Gestão como fonte de vantagem competitiva e desempenho superior: um estudo no setor de embalagens

Nas últimas décadas, diversos estudos empíricos foram desenvolvidos na área de operações analisando a relação entre práticas operacionais de gestão e desempenho das empresas de manufatura. Os resultados, em sua maioria, indicam um efeito positivo das práticas sobre o desempenho, embora alguns deles tenham apresentado resultados contrários. A inconsistência na análise conjunta de tais estudos pode ter origem na utilização de diferentes designs de pesquisa, na abordagem individual de cada prática e nos diferentes contextos que adicionam imprecisão a estudos multisetoriais. Além disso, os estudos pouco trataram dos fatores que favorecem ou dificultam a adoção e evolução das práticas de gestão nas empresas. Apesar dos supostos benefícios amplamente divulgados no ambiente corporativo, não está claro o que leva algumas organizações a enfrentar dificuldades na adoção e utilização de tais práticas. Buscando minimizar duas possíveis causas de inconsistências citadas anteriormente, a presente pesquisa estudou os efeitos de um amplo grupo de práticas de gestão no desempenho das empresas e os fatores internos que influenciam na sua adoção e evolução em um ambiente controlado e comparável, por se tratar de um único setor. A lente teórica emprestada foi a Visão Baseada em Recursos (Resource-Based View – RBV), perspectiva prevalente na literatura de gestão estratégica. A abordagem utilizada nesta pesquisa trata práticas operacionais de gestão como rotinas que executam atividades relevantes para os objetivos da empresa. Estas rotinas incorporam o resultado das interações entre várias formas de conhecimento, tornando-se cada vez mais específicas e, portanto, menos transferíveis. A dificuldade de observar estas complexas inter-relações e a natureza tácita e dependente do caminho de cada rotina individualmente levam a fortes barreiras à imitação. Práticas de gestão, sob esta perspectiva, acumulam conhecimento, são específicas e difíceis de copiar tornando-se competências, respectivamente, valiosas, raras e de difícil imitação ou substituição. Segundo a RBV, este cenário leva a vantagens competitivas sustentáveis, podendo contribuir para o aumento do desempenho da organização. O estudo fornece evidências, a partir da análise de dados obtidos em 124 entrevistas realizadas com executivos e gestores exclusivamente do setor de embalagens no Brasil, de que um alto grau de utilização de grupos de práticas de gestão tem influência direta no desempenho superior medido pela lucratividade, crescimento do faturamento e produtividade das empresas. Em especial, foram encontradas evidências de que quanto maior o porte, maiores as chances de a empresa apresentar alto grau de utilização das práticas de gestão. Na direção oposta, o excesso de autoconfiança dos gestores (hubris) mostrou-se fator de influência negativa na evolução de tais práticas. Não foram encontradas evidências que o tipo de estrutura societária familiar influencie na adoção de práticas de gestão.

Relação entre stakeholders, recursos estratégicos e sustentabilidade em uma organização atuante na cadeia de valor da indústria brasileira de energia eólica

This paper approaches the strategy in business management and aimed at identifying and outlining the interests and commitment of stakeholders in strategic resources management concerning production and implementation of wind turbine equipment of a Brazilian wind power company and also verifying if internal and external results deriving from such activities were sustainable, taking as main reference seminal publications and periodicals relevant to the research point that discuss the Resource Theory, Stakeholders and Sustainability. An analysis was carried out to assess how stakeholders, beyond the temporal context, intermediated the composition, development and management of the organization´s resources, as well as the social, environmental and economic results obtained from resources management in the production and supply of wind turbines to a Wind Power Plant located in the State of Ceara, in order to portray that Brazil sustainability can be an important competitive advantage source that creates value for shareholders and the community (Hart & Milstein, 2003). The strategy herein applied was the qualitative investigation using a single study case, which allowed for the thorough examination of an active organization operating in the Brazilian industry of wind power and also the resources used in the production and implementation of wind turbines supplied to the a Wind Power Plant in Ceara. Considering the content analysis and the triangulation principle, three qualitative data collection methods were applied to identify and characterize stakeholders’ interest and commitment in resource management of the organization operating in the Brazilian wind power industry, as follows, semistructured deep interview with managers of tactic-strategic level and analysts of organization´s value chain nine activities, analysis of public internal and external documents; and analysis of audio-visual material. Nonetheless, to identify the internal and external economic, social and environmental results of implementation and supply of wind turbines to the Wind Power Plant in Ceara, semistructured interviews were also carried out with the residents of the region. Results showed the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) and the organization head office were the stakeholders who exerted the strongest influence on resources related to production and implementation of the aerogenerator product at Trairi Wind Plant in Ceara. Concerning the organization resources, at the current stage of the Brazilian Wind Industry ,although the brand, reliability and reputation of the organization under study were valuable esources, rare, hard to imitate and exploited by the organization, it was noticed that opposed to RBV, they did not actually represent a source of competitive advantage . For the local community the social, economic and environmental results related to the wind turbines implementation were more positive than negative, despite the fact that the productive process caused negative environmental impacts such as the high emission of CO2 to transport wind turbines components to Trairi Wind Power Plant.

