How can the luxury sector in Portugal capture the full Potential from emerging countries tourists' market?

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

Rethinking the Portuguese banking sector in a post-crisis context

As the financial crisis hit the Portuguese banks, the profitability of the whole sector squeezed to historical minimums. Reinventing the banking business model in the post-crisis context is an overriding issue to achieve sustainable profits and a low cost-to-income ratio. We propose banks to adopt a true multichannel approach, proceeding to a branch network reformatting and a relocation of services to online channels; adopt a true customer-centric approach and reduce the product and services portfolio complexity; finally, industrialize operations and rationalize the structure. With these measures in place, Portuguese banks will become leaner and more efficient, aspiring to a cost-to-income ratio below 45%.

How to monitor and improve Unilever JM Supply Chain processes to become the best of Portugal’s sector in 2015?

Unilever Jerónimo Martins is a Portuguese joint-venture leading firm in what concerns the supply chain industry of fast-moving consumer goods in Portugal. The scope of analysis of this Work Project is focusing on Unilever-JM operations and services in the Portuguese market regarding quality, efficiency and effectiveness over B2B customers. It will be analysed the possibility of development and implementation of a performance measurement system, Tableau de Bord, which will be crucial for the identification of potential opportunities of improvement with impact in the supply chain processes. This will be completed through the establishment of KPI’s to monitor and manage periodically logistics, planning and customer service processes’ performance, which are the ones where the bottlenecks are impacting more in the supply chain. In this work project the nexus causality for the problems will also be discussed and some recommendations will be prepared to tackle the inefficiencies found through the monitoring of the previous core processes, in order to improve efficacy and quality service of the supply chain.

Help-seeking for 'memory loss' by older adults in India : patient, caregiver and health providers' perspectives

ABSTRACT: Background. In India, prevalence rates of dementia and prodromal amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) are 3.1% and 4.3% respectively. Most Indians refer to the full spectrum of cognitive disorders simply as ‘memory loss.’ Barring prevention or cure, these conditions will rise rapidly with population aging. Evidence-based policies and practices can improve the lives of affected individuals and their caregivers, but will require timely and sustained uptake. Objectives. Framed by social cognitive theories of health behavior, this study explores the knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning cognitive impairment and related service use by older adults who screen positive for MCI, their primary caregivers, and health providers. Methods. I used the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to screen for cognitive impairment in memory camps in Mumbai. To achieve sampling diversity, I used maximum variation sampling. Ten adults aged 60+ who had no significant functional impairment but screened positive for MCI and their caregivers participated in separate focus groups. Four other such dyads and six doctors/ traditional healers completed in-depth interviews. Data were translated from Hindi or Marathi to English and analyzed in Atlas.ti using Framework Analysis. Findings. Knowledge and awareness of cognitive impairment and available resources were very low. Physicians attributed the condition to disease-induced pathology while lay persons blamed brain malfunction due to normal aging. Main attitudes were that this condition is not a disease, is not serious and/or is not treatable, and that it evokes stigma toward and among impaired persons, their families and providers. Low knowledge and poor attitudes impeded help-seeking. Conclusions. Cognitive disorders of aging will take a heavy toll on private lives and public resources in developing countries. Early detection, accurate diagnosis, systematic monitoring and quality care are needed to compress the period of morbidity and promote quality of life. Key stakeholders provide essential insights into how scientific and indigenous knowledge and sociocultural attitudes affect use and provision of resources.

Reporting Income Taxes in the Banking Sector In Angola - Accounting, Tax Regulation and Financial Reporting Evidences

This research provides an insight into income taxes reporting in Angola, based on hand collected data from the annual reports of banks. Empirical studies on Angolan companies are scarce, in part due to the limited access to data. The results show that income taxes’ reporting has improved over the years 2010-2013, becoming more reliable and understandable. The Angolan Government is boosting the economic growth through tax benefits in the investment in public debt, which cause a reduction in the banks’ effective tax rate. The new income tax law will reduce the statutory tax rate from 2015 onwards and change the taxable income, resulting in shifting the focus to promoting private investment.

How to engage low category users through social media- The case of the make-up sector in Portugal

Purpose: This work project should be inevitably deemed as a practical approach to a marketing problem; “How to engage low category users through the social media – the case of the make-up sector in Portugal”. Design/methodology/approach: Online structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used. The questionnaire was answered by 110 women aged from 15 to 45 years old and the interviews were conducted with 14 women of the same age. The interviews provided key insights for the questionnaire formulation. Findings: Women are poorly informed on make-up properties and characteristics, feeling a genuine concern in regard to this subject. Lack of time, occasional usage and skin damage are the main barriers for make-up usage by low category users. Overcoming these aspects pass by demystifying the association of make-up with skin damage and emphasise the functional and emotional benefits of make-up. Further, brands need to create contents more consumer-oriented and ask directly to fans/followers suggestions and other insights. Resort to Portuguese “common” women for greater empathy in campaigns, promote online meetings between followers and make-up professionals on social media; and finally take advantage of the hybrid condition of Facebook, which incorporates multiple forms of content presentation, including videos, the most appealing format of make-up presentation for women. Research limitations/implications: Further studies addressing this topic, by using larger samples and study of specific make-up brands and campaign programs, over social media to reach a solid growth potential of make-up market evidences in Portugal. Originality/ value: Make-up brands are emphasising their interest in linking social media and marketing their promotional mix around social marketing.

