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The purpose of this paper is to analyse professionals’ competencies in supply chain management (SCM) in the mid-sized supermarket sector in Brazil as a way of broadening the understanding of the importance and the use of competencies in business development.

The survey was conducted with 60 managers from 34 companies in the mid-sized supermarket sector in the metropolitan region of Natal, Brazil. The managers evaluated the importance and use of a set of 24 general and specific competencies related to SCM. The gaps between importance and use were identified and analysed.

The results showed that the level of use was below the level of importance for all competencies, and the general competencies somehow received more attention than specific competencies in the development and execution of SCM activities. Moreover, the overall average of the gaps between levels of use and importance calculated for the general competencies was less than the general average of the gaps calculated for the specific skills.

The research was carried out with a sample of mid-sized supermarkets in a particular region. Therefore, it is recommended that the research be extended to other contexts and supermarket companies of other sizes.

The calculated gaps between managers’ expectations or attributed importance and the perceived levels of competence use in supermarket organisations revealed important lines of action for correcting the course in human resources policy.

The present paper elaborated on an opportunities matrix, gaps × importance, showing how managers can set priorities to fill competence gaps and improve the companies’ human resources. Besides, it compares levels of importance and uses for two groups of competencies, general and specific related to SCM.

The purpose of this paper is to present a proposal for structuring the use of problem-based learning (PBL) as an active teaching strategy and assess PBL’s implications for student learning in the undergraduate management degree program of a federal university in Northeastern Brazil. PBL can turn students into active subjects in their own learning and promote the development of decision-making abilities through the identification and analysis of real problems.

The study follows the assumptions of qualitative research and uses the action research approach. The data were collected through reflective reports (texts freely written by students describing their experiences in a course) and through interviews. The collected material formed the basis for analysis and discussion of the results using content analysis.

The results indicate that the PBL teaching strategy has positive implications for student learning in that it promotes the integration of theory and practice, which enhances the motivation to learn. The students perceived the practical aspect, teamwork and presence of an entrepreneur/manager in the PBL classes as factors facilitating learning. By contrast, teamwork and the time involved were seen as factors limiting learning.

The use of PBL demonstrates its potential for learning through the integration of students’ cognitive, behavioral and social dimensions, fostering closer integration with the context of professional activity. The presence of entrepreneurs/managers who present real problems to be analyzed by the students in the classroom can contribute significantly to the promotion of learning and reflection by undergraduate management students.

The results of this study reveals its originality and value to management education in Brazil because it defines a framework for the implementation of PBL as an active learning strategy in a management program, it indicates the potential of PBL for the development of students’ competencies, it increases the potential for integrating theory with professional practice and it can aid the process of training teachers as they assess the implications of PBL for student learning.

The Behavioural Finance contests the modern financial theory statements, specially the rationality conception of the market as well as the agent behaviour. For the Behavioural Finance, the human being is susceptible to make mistakes and often acts under “irrational” and passional impulses. This article describes, comparatively, the Behavioural Finance and the modern finance theory investigating precisely the aversion feeling to loss under the investor view. The comprehension of the aversion feeling of loss is deepened from psychoanalytical theory contribution. As the aversion feeling to loss constitutes an aspect of the human subjectivity and cannot be explained just through quantification, the qualitative methodology was used. It was investigated about the influence meanings, experienced by the investors.