The Dark Side of Organizational Change: The Moderating Role of Political Behavior and Organizational Cynicism

Workplace aggression is a factor that shapes the interaction between individuals and their work environment and produces many undesirable outcomes, sometimes introducing heavy costs for organizations. Only through a comprehensive understanding of the genesis of workplace aggression is possible to develop strategies and interventions to minimize its nefarious effects. The existent body of knowledge has already identified several individual, situational and contextual antecedents of workplace aggression, although this is a research area where significant gaps occur and many issues were still not addressed Dupr�� and Barling (2006). According to Baron and Neuman (1998) one of these predictors is organizational change, since certain changes in the work environment (e.g., changes in management) can lead to increased aggression. This paper intends to contribute to workplace aggression research by studying its relationship with organizational change, considering a moderating role of political behaviors and organizational cynicism (Ammeter et al., 2002, Ferris et al., 2002). The literature review suggests that mediators and moderators that intervene in the relationships between workplace aggression and its antecedents are understudied topics. James (2005) sustains that organizational politics is related to cynicism and the empirical research of Miranda (2008) has identified leadership political behavior as an antecedent of cynicism but these two variables were not yet investigated regarding their relationship with workplace aggression. This investigation was operationalized using several scales including the Organizational Change Questionnaire-climate of change, processes, and readiness (Bouckenooghe, Devos and Broeck, 2009), a Workplace Aggression Scale (Vicente and D���Oliveira, 2008, 2009, 2010), an Organizational Cynicism Scale (Wanous, Reichers and Austin, 1994) and a Political Behavior Questionnaire (Yukl and Falbe, 1990). Participants representing a wide variety of jobs across many organizations were surveyed. The results of the study and its implications will be presented and discussed. This study contribution is also discussed in what concerns organizational change practices in organizations.

Agress��o no trabalho em processos de mudan��a organizacional: O papel mediador do cinismo organizacional e do comportamento pol��tico

Workplace aggression is a factor that shapes the interaction between individuals and their work environment and produces many undesirable outcomes, sometimes introducing heavy costs for organizations. Only through a comprehensive understanding o f the genesis of workplace aggression is possible to develop strategies and interventions to minimize its nefarious effects. The existent body of knowledge has already identified several individual, situational and contextual antecedents of workplace aggr ession, although this is a research area where significant gaps occur and many issues were still not addressed (Dupr�� & Barling, 2006). According to Neuman and Baron (1998) one of these predictors is organizational change, since certain changes in the work environment (e.g., changes in management) can lead to increased aggression. This paper intends to contribute to workplace aggression research by studying its relationship with organizational change, considering the mediation role of political behaviors an d organizational cynicism (Ammeter, Douglas, Gardner, Hochwarter, & Ferris, 2002). The literature review suggests that mediators and moderators that intervene in the relationships between workplace aggression and its antecedents are understudied topics. Ja mes (2005) sustains that organizational politics is related to cynicism and the empirical research of Miranda (2008) has identified leadership political behavior as an antecedent of cynicism but these two variables were not yet investigated regarding their relationship with workplace aggression. This investigation was operationalized using several scales including the Organizational Change Questionnaire - climate of change, processes, and readiness (Bouckenooghe, Devos, & Broeck, 2009), a Workplace Aggressio n Scale (Vicente, 2008, 2009), an Organizational Cynicism Scale (Wanous, Reichers, & Austin, 1994) and a Political Behavior Questionnaire (Yukl & Falbe, 1990). Participants representing a wide variety of jobs across many organizations were surveyed. The r esults of the study and its implications will be presented and discussed. This study contribution is also discussed in what concerns organizational change practices in organizations.

Optimiza����o da gest��o de energia e da seguran��a de um edif��cio baseada num sistema t��cnico centralizado

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obten����o do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mec��nica Perfil Energia, Refrigera����o e Climatiza����o

Compara����o t��cnica da conce����o/solu����o de projetos de climatiza����o para um hotel rural

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obten����o do grau de Mestre em Engenharia com a Especialidade em Energia, Climatiza����o e Refrigera����o