Reallocation of resources between the tradable and non-tradable sector in Portugal: Assessing the degree of structural transformation in the Portuguese economy

Portugal implemented a large number of structural reforms in the recent years, which are expected to enhance the allocation of resources in the economy, namely from the non-tradable to tradable sector. We argue that the methodology to identify the tradable sector used by some international institutions is outdated and may hamper an accurate assessment of the progress achieved so far. Based on an enhanced methodology to identify the tradable sector, we are able to provide a more accurate, clearer picture of the recent structural developments of the Portuguese economy.

Context costs and comparative advantages in the telecommunications sector in Portugal and China

This Work Project aims to discuss the Context Costs and Comparative Advantages of the Telecommunications sector both in Portugal and China. The work was built mostly on primary research by interviews with relevant people (business persons, University Professors and Agencies directors), and by economic data publicly available. A list of context costs and comparative advantages was drawn for each country and possible resolutions suggestions were made in the end. The context costs depend heavily on the economic situation of the countries and it should be taken into account when assessing the degree of magnitude of each cost of context. The competitive advantages of each country were drawn in comparison with one another. Some key results stand out: firstly, Portugal’s costs of context depend mainly on governmental decisions, uncertainties and instability and China’s cost of context depend primarily on cultural norms, mainly the Guanxi; second, the telecommunications sector shares most of its context costs and advantages with other sectors; third, China as an economic power could use the telecommunications sector as a way to further develop and boost its economy.

Education and Economic Development in India

This brief survey examines the returns to education in India , and then examines the role of education on both economic growth and economic development with particular reference to India. Throughout, the objective is to draw out the implications of the empirical results for education policy. The results suggest that female education is of particular importance in India. They also suggest that perhaps because of the externalities it generates, primary education is more important than might be deduced from its relatively low private rate of return.

Growth Rate Estimation in the presence of Unit Roots

This study addresses the issue of the presence of a unit root on the growth rate estimation by the least-squares approach. We argue that when the log of a variable contains a unit root, i.e., it is not stationary then the growth rate estimate from the log-linear trend model is not a valid representation of the actual growth of the series. In fact, under such a situation, we show that the growth of the series is the cumulative impact of a stochastic process. As such the growth estimate from such a model is just a spurious representation of the actual growth of the series, which we refer to as a “pseudo growth rate”. Hence such an estimate should be interpreted with caution. On the other hand, we highlight that the statistical representation of a series as containing a unit root is not easy to separate from an alternative description which represents the series as fundamentally deterministic (no unit root) but containing a structural break. In search of a way around this, our study presents a survey of both the theoretical and empirical literature on unit root tests that takes into account possible structural breaks. We show that when a series is trendstationary with breaks, it is possible to use the log-linear trend model to obtain well defined estimates of growth rates for sub-periods which are valid representations of the actual growth of the series. Finally, to highlight the above issues, we carry out an empirical application whereby we estimate meaningful growth rates of real wages per worker for 51 industries from the organised manufacturing sector in India for the period 1973-2003, which are not only unbiased but also asymptotically efficient. We use these growth rate estimates to highlight the evolving inter-industry wage structure in India.

Disaggregating the Household Sector in a 2004 UK Input Output Table and Social Accounting Matrix by Income Quintiles

This paper disaggregates a UK Input-Output (IO) table for 2004 based on household income quintiles from published survey data. In addition to the Input-Output disaggregation, the household components of a UK Income Expenditure (I-E) account used to inform a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM),have also been disaggregated by household income quintile. The focus of this paper is on household expenditure on the UK energy sector.

Inequalities in Child Mortality in India: A District-Level Analysis

This paper measures the degree of inequality in child mortality rates across districts in India, using data from the 1981, 1991 and 2001 Indian population censuses. The results show that child mortality is more concentrated in less developed districts in all three census years. Further, between 1981 and 2001, the inequality in child mortality seems to have increased to the advantage of the more developed districts (i.e., there was an increasing concentration of child mortality in less developed districts). However, the inequality in female child mortality rates seems to have declined between 1991 and 2001, even as it increased – albeit at a slower rate than before – for male child mortality rates. In the decomposition analysis, it is found that while a more equitable distribution of medical facilities and safe drinking water across districts did contribute towards reducing inequality in child mortality between 1981 and 1991, different levels of structural change among districts were responsible for a very large part of the inequality in child mortality to the advantage of the more developed districts in all three census years. Other variables which played important roles in increasing inequality included a measure of infrastructure development, female literacy, and a social group status variable. The paper concludes with some brief comments on the policy implications of the findings.

Presence of Wolbachia endosymbionts in microfilariae of Wuchereria bancrofti (Spirurida: Onchocercidae) from different geographical regions in India

In view of the recent discovery of rickettsial endosymbionts, Wolbachia in lymphatic filarial parasites, Wuchereria bancrofti and Brugia malayi and subsequently of their vital role in the survival and development of the latter, antibiotics such as tetracycline are being suggested for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis, by way of eliminating the endosymbiont. But, it is essential to assess their presence in parasites from areas endemic for lymphatic filariasis before such a new control tool is employed. In the present communication, we report the detection of Wolbachia endosymbionts in microfilariae of W. bancrofti parasites collected from geographically distant locations of India, such as Pondicherry (Union Territory), Calicut (Kerala), Jagadalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Thirukoilur (TamilNadu), Chinnanergunam (TamilNadu), Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh), and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), using Wolbachia specific 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction.