The influence of pre-departure training on expatriate adjustment: an empirical investigation with portuguese international assignees

This chapter examines the cross-cultural influence of training on the adjustment of international assignees. We focus on the pre-departure training (PDT) before an international assignment. It is an important topic because in the globalized world of today more and more expatriations are needed. The absence of PDT may generate the failure of the expatriation experience. Companies may neglect PDT due to cost reduction practices and ignorance of the need for it. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews to 42 Portuguese international assignees and 18 organizational representatives from nine Portuguese companies. The results suggest that companies should develop PDT programs, particularly when the cultural distance to the host country is bigger and when there is no previous experience of expatriation to that country in the company. The study is original because it details in depth the methods of PDT, its problems, and consequences. Some limitations linked to the research design and detailed in the conclusion should be overcome in future studies.

Os determinantes da estrutura de capital das empresas exportadoras portuguesas

Este trabalho tem como objetivo verificar os determinantes da estrutura de capital das empresas exportadoras portuguesas, comparando, sempre que possível, os resultados obtidos com outros trabalhos já desenvolvidos sobre o tema. Aplicando o Modelo dos Efeitos Fixos (MEF) a uma amostra de 7.001 empresas no período 2007-2013, concluiu-se que os determinantes com maior significância no nível de endividamento empresarial são: a rendibilidade, a dimensão, o crescimento e ainda os outros benefícos fiscais. Em relação às exportações, verificou-se através da variável dummy “exportar”, que o facto de as empresas terem exportações superiores a 10% das vendas totais, têm uma relação positiva com o endividamento de médio e longo prazo mas negativa com o endividamento de curto prazo. Perante estes resultados admitimos que as empresas exportadoras ao diversificarem (na fase inicial) o seu portfólio de clientes conseguem maiores níveis de cash-flows, o que as dispensa de algum endividamento de curto prazo, mas no médio e longo prazo as necessidades de investimento para fazer face a mercados muito competitivos está associada a um maior nível de endividamento. Relativamente à importância explicativa das variáveis “peso das vendas para o mercado comunitário” e “peso das vendas para o mercado extra comunitário”, curiosamente, apresentam resultados diferentes; o peso das vendas para o mercado extra comunitário não revela relação significativa com o endividamento mas já o peso das vendas para o mercado comunitário tem uma relação positiva com endividamento a curto prazo e negativa com o endividamento de médio e longo prazo.

Sigla WEBGIS portal: an open source Web-based GIS application for the portuguese bluetongue Entomologiacal surveillance program.

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciência e Sistemas de Informação Geográfica

MCDA applied to performance appraisal of short-haul truck drivers: a case study in a portuguese trucking company

Performance appraisal increasingly assumes a more important role in any organizational environment. In the trucking industry, drivers are the company's image and for this reason it is important to develop and increase their performance and commitment to the company's goals. This paper aims to create a performance appraisal model for trucking drivers, based on a multi-criteria decision aid methodology. The PROMETHEE and MMASSI methodologies were adapted using the criteria used for performance appraisal by the trucking company studied. The appraisal involved all the truck drivers, their supervisors and the company's Managing Director. The final output is a ranking of the drivers, based on their performance, for each one of the scenarios used. The results are to be used as a decision-making tool to allocate drivers to the domestic haul service.

Information literacy skills of portuguese LIS students: some topics on evaluation of resources credibility

This paper focuses on the Portuguese results from an international survey on LIS students’ information literacy skills. The results’ analysis will be grounded on a literature review on the criteria application to evaluate information and determine the credibility by undergraduate students. The guidelines for the information evaluation, especially regarding credibility aspect, on three main information literacy frameworks will be presented. After an overall presentation of the main results, the analysis of the Portuguese survey results will focus on issues related to information evaluation skills, namely on criteria to assess information credibility and on difficulties to apply them.

Phytoplankton analysis of portuguese reservoirs: a cluster analysis with R

In this work, cluster analysis is applied to a real dataset of biological features of several Portuguese reservoirs. All the statistical analysis is done using R statistical software. Several metrics and methods were explored, as well as the combination of Euclidean metric and the hierarchical Ward method. Although it did not present the best combination in terms of internal and stability validation, it was still a good solution and presented good results in terms of interpretation of the problem at hand.

Elaboração de um projeto de uma central fotovoltaica de miniprodução e estudo de viabilidade técnica, económica e financeira

Desde o final do século XVIII, quando se iniciou a revolução industrial, o crescimento económico tem sido assente num consumo elevado de combustíveis fósseis que libertam gases com efeito de estufa. A emissão destes gases e a escassez dos combustíveis fósseis são temas que, desde as últimas duas décadas do século XX, ocupam um lugar de destaque nas agendas de política mundial. A produção de energia através de fontes renováveis surge como alternativa e poderá ser a solução para países com escassos recursos de origem fóssil, como é o caso de Portugal, minimizando também a sua dependência energética do exterior. Uma das medidas de incentivo lançada pelo Governo Português em 2007, foi a criação de um regime simplificado aplicável à microprodução descentralizada de eletricidade através de fontes de energia renováveis e de cogeração. À semelhança da maioria dos países europeus, o principal meio de promoção destes sistemas em Portugal foram as Feed-in-Tariffs, que consistem numa tarifa de venda de energia elétrica de origem renovável acima da tarifa de mercado. Estas tarifas permitiram, sobretudo, o crescimento do setor fotovoltaico em Portugal. Atualmente, o amadurecimento da tecnologia fotovoltaica, associado ao constante aumento das tarifas de energia elétrica, permite que se torne vantajosa a instalação de sistemas fotovoltaicos para autoconsumo. Neste contexto, o atual Governo Português, criou recentemente um regime jurídico aplicável à produção de eletricidade para autoconsumo. O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar, com base na minha experiência profissional, a metodologia de dimensionamento de uma central fotovoltaica ligada à Rede Elétrica de Serviço Público. Será utilizado como objeto de estudo um projeto constituído por 28 centrais fotovoltaicas de Miniprodução de 100 kW, dispersas por Portugal Continental, para o qual será efetuada a análise financeira do investimento. Pretende-se ainda apresentar o novo enquadramento legislativo para o Autoconsumo e Pequena Produção distribuída, detalhar as suas principais caraterísticas e efetuar um estudo económico para cada um destes regimes.

Maximizing the Social Welfare of Virtual Power Players Operation in Case of Excessive Wind Power

The integration of growing amounts of distributed generation in power systems, namely at distribution networks level, has been fostered by energy policies in several countries around the world, including in Europe. This intensive integration of distributed, non-dispatchable, and natural sources based generation (including wind power) has caused several changes in the operation and planning of power systems and of electricity markets. Sometimes the available non-dispatchable generation is higher than the demand. This generation must be used; otherwise it is wasted if not stored or used to supply additional demand. New policies and market rules, as well as new players, are needed in order to competitively integrate all the resources. The methodology proposed in this paper aims at the maximization of the social welfare in a distribution network operated by a virtual power player that aggregates and manages the available energy resources. When facing a situation of excessive non-dispatchable generation, including wind power, real time pricing is applied in order to induce the increase of consumption so that wind curtailment is minimized. This method is especially useful when actual and day-ahead resources forecast differ significantly. The distribution network characteristics and concerns are addressed by including the network constraints in the optimization model. The proposed methodology has been implemented in GAMS optimization tool and its application is illustrated in this paper using a real 937-bus distribution network with 20.310 consumers and 548 distributed generators, some of them non-dispatchable and with must take contracts. The implemented scenario corresponds to a real day in Portuguese power system.

Stochastic Framework for Strategic Decision-making of Load-serving Entities for Day-ahead Market

The deregulation of electricity markets has diversified the range of financial transaction modes between independent system operator (ISO), generation companies (GENCO) and load-serving entities (LSE) as the main interacting players of a day-ahead market (DAM). LSEs sell electricity to end-users and retail customers. The LSE that owns distributed generation (DG) or energy storage units can supply part of its serving loads when the nodal price of electricity rises. This opportunity stimulates them to have storage or generation facilities at the buses with higher locational marginal prices (LMP). The short-term advantage of this model is reducing the risk of financial losses for LSEs in DAMs and its long-term benefit for the LSEs and the whole system is market power mitigation by virtually increasing the price elasticity of demand. This model also enables the LSEs to manage the financial risks with a stochastic programming framework.

Environmental pressures and impacts of public sector organizations: the case of the Portuguese Military

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, nº 4(5), p. 363-381

Developing and implementing an environmental performance index for the Portuguese military

Business Strategy and the Environment nº 15, p. 71–86

The state of environmental performance evaluation in the public sector: the case of the Portuguese defence sector

Journal of Cleaner Production, nº 17, p. 36-52

Elspot: Nord Pool Spot Integration in MASCEM Electricity Market Simulator

The energy sector in industrialized countries has been restructured in the last years, with the purpose of decreasing electricity prices through the increase in competition, and facilitating the integration of distributed energy resources. However, the restructuring process increased the complexity in market players' interactions and generated emerging problems and new issues to be addressed. In order to provide players with competitive advantage in the market, decision support tools that facilitate the study and understanding of these markets become extremely useful. In this context arises MASCEM (Multi-Agent Simulator of Competitive Electricity Markets), a multi-agent based simulator that models real electricity markets. To reinforce MASCEM with the capability of recreating the electricity markets reality in the fullest possible extent, it is crucial to make it able to simulate as many market models and player types as possible. This paper presents a new negotiation model implemented in MASCEM based on the negotiation model used in day-ahead market (Elspot) of Nord Pool. This is a key module to study competitive electricity markets, as it presents well defined and distinct characteristics from the already implemented markets, and it is a reference electricity market in Europe (the one with the larger amount of traded power).

Particle Swarm Optimization of Electricity Market Negotiating Players Portfolio

Energy systems worldwide are complex and challenging environments. Multi-agent based simulation platforms are increasing at a high rate, as they show to be a good option to study many issues related to these systems, as well as the involved players at act in this domain. In this scope the authors’ research group has developed a multi-agent system: MASCEM (Multi- Agent System for Competitive Electricity Markets), which performs realistic simulations of the electricity markets. MASCEM is integrated with ALBidS (Adaptive Learning Strategic Bidding System) that works as a decision support system for market players. The ALBidS system allows MASCEM market negotiating players to take the best possible advantages from each market context. However, it is still necessary to adequately optimize the players’ portfolio investment. For this purpose, this paper proposes a market portfolio optimization method, based on particle swarm optimization, which provides the best investment profile for a market player, considering different market opportunities (bilateral negotiation, market sessions, and operation in different markets) and the negotiation context such as the peak and off-peak periods of the day, the type of day (business day, weekend, holiday, etc.) and most important, the renewable based distributed generation forecast. The proposed approach is tested and validated using real electricity markets data from the Iberian operator – MIBEL.

Incentive-based demand response programs designed by asset-light retailers for day-ahead market

Following the deregulation experience of retail electricity markets in most countries, the majority of the new entrants of the liberalized retail market were pure REP (retail electricity providers). These entities were subject to financial risks because of the unexpected price variations, price spikes, volatile loads and the potential for market power exertion by GENCO (generation companies). A REP can manage the market risks by employing the DR (demand response) programs and using its' generation and storage assets at the distribution network to serve the customers. The proposed model suggests how a REP with light physical assets, such as DG (distributed generation) units and ESS (energy storage systems), can survive in a competitive retail market. The paper discusses the effective risk management strategies for the REPs to deal with the uncertainties of the DAM (day-ahead market) and how to hedge the financial losses in the market. A two-stage stochastic programming problem is formulated. It aims to establish the financial incentive-based DR programs and the optimal dispatch of the DG units and ESSs. The uncertainty of the forecasted day-ahead load demand and electricity price is also taken into account with a scenario-based approach. The principal advantage of this model for REPs is reducing the risk of financial losses in DAMs, and the main benefit for the whole system is market power mitigation by virtually increasing the price elasticity of demand and reducing the peak demand.