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The purpose of this paper is to better understand whether firm cooperation and absorptive capacity foster success in seeking public financial support for innovation activities and, by doing so, how they contribute to innovation output.

The authors therefore extend the existing literature focusing on the effects of cooperation and absorptive capacity on specific public financial support for innovation activities in Portuguese firms from local or regional government, central administration and the European Union by using available data from the Community Innovation Survey CIS 2010 and the application of logistic regression models. The empirical analysis enabled a better understanding of the positive relationship of the variables that determine the form of public financial support in the integration of incentives within firms to stimulate innovation.

Therefore, as the level of absorptive capacity in Portuguese firms increases, so does the demand for benefits from public financial support to stimulate innovation from the European Union also increases. The same analysis, now considering the determinant cooperation, notes the positive effects of institutional sources of information and cooperation, in the propensity for seeking public financial incentives from the Central Administration and the European Union. As for internal information and cooperation sources, they are positively related to the integration of incentive measures from the local or Regional Administration and Central Administration.

The paper presents results that allow us to propose some suggestions that both the firms and those responsible for the implementation of public policies can undertake to increment innovation performance.

This article offers a novel approach that brings together management, engineering and organizational behavior. It focuses on the understanding of organizational dynamics in an era of technological change, upholding the importance of organizational agility and of the cultural paradigm in the management of organizations.

In this work, the authors present the conclusions from a set of studies carried out in organizations operating in technical and technological industries. The authors assessed the capabilities of these organizations in terms of operational excellence maturity and its impact on the organizational culture and organizational agility.

Results show the importance of operational excellence either in developing or expanding organizational agility capabilities while reinforcing the cruciality of an excellence-oriented culture to sustain these efforts over time.

Increasingly unstable business environments have led to a growing interest in how to develop and maintain operational excellence in the face of continued and disruptive change. However, this interest has, so far, been advanced with little empirical evidence to support the corresponding predictions. This work offers the first practical evidence that continued focus and optimization of operations, with the right cultural alignment, helps organizations survive and thrive in increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

This paper aims to analyse the importance of service quality and store design as critical variables to promote differentiation and make consumers feel satisfied and committed to a retail brand. Retailers usually undervalue the store design as an element of the strategic mix. However, it may be one of the critical elements to increase retailers’ competitive advantages.

This exploratory study was based on 349 valid responses to a questionnaire online through a snowball sampling approach analysed with structural equation modelling.

The results confirmed that customers’ service quality positively impacts their satisfaction and commitment to the retail brands. However, store design moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and commitment. The consumers with a higher appreciation for store design presented a lower impact of satisfaction on their commitment to the retail brand. This result shows that a significant part of their satisfaction includes store design appreciation.

This exploratory study was restricted to the Portuguese market, and the sample resulted from a convenience snowball approach.

The retailers should consider store design as an essential variable in their marketing plans to have satisfied and committed customers and be more competitive.

Research on consumers’ behaviour in the retail sector, including the assessment of store design, presents a great potential within the framework of consumer–brand relationship theory, but it is still under-researched. The new model presented highlights the role of store design as a moderator variable.

This paper aims to analyses barriers as a determinant of ongoing or abandoned innovation activities. The literature exploits barriers as the nature of innovation and its influence on firm’s. The main focus is the Portuguese SMEs and the impacts that act as barriers in the development of innovation activities.

The database was obtained through the Community Innovation Survey 2010 (CIS 2010) that was coordinated by EUROSTAT. In this sense, a logistic regression model is proposed, which makes it possible to analyse the relations between three or more variables, depending on whether the relationship is one of dependence or interdependence, thus allowing the application of distinct statistical techniques, using 6,160 firms

There are several sources of information that are associated with the development of innovation projects.

The importance of barriers to the development of innovation activities, as well as it being a decisive factor in the impediment to and abandon of the same, was noted.

This study also demonstrated that each case is different and that a barrier in one firm can at the same time be a window of opportunity for another firm.

This paper aims to propose an automated framework for agile development and simulation of robotic palletizing cells. An automatic offline programming tool, for a variety of robot brands, is also introduced.

This framework, named AdaptPack Studio, offers a custom-built library to assemble virtual models of palletizing cells, quick connect these models by drag and drop, and perform offline programming of robots and factory equipment in short steps.

Simulation and real tests performed showed an improvement in the design, development and operation of robotic palletizing systems. The AdaptPack Studio software was tested and evaluated in a pure simulation case and in a real-world scenario. Results have shown to be concise and accurate, with minor model displacement inaccuracies because of differences between the virtual and real models.

An intuitive drag and drop layout modeling accelerates the design and setup of robotic palletizing cells and automatic offline generation of robot programs. Furthermore, A* based algorithms generate collision-free trajectories, discretized both in the robot joints space and in the Cartesian space. As a consequence, industrial solutions are available for production in record time, increasing the competitiveness of companies using this tool.

The AdaptPack Studio framework includes, on a single package, the possibility to program, simulate and generate the robot code for four different brands of robots. Furthermore, the application is tailored for palletizing applications and specifically includes the components (Building Blocks) of a particular company, which allows a very fast development of new solutions. Furthermore, with the inclusion of the Trajectory Planner, it is possible to automatically develop robot trajectories without collisions.

This paper aims to propose a translation library capable of generating robots proprietary code after their offline programming has been performed in a software application, named AdaptPack Studio, running over a robot simulation and offline programming software package.

The translation library, named AdaptPack Studio Translator, is capable to generate proprietary code for the Asea Brown Boveri, FANUC, Keller und Knappich Augsburg and Yaskawa Motoman robot brands, after their offline programming has been performed in the AdaptPack Studio application.

Simulation and real tests were performed showing an improvement in the creation, operation, modularity and flexibility of new robotic palletizing systems. In particular, it was verified that the time needed to perform these tasks significantly decreased.

The design and setup of robotics palletizing systems are facilitated by an intuitive offline programming system and by a simple export command to the real robot, independent of its brand. In this way, industrial solutions can be developed faster, in this way, making companies more competitive.

The effort to build a robotic palletizing system is reduced by an intuitive offline programming system (AdaptPack Studio) and the capability to export command to the real robot using the AdaptPack Studio Translator. As a result, companies have an increase in competitiveness with a fast design framework. Furthermore, and to the best of the author’s knowledge, there is also no scientific publication formalizing and describing how to build the translators for industrial robot simulation and offline programming software packages, being this a pioneer publication in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of performance measurement systems (PMS) on organizational performance in public sector. In addition, it investigates the moderating effects of the organizational context.

Using a multivariate analysis, the authors investigate the extent of PMS used among Portuguese Government agencies and their effects on organizational performance. Data were gathered from the only survey (based on their Comparative Public Organization Data Base for Research and Analysis survey) applied to the Portuguese Government agencies.

The authors find that the extent to which agencies use PMS is positively associated with the organizational performance (in a multidimensional perspective). Moreover, the organizational performance is contingent upon the fit between PMS and the agency’s context in light of the contingency theory (especially the orientation to citizens and the level of competition).

Although prior research has studied the use of PMS in public sector organizations, one question that has not been effectively answered is whether performance information is effectively used to improve public sector performance. In this way, this paper contributes to the understanding of the impact of PMS on the organizational performance, providing empirical evidence in a country that is in a period of “transition” in the introduction of NPM reforms.

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate if, motivated by political competition, municipalities engage in earnings management practices through discretionary accruals.

Quantitative methodology.

Results indicate that, in those municipalities where political competition is greatest, there is a greater tendency to report positive net earnings close to zero. This study also indicates that for such purpose, discretionary accruals are used.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to the lack of information in the area of earnings management in the public sector, to be able to evaluate responsibility, performance and efficiency regarding the allocation of public resources and the degree of satisfaction of citizens/voters' needs-accountability.

This study aims to analyze the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) of cryptocurrencies on multiple platforms by observing whether there is a discrepancy in the levels of efficiency between different exchanges. Additionally, EMH is tested in a multivariate way: whether the prices of the same cryptocurrencies traded on different exchanges are temporally related to each other. ADF and KPSS tests, whereas the vector autoregression model of order p – VAR(p) – for multivariate system.

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum show efficiency in the weak form on the main platforms in each market alone. However, when estimating a VAR(p) between prices among exchanges, there was evidence of Granger causality between cryptocurrencies in all exchanges, suggesting that EMH is not adequate due to cross information.

It is essential to assess the cryptocurrency market in a multivariate way, not only to favor its maturation process, but also to promote a broad understanding of its inherent risks. Thus, it will be possible to develop financial products that are actively managed in a more sophisticated cryptocurrency market.

There is a possibility of performing arbitrage on different exchanges and market assets through cross-exchanges. Thus, emphasizing the need for regulation of exchanges in the digital asset market, as an eventual price manipulation on a single platform can impact others, which generates various distortions.

This study is the first to find evidence of cross-information for the same (and other) cryptocurrencies among different exchanges.

This paper aims to examine how verbal responses (denials vs apologies) following a trust violation in cooperative relationships influence reconciliation by changing attributions of responsibility for the transgression and transgressor’s perceived integrity. Additionally, the moderating role of perceived sincerity of the response is examined.

Two experimental studies were conducted with 465 participants. Hypotheses were tested using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and moderated serial mediation analyses with bootstrapping procedures.

In the occurrence of integrity-based trust violations, denials are more effective than apologies to repair trust. The positive indirect effects of these verbal responses on reconciliation are explained by a two-part mediating mechanism (attribution of responsibility followed by transgressor’s perceived integrity). Additionally, when responses are perceived as highly credible, denials are much more effective in deflecting blame than apologies.

This study contributes to the literature on trust repair by examining when and why managers’ verbal responses to breaches of trust may be more or less effective in restoring cooperative relationships.

Managers must be aware that their perceived integrity following a breach of trust is influenced by the level of responsibility taken. Therefore, they should choose wisely which defensive tactics (apologies or denials) to use.

As trust plays a central role in many cooperative relationships, choosing an appropriate response after a transgression is critical to solving conflicts both within and between organizations.

This work contributes to the reconciliation literature by uncovering the underlying cognitive mechanisms and boundary conditions by which different verbal responses influence reconciliation.