Does absorptive capacity affect project performance? A study based on project management practices, organization learning, and knowledge

The literature has emphasized that absorptive capacity (AC) leads to performance, but in projects its influences still unclear. Additionally, the project success is not well understood by the literature, and AC can be an important mechanism to explain it. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of absorptive capacity on project performance in the construction industry of São Paulo State. We study this influence through potential and realized absorptive capacity proposed by Zahra and George (2002). For achieving this goal, we use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. The qualitative research is based on 15 interviews with project managers in different sectors to understand the main constructs and support the next quantitative phase. The content analysis was the technique used to analyze those interviews. In quantitative phase through a survey questionnaire, we collected 157 responses in the construction sector with project managers. The confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical linear regression were the techniques used to assess the data. Our findings suggest that the realized absorptive capacity has a positive influence on performance, but potential absorptive capacity and the interactions effect have no influence on performance. Moreover, the planning and monitoring have a positive impact on budget and schedule, and customer satisfaction while risk coping capacity has a positive impact on business success. In academics terms, this research enables a better understanding of the importance of absorptive capacity in the construction industry and it confirms that knowledge application in processes and routines enhances performance. For management, the absorptive capacity enables the improvements of internal capabilities reflected in the increased project management efficiency. Indeed, when a company manages project practices efficiently it enhances business and project performance; however, it needs initially to improve its internal abilities to enrich processes and routines through relevant knowledge.

Alterações qualitativas em contratos de obra pública e a teoria econômica dos contratos incompletos : é possível construir um avião em pleno voo?

Não é de hoje que o país assiste à descoberta de incontáveis casos de desvios de recursos públicos ou mesmo à má gestão de contratos de obra pública que ocasionam, além de grave prejuízo ao Erário, danos à sociedade, muitas vezes desprovida da utilidade que seria proporcionada pelo pactuado. Essas condutas normalmente são ensejadas por projetos de engenharia que podem ser considerados meras peças de ficção, pois não representam o esforço correto para a execução do bem que se deseja construir. A Lei nº 8.666/93 permite a licitação com base em projeto básico, o que, segundo a atual onda de pensamento brasileira, seja da doutrina, dos órgãos de controle, do Poder Legislativo e até mesmo da mídia, é, de fato, um sério problema a ser enfrentado, pois a sua contratação dá margem a aditivos, entendidos como os grandes vilões das obras públicas. Por isso, o Tribunal de Contas da União vem decidindo no sentido de fortemente restringir a possibilidade de alteração contratual e, além disso, tem capitaneado projetos no Congresso Nacional que visam praticamente à extinção da empreitada por preço unitário, espécie contratual na qual o risco do projeto, ainda sem as definições necessárias, acaba por ser assumido pela Administração contratante, responsável pela elaboração, e não pelo seu executor. Contudo, no caso de obras complexas de infraestrutura, deve-se perquirir se essa postura, que pretende acabar com a margem decisória do gestor público quanto à extensão da incompletude do projeto básico - e, portanto, do objeto do contrato -, merece ser repensada, não com vistas a possibilitar os recorrentes danos, mas no caminho de uma melhor programação das ações estatais. Isso porque nessas hipóteses, a busca por todas as informações necessárias para a confecção do projeto a ser ao final executado, no momento da elaboração do edital, ou é muito custosa ou simplesmente não é possível. Assim, seria mais eficiente a contratação integrada, prevista na Lei do Regime Diferenciado de Contratação, na qual o risco do projeto pode se alocado ao contratado. Ocorre que, como existem restrições, nem sempre é viável esse caminho. Nessa ordem de ideias, deve-se encontrar uma solução para que o tradicional contrato de obra pública supere os seus graves problemas de incentivos. A proposta do presente trabalho é a introdução de um procedimento de tomada de decisão transparente, que confira segurança jurídica e amplo conhecimento da sociedade, além de livre acesso aos órgãos de controle, a partir de critérios não apenas jurídicos, mas econômicos e técnicos.

Flexible information acquisition and optimal Tobin tax in tractable dynamic global games

My dissertation focuses on dynamic aspects of coordination processes such as reversibility of early actions, option to delay decisions, and learning of the environment from the observation of other people’s actions. This study proposes the use of tractable dynamic global games where players privately and passively learn about their actions’ true payoffs and are able to adjust early investment decisions to the arrival of new information to investigate the consequences of the presence of liquidity shocks to the performance of a Tobin tax as a policy intended to foster coordination success (chapter 1), and the adequacy of the use of a Tobin tax in order to reduce an economy’s vulnerability to sudden stops (chapter 2). Then, it analyzes players’ incentive to acquire costly information in a sequential decision setting (chapter 3). In chapter 1, a continuum of foreign agents decide whether to enter or not in an investment project. A fraction λ of them are hit by liquidity restrictions in a second period and are forced to withdraw early investment or precluded from investing in the interim period, depending on the actions they chose in the first period. Players not affected by the liquidity shock are able to revise early decisions. Coordination success is increasing in the aggregate investment and decreasing in the aggregate volume of capital exit. Without liquidity shocks, aggregate investment is (in a pivotal contingency) invariant to frictions like a tax on short term capitals. In this case, a Tobin tax always increases success incidence. In the presence of liquidity shocks, this invariance result no longer holds in equilibrium. A Tobin tax becomes harmful to aggregate investment, which may reduces success incidence if the economy does not benefit enough from avoiding capital reversals. It is shown that the Tobin tax that maximizes the ex-ante probability of successfully coordinated investment is decreasing in the liquidity shock. Chapter 2 studies the effects of a Tobin tax in the same setting of the global game model proposed in chapter 1, with the exception that the liquidity shock is considered stochastic, i.e, there is also aggregate uncertainty about the extension of the liquidity restrictions. It identifies conditions under which, in the unique equilibrium of the model with low probability of liquidity shocks but large dry-ups, a Tobin tax is welfare improving, helping agents to coordinate on the good outcome. The model provides a rationale for a Tobin tax on economies that are prone to sudden stops. The optimal Tobin tax tends to be larger when capital reversals are more harmful and when the fraction of agents hit by liquidity shocks is smaller. Chapter 3 focuses on information acquisition in a sequential decision game with payoff complementar- ity and information externality. When information is cheap relatively to players’ incentive to coordinate actions, only the first player chooses to process information; the second player learns about the true payoff distribution from the observation of the first player’s decision and follows her action. Miscoordination requires that both players privately precess information, which tends to happen when it is expensive and the prior knowledge about the distribution of the payoffs has a large variance.

Teamwork in academia: an empirical study

The Bologna Process introduced some changes in the curriculum of higher education institutions (HEIs) and defined that academic learning should consider the needs of the labour market. HEIs and employers agree that personal skills are the most important set of competence of graduates (Pavlin, Akkuyunlu, Kovacic, & Svetlik, 2009). The goals of this work were to explore how the work experienced by teams of students in HEIs might help them improve their personal skills, namely empirically explore the perception of teamwork and personality into two groups of students. The study was based on the theoretical model of Team Evolution and Maturation (TEAM, Fransen, 2012). The sample consisted of 99 students of the 3rd year of the degree (1st cycle) in Computer Science (49 students) and the 2nd year of the Bachelor's Degree (1st cycle) in Psychology (50 students), from the University of Madeira, Portugal. Areas of personality and team collaboration were evaluated with a Pre- and Post-test. Findings show that the perception of the teamwork collaboration of students in Computer Science and Psychology majors seems to be influenced by their scientific area, by gender, by the selection method of the time-organiser, the self-perceived personality of the time-organiser, the self perceived personality of the non-time-organiser, and the size of the team. It is expected that this data will contribute to further theoretical and practical reflection on the teamwork among college students and their performance in the labour market.

Família, aluno e professor: as forças tipológicas da educação básica na região metropolitana de Natal

This work was developed in the research line: "The habitus of study: builder of a new reality in the basic education of metropolitan area Natal" which is being developed with the support of CAPES by the Centre for Education. Acts, especially the problem of academic performance of students in basic education of the public in the Metropolitan Region of Natal (RMN). Thus, the aim of this paper is to construct a typology of students in the 9th year of basic education, attending the public schools (state or municipal) of MRN, 2009, and assess, according to these profiles, what personal characteristics student and their families: economic, social and cultural capital as well as teaching practices create environments capable of favoring a good educational development as measured by the performance obtained in the assessments in mathematics and English language. The data used were provided through the microdata Brazil Exam 2009 held by INEP. We used the methods Grade of Membership (GoM) for construction of profiles relevance of students according to the characteristics already mentioned. With these profiles was verified, which were effectively generating good performance in school curriculum components evaluated. The findings indicate that students belonging to the profile considered good environment, able to achieve better school performance both in Portuguese as in Mathematics, compared to the extreme profiles and adverse deficit

Universo encantado do cuidado na autopoiese docente: uma viagem epistemológica transdisciplinar

The health transition experienced in Brazilian health care model requires a metamorphosis in human and society, placing new demands on health and education. The Faculty of Science, Culture and Extension of Rio Grande do Norte (Facex), aware of their responsibilities to the Health System, which brings the principle of comprehensiveness as its structural axis, dared to implement a course of nursing in complex thinking and Experiential Pedagogy Humanescente with curriculum inter / transdisciplinary. For deployment of proprosta was not enough to reform thinking of educators, there was a need corporalizar new teaching practices that are aimed at the integral formation of human beings. In this context, emerged the workshop on Human Education autopoietic, self-forming area of the educator, where he developed an Action Research Existential (PA-E) which enabled experience, describe and analyze how the human autopoietic educators could contribute to the practice educational humanescente transdisciplinary curriculum project. Were worked out in meetings, knowledge necessary to practice the transdisciplinary 1st Meeting - learn to create; 2nd Meeting - learn to recognize the laws of nature with emphasis on complexity theory, 3rd Meeting - learn to organize, 4th meeting - namely autoestruturar themselves; 5th Meeting - know how to choose, 6th Meeting - knowing innovate 7th Meeting - namely exchange. Next an autobiographical perspective, we chose the metaphorical possibility to narrate the ways and strategies covered by the author and apprentice in the company of the Little Prince de Saint-Exupery, in search of a sensible pedagogical practice complex, which promotes re-enchant transdisicplinar education. The route involved five methodological connections: a literature review which relate to training for care in undergraduate nursing: the study of learning processes that drive the formation humanopoiética, emphasizing the relationship that involves the complexity and embodiment in the educational process transdisciplinary, highlighting the analysis of what is to learn from the findings of biosciences and recent cognitive theories of Maturana and Varela, the description of the interdisciplinary curriculum of the nursing course of Facex and Training Workshop, Human autopoietic, with emphasis on Experiential Education Humanescente; the report of seven meetings of the Workshops (cocoon), recording the experiences and listening to educators (luminescent butterflies), the final reflections with learning opportunized. Experientiality lived through, the expressions and words, educators say the influence of workshops for their teaching practices, highlighting it as a space for selforganizing, creating, learning and enchantment, and can identify the workshop as a place of transformation necessary for deployment an interdisciplinary curriculum. The knowledge emerging from the study indicate the need for permanent spaces of self, in which the educator learns from its body, between cognitive processes and vital, and in the experiences of their formative process the opportunity to act on the dimensions of knowing and being

Os ateliês (auto)formativos na constituição do sujeito docente da educação matemática

The object of study of this thesis is the use of (self)training workshops as a fundamental process for the constitution of the teaching subject in mathematics education. The central purposes of the study were to describe and analyze a learning process of mathematics teachers supported by the training-research methodology, which procedures have been affected with the practice of (self)training workshops as a way of collaborating to the constitution of the teaching subject in Mathematics Education. The survey was conducted with a group of teachers in the city of Nova Cruz, Rio Grande do Norte through a process of continued education realized in the training workshops having as main goal the realization of the group s (self)training sessions in order to lead participants to the extent of their autonomy in their personal and professional transformations. The results obtained in the formative processes have shown the need to develop activities of mathematics teaching as a contribution to overcome the conceptual difficulties of the teachers, apart from their (self)reflections about themselves and the educational processes in which they belong. The results raised some propositions about (self)training workshops that may be incurred in practices to be included in the curriculum frameworks or materialize as a strategy of pedagogical work in training courses for teachers of mathematics. Also, they can constitute an administrative and educational activity to be instituted in the public schools of Basic Education

O currículo e as práticas pedagógicas na EJA: concepções e crenças dos professores da escola municipal Francisca Leonísia Cruz