Sintaxe e semântica do verbo ser no romance em nome da terra de Vergílio Ferreira

O meu encontro literário com Vergílio Ferreira deu-se há cerca de seis ou sete anos, quando resolvi comprar e ler Cartas a Sandra, romance que como o nome indica é escrito como se de uma compilação de cartas se tratasse e que foi deixado incompleto e editado postumamente. Esta edição póstuma é da responsabilidade da herdeira (esposa do autor) e do Círculo de Leitores. Inicialmente, confesso, fui seduzida pelo título, mas depois, a leitura da obra deixou uma vontade sôfrega de querer saber mais sobre a escrita vergiliana. Nas disciplinas de literatura da minha licenciatura, pouco ou nada se tratou sobre Vergílio Ferreira mas, apesar disso, encetei algumas pesquisas e leituras que me foram despertando, cada vez mais, o interesse e a predilecção pelas obras deste autor. Mais tarde, já no Curso de Mestrado, ponderei a possibilidade de uma abordagem ao romance em nome da terra e sobre o qual tinha conhecimento da existência de alguns trabalhos, na sua maioria, ao nível da análise literária e/ou estilística. Com uma apetência natural para a área da linguística, considerei com carinho a hipótese de elaborar uma Dissertação de Mestrado que se aproximasse mais do campo da interpretação e análise linguísticas, nomeadamente do valor do verbo Ser na escrita vergiliana e, em particular, no romance-problema em jeito de carta. Consciente de que a tarefa não iria ser fácil, que teria, necessariamente, que envolver a leitura e releitura (nalguns casos de modo transversal) de todo um conjunto de produções, quer do autor, quer dos que ao seu estudo se dedicaram, quer ainda de obras de carácter filosófico e existencialista, foi com agrado que comecei a minha pesquisa e, a posteriori, a selecção dos materiais que julguei pertinentes para a prossecução do objectivo que me tinha proposto. Por conseguinte, tenho que agradecer a todas as pessoas que me ajudaram, de uma ou de outra forma, em especial ao Professor Doutor João Malaca Casteleiro, pelo facto de ter aceite o meu pedido de orientação da presente Dissertação, pela sua disponibilidade e paciência, pela cedência de alguns materiais, pelos seus comentários sábios e experientes e, acima de tudo, pela sua sabedoria na matéria e pelo interesse demonstrado quanto ao tema, o que se traduz, ao que julgo, naquilo que se entende, verdadeiramente, por orientação de uma Dissertação de Mestrado. Agradeço também aos colegas do curso que me motivaram, em particular à Judite e à Natália, que tiveram a coragem de assumir um compromisso de amizade, pelo facto de me ouvirem, questionarem e, principalmente criticarem e encorajarem aquando das nossas discussões sobre este meu trabalho. Por último, não poderia deixar de referir e agradecer igualmente a simpatia com que fui recebida pela Dona Augusta e pelo senhor professor José Rodrigues, na Vila Josephine1, morada de férias de Vergílio Ferreira, em Melo, e onde foram escritos muitos dos seus trabalhos (nas férias grandes, com uma caneta de nanquim virada ao contrário, para conseguir uma caligrafia mais fina e apurada, e num sofá cor-de-rosa-velho, ao pé da janela, com uma tábua nos joelhos a servir de escritório, o cinzeiro do lado esquerdo2). Gostaria ainda de agradecer a sua pronta e sábia ajuda, por terem partilhado comigo detalhes sobre o autor e que não vêm nos livros, sendo o Professor, ele próprio, um livro aberto no que se refere ao seu cunhado e amigo Vergílio, aos seus trabalhos, à sua vontade de valorizar um escritor que lhe foi tão próximo... Agradeço-lhe ainda o privilégio de me ter permitido trabalhar um pouco no escritório do autor. Esse momento proporcionou-me mais uma de muitas alegrias breves de que tem sido constituída a minha também breve existência, e a consciencialização para o facto de que o meu caminho ainda fica muito longe e, fazendo uso de palavras de Vergílio Ferreira: “A estrada é larga e segura porque foi construída apenas pela experiência dos homens. Não percas mais os teus passos pela areia movediça e estéril…”. Procurarei, pois, seguir estes e outros sábios conselhos, à medida que desenvolver este trabalho.

