the whole cycle. Third, it became clear that the Brazilian government became more concerned about Seed and Venture Capital (VC) Early stages due to their importance to the entire PE/VC value chain. As consequence, I conclude that those public policies have been very important to build a dynamic and strong local PE/VC industry, whose committed capital grew 50% per year between 2005 and 2008 to achieve US$27 billion, which invested US$ 11 billion, which employs 1,400 professionals (75% with postgraduate degrees) and maintains 482 portfolio companies, mostly SMEs. In addition, PE/VCbacked companies represented one third of the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) that occurred in Brazil between 2004 and 2008 (approximately US$15 billion).

Stage level measurement of information and communication technology in organizations

Na moderna Economia do Conhecimento, na Era do Big Data, entender corretamente o uso e a gestão da Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) tendo como base o campo acadêmico de estudos de Sistemas de Informação (SI), torna-se cada vez mais relevante e estratégico para as organizações que pretendem: permanecer em atividade, estar aptas para atender novas demandas (internas e externas) e enfrentar as complexas mudanças na competição de mercado. Esta pesquisa utiliza a teoria dos estágios de crescimento, fundamentada pelos estudos de Richard L. Nolan nos anos 70. A literatura acadêmica relacionada com modelos de estágios de crescimento e o contexto do campo de estudo de SI, fornecem as bases conceituais deste estudo. A pesquisa identifica um modelo com seus construtos relacionados aos estágios de crescimento das iniciativas da TIC/SI organizacional, partindo das variáveis de benchmark de segundo nível de Nolan, e propõe sua operacionalização com a criação e desenvolvimento de uma escala. De caráter exploratório e descritivo, a pesquisa traz contribuição teórica ao paradigma da teoria dos estágios de crescimento, adicionando um novo processo de crescimento em sua estrutura conceitual. Como resultado, é disponibilizado além de um instrumento de escala bilíngue (português e inglês), recomendações e regras para aplicação de um instrumento de pesquisa do tipo survey, na continuidade deste estudo. Como implicação geral desta pesquisa, é esperado que seu uso e aplicação ao mensurar a avaliação do nível de estágio da TIC/SI em organizações, possam auxiliar dois perfis de indivíduos: acadêmicos que estudam essa temática, assim como, profissionais que buscam respostas de suas ações práticas nas organizações onde trabalham.

Content marketing and brand engagement on social media: a study of Facebook´s posts in the ecommerce industry in Brazil

Content marketing refers to marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers. It is focused not on selling, but on communicating with customers and prospects. In today world´s, a trend has been seen in brands becoming publishers in order to keep up with their competition and more importantly to keep their base of fans and followers. Content Marketing is making companies to engage consumers by publishing engaging and value-filled content. This study aims to investigate if there is a link between brand engagement and Facebook Content Marketing practices in the e-commerce industry in Brazil. Based on the literature review, this study defines brand engagement on Facebook as the numbers of "likes" "comments" and "shares" that a company receives from its fans. These actions reflect the popularity of the brand post and leads to engagement. The author defines a scale where levels of Content Marketing practices are developed in order to analyze brand posts on Facebook of an ecommerce company in Brazil. The findings reveal that the most important criterion for the company is the one regarding the picture of the post, where it examines whether the photo content is appealing to the audience. Moreover, it was perceived that the higher the level of these criterion in a post, the greater the number of likes, comments and shares the post receives. The time when a post is published does not present a significant role in determining customer engagement and the most important factor within a publication is to reach the maximum level in the Content Marketing Scale.

Assessment of value creation in private equity: the acquisition of Burger King by 3G Capital

This thesis elaborates the creation of value in private equity and in particular analyzes value creation in 3G Capital’s acquisition of Burger King. In this sense, a specific model is applied that composes value creation into several drivers, in order to answer the question of how value creation can be addressed in private equity investments. Although previous research by Achleitner et al. (2010) introduced a specific model that addresses value creation in private equity, the respective model was neither applied to an individual company, nor linked to indirect drivers that explain the dynamics and rationales for the creation of value. In turn this paper applies the quantitative model to an ongoing private equity investment and thereby provides different extensions to turn the model into a better forecasting model for ongoing investments, instead of only analyzing a deal that has already been divested from an ex post perspective. The chosen research approach is a case study about the Burger King buyout that first includes an extensive review about the current status of academic literature, second a quantitative calculation and qualitative interpretation of different direct value drivers, third a qualitative breakdown of indirect drivers, and lastly a recapitulating discussion about value creation and value drivers. Presenting a very successful private equity investment and elaborately demonstrating the dynamics and mechanisms that drive value creation in this case, provides important implications for other private equity firms as well as public firms in order to develop their proprietary approach towards value creation.

Relational resources: do they create value for both buyer and suppliers?

The study tested the relationship between relational resources and value creation and appropriation. A survey with suppliers and buyers provided evidence that interorganizational fit and knowledge sharing have impact on the relational benefit and the share captured by each organization, but also indicated that each echelon has a different perception

Isolation and maintenance of symbiotic fungi of ants in the tribe Attini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

O isolamento e a manutenção de fungos basidiomicetos simbiontes de formigas da tribo Attini tem sido dificultado pela baixa velocidade de crescimento desses fungos, bem como pela presença de muitos microrganismos que vivem na superfície do material que as formigas mantêm no interior nos ninhos como substrato para o crescimento dos seus fungos simbiontes. No presente trabalho nós descrevemos um método que aumenta em mais de sete vezes a eficiência de isolamento desses fungos, quando comparada àquela obtida por procedimentos tradicionais. Ninhos subterrâneos de formigas atíneas dos gêneros Atta, Acromyrmex, Trachymyrmex e Mycetarotes foram localizados e deles foram coletadas amostras contendo fungos simbiontes e formigas, que foram transportadas para o laboratório, onde as formigas foram capazes de limpar a cultura do fungo e estimular o seu crescimento. em seguida, porções dos micélios foram assepticamente coletadas e transferidas para meio Yeast Nitrogen Base contendo glicose e cloranfenicol. Para facilitar a manutenção dos isolados em culturas de laboratório, diferentes nutrientes foram analisados para a elaboração de um meio de cultivo complexo, que possibilitou aumentar a velocidade de crescimento dos fungos e estocá-los por longos períodos. O método foi aplicado com sucesso para os fungos simbiontes de todos os gêneros de formigas estudados, gerando, assim, um procedimento extremamente útil para a formação e manutenção de uma coleção representativa de diferentes fungos simbiontes de formigas da tribo Attini.