The present investigation deals with the Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices of Young and Adults, EJA, and articulates with the conceptions and beliefs of teachers sitting. The empirical scope of this investigation consisted in the Municipal School Francisca Leonísia, located in the Agrarian Reform Settlement Serra Nova, city of Florânia/RN. Seeks to analyze the relationship between the Curriculum and Educational Practices of Young and Adult EJA - conceptions beliefs of these teachers. This work is based on qualitative research, interpretative character reflective and makes use of documentary analysis, structured interviews and reflective sessions as methodological procedures which ensure the achievement of our goals in research. These procedures allowed us to enter the practice setting and curriculum for teachers to understand how they think, prepare and practice of adult education in school curriculum research field. The documentary analysis provided the rethinking of the curriculum selected references, Political Pedagogical Project and Proposed Course of EJA, from a critical reading of concepts and conceptions given in these references, with a view to construction and reconstruction of concepts that reclaim the identity of young people and adult field, inserted in the Rural Workers Movement landless/MST. As reflective sessions were constituted in spaces of collective training and allowed the group to selfreflection e collective reflection about the ideas and beliefs that permeate the curriculum and guide their practices education in adult education. In these areas of training are also discussed current problems of adult education, the construction of an educational project of the adult education field to, warranties of learning and cultural identity of the adult education field and placed in the context of the MST. Under this view, it is concluded that the conceptions and beliefs of teachers seated directly relate to the curriculum designed, developed and practiced in adult education, as well as the educational practices that permeate the curriculum. This relation is in the midst of adversities of Rural Education, inserted in the Movement of Landless Rural Workers-MST, and requires the commitment of teachers to the necessary changes to an education are critical and emancipatory

Comunicação dos enfermeiros com usuários do gênero masculino: um estudo representacional

Communication is seen as vital function. Through it, individuals and organizations relate to each other, the environment and the shares of their own group, influencing each other to turn facts into information. The user of the male part of a group of patients whose health policy is still in development. This fact can create insecurity in the nurse to establish a process that promotes disease prevention, promotion and / or recovery of health for that user. Aiming to elucidate this, the present study aimed to: apprehend the social representations of nurses communication with the users were male, looking for disease prevention, promotion and recovery of his health; identify the factors that influenced, positively or negatively on the effectiveness of nurses communication with the users were male and investigate the strategies used by nurses to clarify communication with the users were male. In order to achieve the goal raised, this study was a descriptive, exploratory and qualitative approach. Was based on theoretical and methodological framework social representations of Denise Jodelet and Serge Moscovici. The project has, through no Parecer nº 649/10, approval of the Ethics and Research HULW. During data collection, we used a semi-structured script and a diary interviews with 24 nurses in basic health units of district-Mangabeira Health District III, the city of João Pessoa (PB). The results were analyzed using the technique of content analysis according to Bardin (2007). Classifying the research subjects and identified three categories and five nuclei of the central ideas. The categories identified: the grasp of the RS communication of nurses with male users, identifying factors that influence the effectiveness of nurses' communication with users and male research on the strategies used by nurses to the elucidation of the communication with male users. The nuclei of the central ideas found: social representations of nurses' communication with the users of the male is externalized as difficult, different, difficult, not technical (knowledge) specific, with a dubious sense in relation to its therapeutic action, the factors examined as positive in this communication were based on the connection between professional and user look in detail and not mechanistic, in preventive actions, the dynamics of care, accessibility, participatory care, humanization, and qualification service. Whereas served as negative factors for the communication, signed on the behavioral differences of men, the feminization of nurses, lack of training for professionals in relation to the subject, prescriptive conduct and prejudice (concerns) sociocultural. Another related consolidated core strategies employed for the occurrence of such communication. Given these results, it was realized the importance of social representations for the consecration of a single language, the common understanding of reality on the nurse's communication with the user in male and determination of changes in the behavior of nurses and the user to the establishment of more effective strategies for obtaining a therapeutic communication between them