Alasdair Gray`s 1982 Janine (1984): a postmodernist scottish novel

Alasdair Gray is now an established figure in the Scottish literary scene and has numerous claims to be considered an important voice writing in English. First Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) and then 1982 Janine (1984) contributed to the recognition of Gray as one of the founding fathers of the new Scottish writing and as a figure of importance in international contemporary fiction due to his innovative, experimental and postmodernist novels. As the title of this dissertation - “Alasdair Gray’s 1982 Janine (1984): A Postmodernist Scottish Novel” - suggests, it aims at analysing the author’s second novel, 1982 Janine (1984), in a thematic and formal perspective, in order to justify the choice of the terms - Postmodernist and Scottish - to classify this novel. 1982 Janine projects a world through Jock McLeish’s mind and is a powerful stream-of-consciousness narrative. Jock is an alcoholic who lives a personal crisis and, therefore, tries to escape from his depressing reality through sexual fantasies and political diatribes. During a single night in a Scottish hotel room, he drinks and dreams, and spends the whole night alone with his fantasies and fears, his memories and hopes. In Chapter 11, the most daring experimental section of the novel, Jock attempts to commit suicide by taking an overdose of tablets with alcohol but fails. Following this, he decides to review his life and make for a new beginning; the novel thus closing with an optimistic note. Also, the narrative is based on a constant interweaving of sex fantasy with political satire, that is, it is through his protagonist that Gray manages to convey the state of Scotland as well as the concerns and aspirations of the Scottish people and then, proceed to a political and social critique. This dissertation appears structured in three chapters. In Chapter I - “Alasdair Gray: A Postmodernist Scottish Writer” - I present Gray as a powerful postmodernist writer who also sees himself as a Scottish author, and more particularly as a Glaswegian, who concentrates on Scottish subject matter in his literary work. In a first section, I offer a brief survey of the Scottish literary scene from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, in order to understand Gray’s choice of setting and themes and to check his influence or indebtedness to previous Scottish authors. As 1982 Janine is also a good example of selfconscious experimental writing, in a second section, I present various seminal fictional works that introduced and developed experimentalism in British fiction, in order to evaluate the influence of modernist developments in form and technique on recent experimental writing. The third section consists of an introduction to Gray’s work for he is not only a novelist, but also an artist, a playwright, a poet, an activist and a scholar. Chapter II - “Postmodernist Features in 1982 Janine” - aims at listing and examining the postmodernist devices that the novel includes, in what content and form are concerned. On the one hand, the use of a developed type of the modernist stream of consciousness, the presence of a protagonist who feels entrapped in a specific system, the quest for freedom, the incoherence and fragmentation of time, the nonchronological order of the narrative, the blending of fantasy and “reality”, as well as the importance of the Scottish material are definitely current aspects within postmodernist literature that can be found in Gray’s novel. On the other hand, the handling of literary self-conscious devices, such as typographical experimentation, presence of metafiction and intertextuality, and inclusion of an Epilogue, are likewise among recurrent postmodernist features. As the title - “A Narratological Analysis of 1982 Janine” - evidences, Chapter III offers a description of the mechanics of the narrative and its functioning in order to better understand the narrative technique of postmodernist fiction. This study is based primarily on Gérard Genette’s theoretical framework and terminology, presented in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, an analytical tool that allows me to provide a more objective and scientific analysis. Hence, I follow the Genettian division of narrative discourse in Time, Mood and Voice while examining the novel. Finally, I proceed to a description of the intertextual relationships 1982 Janine establishes with other texts.