Nano-CF: a Coordination Framework for macro-programming in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are being used for a number of applications involving infrastructure monitoring, building energy monitoring and industrial sensing. The difficulty of programming individual sensor nodes and the associated overhead have encouraged researchers to design macro-programming systems which can help program the network as a whole or as a combination of subnets. Most of the current macro-programming schemes do not support multiple users seamlessly deploying diverse applications on the same shared sensor network. As WSNs are becoming more common, it is important to provide such support, since it enables higher-level optimizations such as code reuse, energy savings, and traffic reduction. In this paper, we propose a macro-programming framework called Nano-CF, which, in addition to supporting in-network programming, allows multiple applications written by different programmers to be executed simultaneously on a sensor networking infrastructure. This framework enables the use of a common sensing infrastructure for a number of applications without the users having to worrying about the applications already deployed on the network. The framework also supports timing constraints and resource reservations using the Nano-RK operating system. Nano- CF is efficient at improving WSN performance by (a) combining multiple user programs, (b) aggregating packets for data delivery, and (c) satisfying timing and energy specifications using Rate- Harmonized Scheduling. Using representative applications, we demonstrate that Nano-CF achieves 90% reduction in Source Lines-of-Code (SLoC) and 50% energy savings from aggregated data delivery.

Reabilita����o de um im��vel industrial em Marvila: projeto de investimento

Trabalho de Projeto para obten����o do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil

An��lise est��tica n��o linear de um edif��cio em bet��o armado

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obten����o do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil

Level monitoring system for waste oil containers: an EPS@ISEP project

Waste oil recycling companies play a very important role in our society. Competition among companies is tough and process optimization is essential for survival. By equipping oil containers with a level monitoring system that periodically reports the level and alerts when it reaches the preset threshold, the oil recycling companies are able to streamline the oil collection process and, thus, reduce the operation costs while maintaining the quality of service. This paper describes the development of this level monitoring system by a team of four students from different engineering backgrounds and nationalities. The team conducted a study of the state of the art, draw marketing and sustainable development plans and, finally, designed and implemented a prototype that continuously measures the container content level and sends an alert message as soon as it reaches the preset capacity.

Development of biocompatible and ���smart��� porous structures using CO2-assisted processes

Disserta����o apresentada para a obten����o do grau de Doutor em Engenharia Qu��mica, especialidade Engenharia da Reac����o Qu��mica, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ci��ncias e Tecnologia

Avoiding healthy cells extinction in a cancer model

We consider a dynamical model of cancer growth including three interacting cell populations of tumor cells, healthy host cells and immune effector cells. For certain parameter choice, the dynamical system displays chaotic motion and by decreasing the response of the immune system to the tumor cells, a boundary crisis leading to transient chaotic dynamics is observed. This means that the system behaves chaotically for a finite amount of time until the unavoidable extinction of the healthy and immune cell populations occurs. Our main goal here is to apply a control method to avoid extinction. For that purpose, we apply the partial control method, which aims to control transient chaotic dynamics in the presence of external disturbances. As a result, we have succeeded to avoid the uncontrolled growth of tumor cells and the extinction of healthy tissue. The possibility of using this method compared to the frequently used therapies is discussed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Desenvolvimento de uma nova unidade fabril da Efacec

No ��mbito da Unidade Curricular Disserta����o, inserida no segundo ano do Mestrado em Engenharia Mec��nica ��� Gest��o Industrial do Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, foi proposto um projecto que est�� a ser desenvolvido pela equipa de Engenharia e Gest��o Industrial, da unidade de neg��cios AMT, intitulado por: ���Projecto ��ndia ��� Desenvolvimento da nova unidade fabril��� Este projecto tem como principal objectivo o desenvolvimento de uma f��brica de excel��ncia na ��ndia de fabrica����o de componentes de m��dia tens��o, isto ��, com processos log��sticos bem definidos e com linhas de produ����o o mais automatizadas possivel. Esta nova f��brica de raiz, vai ser gerida e decalcada do modelo atualmente existe na f��brica da EFACEC de componentes de m��dia tens��o existente em Portugal. Numa primeira fase do desenvolvimento do projecto, foi seleccionado um edif��cio com cerca de 1600m2 em Nashik, uma localidade a cerca de 171 Km de Mumbai, onde se encontram 80% dos fornecedores da EFACEC. Foram identificados os produtos a serem fabricados e quantificada a respectiva procura anual. Foi efectuado o balanceamento de cada uma das linhas e desenhado o layout. Neste layout contemplou-se as ��reas de produ����o, laborat��rio, gabinetes de chefes de equipa, expedi����o, recep����o e armaz��m. Ap��s a defini����o das ��reas de montagem de cada produto, iniciou-se a concep����o das linhas de produ����o, sobretudo autom��ticas, com a defini����o da cad��ncia de produ����o. A linha de fabrica����o que �� especialmente detalhada neste documento �� a linha de montagem dos comandos CI. Este �� o produto com mais procura. Foi tamb��m definido o processo log��stico do fluxo interno da f��brica. Nas linhas de produ����o foi implementado o sistema de controlo de fluxo baseado em cart��es Kanban e no armaz��m criou-se um novo conceito de controlo e localiza����o de produtos, o ���Aquiles���. O Aquiles permite automaticamente e atrav��s da leitura de c��digo de barras, indexar os artigos nas estantes. Cada artigo e cada estante e/ou localiza����o est��o codificados e no momento de recep����o de material o c��digo do artigo �� associado ao c��digo da estante. No ��mbito de explorar todas as solu����es poss��veis para a um melhor desenvolvimento desta nova f��brica foram abordados temas como ���JIT���, ���Pull Flow���, ���Kanban���, ���Takttime���.

