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This study focuses on analysing Japanese pop culture events to determine whether they may be useful marketing tools for a location with a distinctive culture from where they are organized. It also examines how the popular culture events differ from other events and what impacts they have on these destinations.

A mixed-method approach is used to analyse data from a questionnaire provided to 364 participants from these events and seven semi-structured interviews with event organizers or their representatives from events on this topic in Portugal, France, Spain, Denmark and North America.

According to the research, these events are regarded as unique and unusual from the perspective of the customer due to the variety of activities they offer, the use of imagination they inspire and the engaged fan participation. These occasions have been found to strengthen and propagate Japanese popular culture outside of its place of origin and arouse interest in it.

Several studies have examined the appeal of Japanese pop culture, but few have investigated the impact of events to enhance the destination's image where they are held, as well as their potential outside of Japan. With already over a hundred official events of this theme held annually, with a sizable number of participants, a study of this paradigm exposes its potential for promoting a culture that is growing in popularity outside of its place of origin and understanding the effects it has on these various regions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate low-wage retention using a survival analysis approach.

Variables explaining low-wage retention take into account the characteristics of the employee, such as education, age, tenure with the company, gender and nationality, and the characteristics of the job and the company such as industry affiliation, number of employees, age of the company and location.

Female workers and workers with low level of education, older ones, those with more seniority in the company and those of Asian origin remain longer in a low-wage situation. Also, workers in smaller and older companies located outside the Lisbon region are more likely to stay in a low-wage situation.

The policy implications are clear. Education plays a prominent role: the higher the level of education of the individual, the higher the probability of him/her leaving low pay. Training programs may help employees in Portugal to leave the low-wage situation. Furthermore, policies must address the different mobility rates of different nationalities and different activities. Training programs are more urgent for hotels and restaurants and transports and communication. The findings also indicate that those initially working in younger firms and larger firms have a higher probability of leaving the low-wage situation. This is a stimulus for decision makers to stimulate employment in the younger firms or in the larger firms.

Despite low-wage retention being a well-known field of research, to our knowledge this is the first research paper using survival analysis to explain the duration of a low-wage situation.

The purpose of this paper is to show the evaluation of the learning process to determinate if engineering student marks would be better from sand-table teaching than from traditional teaching.

The innovative teaching project incorporating digital sand-table use was evaluated by asking undergraduate and postgraduate students to rate their learning experiences and by analyzing their academic performance.

The results show that the percentage of students passing the courses, and marks on the course tests were higher for students taught using sand-table, compared to students taught without using this tool.

Engineering curricula are constantly revised to address the demands for undergraduate courses and specialization courses, and the differing needs of actual practice in relation to theoretical knowledge.

The experience at the University of Córdoba (Spain) offers some insights to other engineering degrees and educational institutions that wish to focus on the development of innovative academic programs and student capabilities.

This study aims to improve the reception and positioning of materials in the warehouse, as well as the internal logistics of a bus manufacturing company by acting upon the processes of supply line management.

This study is based on the action research methodology which, through a practical approach, intends to generate transferrable knowledge to other organizations whose situations are similar to that of this study. The practical actions and the knowledge acquired co-create the changes needed for the improvement processes.

Through these improvements, it is possible to standardize supply and eliminate the retention of picking carts on the line, simplify the management of materials provided in supermarket boxes, improve the control of materials and facilitate the process of picking and materials storage. A kanban card-based supply system was also expanded to the bus assembly line, allowing more control over valuable materials.

This study has demonstrated how the implementation of lean techniques on a bus assembly line can lead to increased consistency of supply to the line and improved working conditions, both in the production and warehouse areas. Furthermore, it has set a new standard of the internal logistics processes and the inclusion of process recording in the working instructions.

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a continuous improvement methodology used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Although there are several articles published, only two have analyzed the literature from a bibliometrics perspective. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the LSS literature by bibliometrics, identifying its state of the art, scientific gaps and research trends.

Articles published up to 2016 in the database Scopus were investigated to identify the most significant articles, authors, journals, institutions and countries based on citation counting as well as the most frequent keywords and subject areas on LSS. Articles published in 2014, 2015 and 2016 were analyzed to point out scientific gaps and to identify eight main research trends on LSS.

The research trends are: “LSS implementation”, “Healthcare”, “LSS tools”, “Human factors”, “Expansion of results”, “SME”, “LSS combined with other methodologies” and “Education”. The research outcomes also point out the most significant articles, authors, journals, institutions and countries in LSS literature.

This research contributes to develop the state of the art of LSS and helps professionals as well as researchers to identify which issues new studies should address.