Património cultural regional: crenças e tradições

A tradição desempenha um papel importante na identidade de um povo, é através da cultura que nos diferenciamos. É a cultura tradicional que está intrínseca na nossa personalidade e que nos torna um povo com características únicas, é a cultura que nos individualiza enquanto comunidade. O analfabetismo do povo levou a que o património imaterial e a identidade cultural passagem de geração em geração pela transmissão oral, pelo aprender fazendo, pela imitação, assim grande parte da nossa tradição perdeu-se, e a que prevaleceu até hoje sofreu alterações frequentes da transmissão oral. Ainda assim encontramos alguns documentos escritos que corroboram as versões orais actuais. O isolamento, a falta de médicos devidamente credenciados, a crença em Deus e no seu poder, levaram a que fosse encontrado um outro tipo de tratamentos – as curas e as mezinhas caseiras – que, e uma vez que o resultado parece agradar aos doentes, prevalecem até aos dias de hoje. O poder curativo das plantas é indiscutível e está cientificamente comprovado. O poder curativo das rezas, não está comprovado, mas apresenta resultados positivos àqueles que a ele recorrem. O presente trabalho tenta recuperar parte dessas crenças, superstições e curas que estavam dispersas por vários tipos de publicações, tentando analisar o porquê da sua existência.

Relatório de estágio apresentado à Universidade da Madeira para obtenção do grau de mestre em educação pré-escolar e ensino do 1º ciclo do ensino básico

O presente relatório foi elaborado para a aquisição do grau de mestre em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico. Neste sentido, o trabalho referenciado espelha a práxis pedagógica desenvolvida nos contextos de Educação de Infância e 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico. A prática em contexto de Educação de Infância realizou-se na Escola Básica do 1.º Ciclo com Pré-Escolar da Achada, com um grupo de crianças com idades compreendidas entre os três e os sete anos. No que se refere ao contexto de 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico, esta desenrolou-se na Escola Básica do 1.º Ciclo com Pré-Escolar da Pena, numa turma de 2.º ano de escolaridade, com alunos com idades entre os seis e os oito anos. O corpus do relatório reúne um enquadramento teórico e metodológico e os pressupostos teóricos que serviram de alicerce a toda a ação pedagógica, bem como a intervenção pedagógica in loco, que se apoiou na metodologia de investigação-ação. Esta investigação, no 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico, foi realizada com o propósito de colmatar dificuldades na escrita e fomentar o gosto pela literacia. Na Educação Pré- Escolar, à semelhança da investigação anterior, procurou-se promover a motivação para a escrita e imitação da grafia. Neste sentido, e com o propósito de melhorar a qualidade da intervenção educativa, surgiu a necessidade de investigar, para uma ação fundamentada, analisada, refletida e adequada, assumindo-se assim um papel prático-reflexivo. No desenrolar da práxis procurou-se realizar atividades, onde a atitude experiencial, a aprendizagem ativa e cooperativa estivessem presentes, partindo da visão da criança como um ser que participa e constrói o seu processo de aprendizagem. A intencionalidade educativa aspirou uma pedagogia-em-participação, cooperante com os níveis de desenvolvimento pessoal e social e o objetivo de atingir aprendizagens significativas.