Interface IP-KNX para um sistema de controlo dom��tico

S��o v��rios os factores sociais e econ��micos que valorizam a aplica����o de tecnologias de dom��tica em edif��cios. No caso particular dos edif��cios residenciais, a tend��ncia dos seus utilizadores �� a instala����o de sistemas de controlo da seguran��a, do ambiente, de mecanismos de rega e de alarmes. Assim, seguindo a premissa do marketing, que identifica como uma boa pr��tica a projec����o de produtos / servi��os que satisfa��am as necessidades inventariadas pelos seus utilizadores, este trabalho assenta na cria����o de um sistema dom��tico, controlado remotamente atrav��s de uma aplica����o Android, que pretende, numa primeira inst��ncia, o controlo das l��mpadas de uma habita����o. Neste trabalho �� utilizado o protocolo KNX.TP para a comunica����o dos dispositivos de dom��tica existentes no ISEP, que constituem o ambiente dom��tico deste trabalho. De forma a implementar o controlo remoto destes dispositivos via internet, este trabalho foca-se no desenvolvimento de uma interface IP-KNX, usando como hardware de controlo, um Arduino Mega 2560, uma placa de interface Ethernet para Arduino, a placa de integra����o KNX, e um servidor web com a linguagem PHP instalada. Para efeitos de demonstra����o, foi criada uma aplica����o para o SO Android que controla as l��mpadas da rede KNX. Neste trabalho foram utilizadas v��rias linguagens de programa����o: C++ no firmware do Arduino, PHP no servidor web e JAVA + XML na aplica����o Android.

A evolu����o de um modelo BIM de constru����o para gest��o de empreendimentos

A implementa����o da evolu����o tecnol��gica no setor da constru����o tem se caracterizado pelo aparecimento de novas tecnologias que dinamizam os processos de troca de informa����o entre os v��rios intervenientes no ciclo de vida do empreendimento. O surgimento da tecnologia Building Information Modeling - BIM assente na modela����o param��trica e na interoperabilidade suportada em ficheiros de padr��o aberto (IFC) pressup��em um novo paradigma na forma como s��o tratados os processos de troca de informa����o entre os v��rios intervenientes no ciclo de vida dos empreendimentos. Com base no BIM o Construction Operations Building Information Exchange ��� COBie, �� outra tecnologia recente que recolhe informa����es n��o geom��tricas associadas ao modelo e em conjunto com a informa����o geom��trica produzida pelo BIM fazem parte dos documentos de entrega para a fase Facility Management ��� FM. O objetivo da presente disserta����o centrou-se no estudo da evolu����o de um modelo BIM de constru����o para a gest��o de empreendimento. Foi desenvolvido o estudo de um modelo prot��tipo que incidiu na utiliza����o de softwares para verifica����o e aplica����o das tecnologias COBie e BIM e tamb��m foi sincronizado com a fase FM. Da aplica����o dos requisitos COBie e modela����o BIM foram extra��das informa����es geom��tricas e n��o geom��tricas preenchidas nas folhas de trabalho COBie. As principais conclus��es do estudo realizado foram que as tecnologias COBie e BIM t��m pouca implanta����o a n��vel nacional e a sua integra����o dinamiza os processos, reduzindo custos e aumentando a qualidade da informa����o fornecida.

Phylogeny and phenotypic characterization of pathogenic cryptococcus species and closely related saprobic taxa in the tremellales

Eukaryotic Cell, Vol.8, N��3

A vis��o e a voz do diretor: a constru����o do seu projeto de Interven����o

Disserta����o apresentada para obten����o do grau de Mestre em Ci��ncias da Educa����o - ��rea de especializa����o em Administra����o Escolar