The performance of the literature is measured based on the number of citations and not on the number of published papers, and the bibliometric analysis covers the highest number of articles so far (319 articles). Besides, the identification of the main research trends on LSS is exclusively based on the most recent studies.

In line with the recent adoption of game dynamics to promote motivation and engagement in business contexts, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how gamification tools (i.e. points, levels, challenges, badges and ranking) are used to manage cooperation networks.

To develop this purpose, an exploratory case study is conducted on the RedeMac Qualifying Program as a set of tools to enhance customer service in RedeMac, a cooperation network of hardware stores in southern Brazil.

The results showed the motivating role of gamification in engaging associates to the network’s decisions. The findings also indicated the effectiveness of points and badges in engaging members and highlighted opportunities to apply tools of challenge. In addition, the paper argues about the constraints for ranking in cooperation networks.

The study reinforces literature assumptions that stand for the motivating potential of points, levels, badges and challenges. However, the case study highlighted the constraints to adopt the ranking tool in cooperation networks.

From the managerial point of view, the study informs managers about the adoption of gamification tools to promote motivation and engagement of associates in cooperation networks, facilitating the achievement of collective goals.

In spite of the growth of empirical literature in applying gamification to business contexts, there are no reports of research about the adoption of gamification tools on cooperative relations in a network organization.

E-commerce platforms offer service guarantees (SGs) to improve consumers’ perceived quality and satisfaction. This survey aimed to test the direct and indirect effects of SGs on consumers’ perceived quality and satisfaction concerning the services of an international e-commerce platform.

The survey sample consisted of 378 consumers of an international e-commerce platform. Structural equation modelling (SEM) tested two structural models.

The first hypothetical model demonstrated that SGs positively and directly affects perceived quality and consumers' satisfaction on an e-commerce platform. This model also revealed that the perceived quality directly and positively impacted consumer satisfaction. The second hypothetical model confirmed that perceived quality mediates the relationship between SGs and satisfaction. Moreover, SGs positively and indirectly impacts consumer satisfaction.

This study suggests that e-commerce platforms use SGs as a marketing strategy in their business models to increase perceived quality and consumer satisfaction. However, to positively impact the perception of quality and consumer satisfaction, such SGs must have the following characteristics: unconditional, easy to understand and communicate, meaningful, easy and painless to invoke, and easy and quick to collect.

This research demonstrated the direct effects of SGs on perceived quality and consumer satisfaction on an international e-commerce platform. SGs directly impacts consumer satisfaction with the platform, even if they have not experienced its quality attributes (reliability, customisation, security and design). The indirect effects of SGs on consumer satisfaction were also proven, mediated by perceived quality. No previous study demonstrated such relationships simultaneously on e-commerce platforms.

This study aims to examine the price and income elasticities of short- and long-run industrial electricity demand in Brazil between 2003 and 2020. The research also examines the impacts of COVID-19 in Brazil’s industrial electricity sector, including an analysis in states more and less industrialized.

Dynamic adjustments models in panel data are used to present robust estimates and analyze the impact of different methodologies on reported elasticities.

The short-run price elasticity is estimated at −0.448, while the long-run values are around −1.60. Regarding income elasticity, the value is 0.069 in the short-run and is concentrated in 0.25 in the long-run. The inelastic results of income show that the industrial demand for electric energy follows the trend of loss of competitiveness of the Brazilian industry in the past years. In addition, the price of natural gas, the level of employment, and, in specific cases, the level of imports also influence industrial electricity demand.

The research is a pioneer in the investigation of the industrial behavior of electricity of the Brazilian industrial branch, using as control variables, the average temperature, and the level of rainfall, this one, so important for a country whose main source is hydroelectric. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study, which is prepared to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on electric consumption in the industrial sector, investigating these impacts, including in the states considered more and less industrialized. The estimates generated may help in the design of the Brazilian energy policy.

This work presents a model of a two-period economy to discuss the link between the precautionary motivation for holding international reserves and the country's monetary policy concerns due to a crisis.

There are two possible states of nature in the second period of the economy: a normal state and a crisis state. These states of nature represent uncertainty to the policy maker and he can insure against a crisis. The household has a constant-elasticity-of-substitution (CES) utility function, where utility depends on consumption and money.

By allowing money in the utility function and in the household financial constraint and considering that the objective of the central bank is to smooth inflation, it is concluded that monetary policy plays a role in the precautionary motivation of holding international reserves.

The model can be used to calculate optimal reserves holdings in its complete or even in its simplified version. Furthermore, it is possible to evaluate the impact of the intra-temporal substitution elasticity between consumption and real money in the decision of accumulating international reserves.

Higher intra-temporal substitution elasticities implies in more insurance via international reserves, and this discussion is not found in the existent literature on international reserves.