Arte, prazer e bisturi: construção corporal através da body modification

In view of a field research carried out by a team connected to the universe of body modification, it is possible to discern some uses and meanings linked to these forms of body interventions. Body modification or body change is part of the circuit of piercings and tattoos, although they are socially less thinned and more extreme, like scarifications, subcutaneous implants, bifurcated tongues, surfaces and body suspensions. The aim of this paper is to cast an anthropological glance on these practices, joining at the same context all the subjects involved with these techniques, placing them inside the same relational focus and capturing their journeys and trajectories. The discussions are concentrated on the notion of body building and urban life style. Ideas as personal distinctness and prestige imitation are also present in this universe, as well as matters attached to genre, pleasure, art, and to the so-called alternative circuit . This way, the ethnography so far presented here, reveals the complex and contemporaneous character of these practices of body markings in which the body appears as the central element in the experiences of the subjects of this study

A Learning Function for Parameter Reduction in Spiking Neural Networks with Radial Basis Function

Spiking neural networks - networks that encode information in the timing of spikes - are arising as a new approach in the artificial neural networks paradigm, emergent from cognitive science. One of these new models is the pulsed neural network with radial basis function, a network able to store information in the axonal propagation delay of neurons. Learning algorithms have been proposed to this model looking for mapping input pulses into output pulses. Recently, a new method was proposed to encode constant data into a temporal sequence of spikes, stimulating deeper studies in order to establish abilities and frontiers of this new approach. However, a well known problem of this kind of network is the high number of free parameters - more that 15 - to be properly configured or tuned in order to allow network convergence. This work presents for the first time a new learning function for this network training that allow the automatic configuration of one of the key network parameters: the synaptic weight decreasing factor.

Correntes em rede: uma interpretação imagética e textual das correntes religiosas virtuais

This paper develops an analysis of virtual chains religious imagetic. The profusion of images that accompanies us is an irrefutable fact today. The imagetic and virtual join the religion. The approach of the old with the new makes possible the emergence of this new religious practice. Therefore, the study sought to characterize the context in which the virtual chains religious develop. From this perspective, emphasizes religion and cyberculture in order to explain how from that link, it originates an element that exemplifies the current society imagery. This study of the chains takes place from the perspective of the receiver. The image is considered as language, while in communicating becomes capable of imitation

Teodora e Porcina: faces simbólicas da natureza em narrativas de mulheres sábias

This research looks at the collective imagination in which it keeps alive the issue of heroin wise. Two wise women appear in the narratives of popular history and the History of Donzela Theodora and History Imperatriz Porcina, collated by Luís da Câmara Cascudo in his Five Books of the People. The universality, mobility and circularity of these narratives are discussed by authors such as Bakhtin and Guinzburg. The research is developed from three key categories: Knowledge Magic as the knowledge of tradition (Almeida), sensitive knowledge (Levi-Strauss), thought mythical / magical / symbolic (Morin); Wise Women as carriers of this knowledge, which merge and overlap with the imagery of witches and healers; and Mythical Elements which corresponds to the archetypal images (Jung and Silveira), symbols and other images that relate to the magic universe, the magical beliefs and practices considered, ie belonging to the imaginary magic (Bethencourt). Porcina and Theodora are understood as bearers of knowledge of Métis (Detienne and Vernant), or the cunning intelligence, the manipulation of phármakon (Derrida), the healing potion, which may be the word or ointment of the herb. The route takes us to meet the great archetype of the Wise Woman as psychic power of the feminine, the anima. Narratives are medicinal balms (Estes) and is the clash between the anima and its embodiments by wise women, and animus, his opponents, which gives the transmutation of the psyche, a work comparable to that of alchemyThe Knowledge Magic, operating through the female, myth and nature can recover from its essential value to the emerging paradigm that suggests a more complete human science and a more plural