Estudo de manejo de águas pluviais urbanas na cidade Natal-Rio Grande do Norte

Urban stormwater can be considered as potential water resources as well as problems for the proper functioning of the manifold activities of the city, resulting from inappropriate use and occupation of the soil, usually due to poor planning of the occupation of the development areas, with little care for the environmental aspects of the drainage of surface runoff. As a basic premise, we must seek mechanisms to preserve the natural flow in all stages of development of an urban area, preserving the soil infiltration capacity in the scale of the urban area, comprising the mechanisms of natural drainage, and noting preserving natural areas of dynamic water courses, both in the main channel and in the secondary. They are challenges for a sustainable urban development in a harmonious coexistence of modern developmental, which are consistent with the authoritative economic environmental and social quality. Integrated studies involving the quantity and quality of rainwater are absolutely necessary to achieve understanding and obtaining appropriate technologies, involving both aspects of the drainage problems and aspects of use of water when subjected to an adequate management of surface runoff , for example, the accumulation of these reservoirs in detention with the possibility of use for other purposes. The purpose of this study aims to develop a computer model, adjusted to prevailing conditions of an experimental urban watershed in order to enable the implementation of management practices for water resources, hydrological simulations of quantity and, in a preliminary way, the quality of stormwater that flow to a pond located at the downstream end of the basin. To this end, we used in parallel with the distributed model SWMM data raised the basin with the highest possible resolution to allow the simulation of diffuse loads, heterogeneous characteristics of the basin both in terms of hydrological and hydraulic parameters on the use and occupation soil. The parallel work should improve the degree of understanding of the phenomena simulated in the basin as well as the activity of the calibration models, and this is supported by monitoring data acquired during the duration of the project MAPLU (Urban Stormwater Management) belonging to the network PROSAB (Research Program in Basic Sanitation) in the years 2006 to 2008

Projeto pedagógico: abordagens e implicações no âmbito da formação em odontologia

Proposals that aim a redirection of current health attention models in Brazil are indispensible due to the need of health issues and its challenges imposed by society. These issues come forth in Higher Education Institutions in an attempt to devise ways to face these demands. The research aims to analyze the Pedagogical Project (PP) present in the Dentistry Graduation Course in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil-(UFRN). This is done in coherence the Brazilian National Curricular Guidelines considering main competences established in the PP. This research was approved by the Ethics Committee at UFRN under document number 285/201. The work is of descriptive nature and was realized with 30 students in the Dentistry Graduation Course. Interviews were realized with the use of problem situation approach. The research was also supported by documental studies that dealt with syllabus present in the disciplines taught at UFRN. Data were processed with the use of the ALCESTE 4.9 software. It is possible to acknowledge that some conservative conceptions arise, even though there is use of active methodologies and innovation that aim to promote reflection and articulation for general competence development such as proposed in the Pedagogical Project in Dentistry Graduation Course at UFRN. These conceptions are mainly present in the teaching-learning process where students do not have full participation. Thus it is possible to conclude that even though there are advances and breakthroughs. This is seen with that fact that there was inclusion of multidisciplinary clinical work as well optional courses in the curriculum. It was also seen that there was occasional use of active teaching methodologies in Dentistry at UFRN. But there is still a need for a didactical and methodological resizing. These actions require the need for progressive development of competences and abilities during the formative process according to what was established in the Brazilian National Curricular Guidelines

Dysglycemias in pregnancy: from diagnosis to treatment. Brazilian consensus statement

There is an urgent need to find consensus on screening, diagnosing and treating all degrees of DYSGLYCEMIA that may occur during pregnancies in Brazil, considering that many cases of DYSGLYCEMIA in pregnant women are currently not diagnosed, leading to maternal and fetal complications. For this reason the Brazilian Diabetes Society (SBD) and the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Societies (FEBRASGO), got together to introduce this proposal. We present here a joint consensus regarding the standardization of clinical management for pregnant women with any degree of Dysglycemia, on the basis of current information, to improve medical assistance and to avoid related complications of Dysglycemia in pregnancy to the mother and the fetus. This consensus aims to standardize the diagnosis among general practitioners, endocrinologists and obstetricians allowing the dissemination of information in basic health units, public and private services, that are responsible for screening, diagnosing and treating disglycemic pregnant patients.

Mathematics teaching life histories in the study of teachers' perceptions of change

The aim of this paper is to discuss teachers' perceptions of change in their thought and/or practice over time and their perceptions of what kind of experiences or challenges might have influenced those changes. Two mathematics teaching life histories of Brazilian teachers are examined, considering a context of curriculum development in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Reflection on teachers' thought and practice and interest in their own development, including interest in their own learning of mathematics, seemed to be the most important internal aspects influencing change and development. Close support seemed to be the most important external aspect. The retrospective analysis put a good face on personal change and development. (C) 2000 Elsevier B.V. Ltd. All rights reserved.

Use of cationic surfactant-xylenol orange indicator in metals complexometry by back-titration with EDTA.

The interaction of the xilenol orange and commercial disinfectant containing itself cationic-surfactant allowed the use indicator up to pH 11 by back-titration with EDTA, and the determination of total or partial concentration of metallic ions samples using the same indicator at the highest pH range.