Em nome da república: escolas e tradições modernas

Our research aims to analyze some institutions of primary education in so-called First Republic in Natal/RN, when they were considered high standard institutions on training, dissemination and creation of national identity and republican traditions. Thus, we investigated to try to understand the creation of the new man and the invention of new traditions to confirm the status of republican modernity in two schools in Natal, the Colegio Americano, a private one, and a standard model of school, Augusto Severo, which is a public one. As a basis we have the history of institutions to analyze, paying close attention to consider the use of imitation in cultural patrimony as well as the use of strategies to distinguish. The concept of ownership follows, for present purposes, their focus of study on observation of diverse and contrasting use of these cultural objects, texts, readings and ideas from research institutions. For analysis of the link which occurs within the school environment, in every period of its history, we used the concept of school culture as a set of rules and practices which define knowledge to teach and conduct the introject. A culture that incorporates the school to keep a set with other religious cultures, political and popular of its time and space. In this sense, the educational institutions which we studied while showing what kind of in this work by preparing cultures, codes, different practices, and specific individuals they have, they were in important locations to provide modern cultural appropriation as a strategy for educational innovation and a factor of rationality and efficiency which could be observed and controlled, so gradually the modern school education was organized to produce its own society. As a challenge of affirmation and incorporating diverse social experiences to produce the modern, civilized man of the Republican time, the school, as part of the social life, which is singular in its practices, not only the set of reforms, decrees, laws and projects, but also as expressions of concept about life and society in terms of material, symbolic and cultural symbols in the social context in modernization. We focused on these two schools, because inside the wide cultural and material status of the city, they were the first republic schools which had the goal of having men and woman together culturally , with a view to adapting them to the modern movement to make them civilized / educated / rational . On this view, we would emphasize that this statement needs a reinvention as a new way through what is made at the schools which production of new spaces, practices, rites and what represents school, making and expressing a new identity, modern, different of the old symbols of the Empire. For this, nothing better than the organization of schooling, emphasizing on educating the individual and his/her responsibilities with the order and progress. We need to understand the past as a result of conflicts, including strengths and limitations within the historical and social context, and the invention of tradition as a process of formalization and ritualization of acts which want to perpetuate, as a reference to a group identity. These are practices and social educative representations which support the understanding of pedagogical and educational ideas at this historical moment, making a new way of being and doing in the Republican universe

Mestres e aprendiz: perambulando por ilhas de resistência

Monoculture of mind This idea, presented by Vandana Shiva, reflects the phase that we have experienced in the world: a notion of civilization that, since many decades, characterized by a technocratic big trend, has been shown as dominant and hegemonic. Based on a thinking and acting, felling and whishing standardization, this wave ends implying in what can be called of humanity‟s crisis at civilizational process. Destruction of simpler and more harmonious lifestyles with nature, human relations increasingly distant, values embrittlement, as respect, goodness and love, are some consequences of that behavioral homogenization. In the other hand, appears an archipelago of cultural and cognitive resistance against this devastating wave. Edgar Morin and Ceiça Almeida refer to this archipelago as a South Thought , what is not just a geographic question. Report, therefore, to some places, peoples, island that keep ancient costumes and knowledge, orally transmitted, for instance, from elders to younger, or vice versa, in an almost constant flow. Particular ways of experiencing the world around themselves, the men, animals, plants, rocks, or even not alive beings, masters or enchanted, spiritual guides. Next to a logic of sensitive, as Claude Levi-Strauss proposes, this reading, which is a more attentive, observer and wiser posture of surroundings, is based on touching, smelling, eating, seeing, and, I would add, felling. In light of this, I try to expatiate about certain experiences that I had the pleasure of living in some of these islands of resistance. Talks, perceptions, observations, sensations Stories, prose, poetries, music, photos, graphics Whatever could serve to portray even a bit of the reflections and forms to understand (ourselves) and produce knowledge, such as from a formation/Education to life, was well used at this ethnographic work. Space to the subjectivity and emotions I had, have, and will have a lot Everything for the dear reader may fell traveling around the world of tradition, resistance

Characterization of condensed tannins from native legumes of the Brazilian northeastern semi-arid

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Gestão do Conhecimento baseado na análise de GAP de competências: Um estudo de caso do DETRAN-RN

The Knowledge Management in organizations is a continuous process of learning that is given by the integration of data, information and the ability of people to use this information. The Management Skills is concerned to understand the powers of officials in the face of organizational skills (teams) and professionals (or tasks positions) want. Joints are located in the greater context of the economy of organizatio s and have the same assumption: that the possession of scarce resources, valuable and difficult to imitate gives the organization a competitive advantage. In this sense, this thesis proposes a model of knowledge management based on analysis of GAP of powers, namely the gap between the skills needed to reach the expected performance and skills already available in the organization, officials and trainees of Coordination of Registration of conductors of DETRAN-RN. Using the method of survey research could make an analysis of academic skills, techniques and emotional individual and a team of officials and trainees, identifying levels of GAP's competence in that sector of the organization and suggest a plan for training , A level of expertise for each sector of coordination, and propose a model for Knowledge Management to help the management of GAP's identified