Search results

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the perceptions of cleanliness and organization of the point of sale, hygiene and training of those who serve the public (service) and healthiness of the products, constitute a base for the perception of the quality of food sold in the street. Studies about development of street food trade have gained relevance in academic debate because of its social and economic significance. Usually, aspects related to sanitary issues are presented, and the factors that influence consumer perception regarding quality of food consumed are less explored. This was the focus of this work. The relationships among possible predecessors – attendance, cleanliness, organization and healthiness – were tested, all acting together, influencing the variable perception of product quality. Competitive models were tested because of theoretical divergences regarding the relationship between quality and healthiness, not yet totally clear in the literature.

A quantitative survey was carried out in the city of Diadema (SP, Brazil), getting 603 respondents, with data and theoretical models analyzed by structural equation modeling.

Results indicated that organization variable is not significant regarding perception of product quality, while attendance and healthiness directly affect this perception. On the other hand, cleanliness influences perceived healthiness and this, in turn, reinforces perception of product quality.

The focus of street food traders should be on clerk cleanliness and politeness (characteristics related to the service) that end up influencing the perception that the consumer develops regarding healthiness (characteristic related to product quality).

Usually research studies on this theme include only aspects related to sanitary and safety issues, and those which focus on consumer perception of food quality cover conventional outlets such as bars and restaurants. There are few ones performed as in this study that analyze street food consumer behavior regarding his/her perception of quality, cleanliness, care received, among others.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze patterns and trends of articles that present the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) and that were published in several Brazilian journals. In addition, this paper maps the institutions where the authors of the identified articles are affiliated, and discusses aspects of searching the articles in journals’ archives and other scientific databases.

The work used bibliometrics, which is one of the forms of evaluation and measurement of information flows in scientific knowledge, using mathematical and statistical methods.

The study showed an exponential growth in using SEM in several areas in recent years, with predominance in marketing. Most of the publications were produced by authors from institutions such as USP, FGV and UFRGS, but most authors published only one article using SEM. Almost all published articles used one of the three most common software, especially AMOS®. Surprisingly, many articles did not mention the software used, indicating methodological flaw.

Weaknesses were found regarding the search for articles in the different sources used, indicating that, for literature reviews, the research should be conducted in several databases in a complementary way and not alternatively. This fact becomes critical especially when expressions in languages other than Portuguese were used. This situation suggests an aggravating lack of visibility for the Brazilian scientific community since the articles are less likely to be found.

The paper shows that among the various techniques of multivariate data analysis used in the field of administration, SEM has gained prominence being operationalized using specific software.

This paper aims to analyse the volatility of the fixed income market from 11 countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, USA, Germany and Japan) from January 2000 to December 2011 by examining the interbank interest rates from each market.

To the volatility of interest rates returns, the study used models of auto-regressive conditional heteroscedasticity, autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH), generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (EGARCH), threshold generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (TGARCH) and periodic generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (PGARCH), and a combination of these with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models, checking which of these processes were more efficient in capturing volatility of interest rates of each of the sample countries.

The results suggest that for most markets, studied volatility is best modelled by asymmetric GARCH processes – in this case the EGARCH – demonstrating that bad news leads to a higher increase in the volatility of these markets than good news. In addition, the causes of increased volatility seem to be more associated with events occurring internally in each country, as changes in macroeconomic policies, than the overall external events.

It is expected that this study has contributed to a better understanding of the volatility of interest rates and the main factors affecting this market.

Este estudio analiza la volatilidad del mercado de renta fija de once países (Brasil, Rusia, India, China, Sudáfrica, Argentina, Chile, México, Estados Unidos, Alemania y Japón) de enero de 2000 a diciembre de 2011, mediante el examen de las tasas de interés interbancarias de cada mercado.

Para la volatilidad de los retornos de las tasas de interés, se utilizaron modelos de heteroscedasticidad condicional autorregresiva: ARCH, GARCH, EGARCH, TGARCH y PGARCH, y una combinación de estos con modelos ARIMA, comprobando cuáles de los procesos eran más eficientes para capturar la volatilidad de interés de cada uno de los países de la muestra.

Los resultados sugieren que para la mayoría de los mercados estudiados la volatilidad es mejor modelada por procesos GARCH asimétricos —en este caso el EGARCH— demostrando que las malas noticias conducen a un mayor incremento en la volatilidad de estos mercados que las buenas noticias. Además, las causas de una mayor volatilidad parecen estar más asociadas a eventos que ocurren internamente en cada país, como cambios en las políticas macroeconómicas, que los eventos externos generales.

Se espera que este estudio contribuya a un mejor entendimiento de la volatilidad de las tasas de interés y de los principales factores que afectan a este mercado.

Ingreso fijo, Volatilidad, Países emergentes, Modelos ARCH-GARCH

Artículo de investigación

In 2008, a phenomenon emerged in online retail that attracted the attention of many people, creating a new virtual model of commerce. This phenomenon was called online group buying and arrived in Brazil in 2010. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that affect satisfaction and loyalty to group buying sites.

Through structural equation modeling, the relationships between the attractiveness of discount rates, service quality, popularity, online brand image, antecedent word of mouth (WOM), creativity and trust in relation to consumer general satisfaction, declared loyalty, repurchase intention and positive WOM were observed. A total of 727 valid questionnaires were collected from online group buyers to test the 11 hypotheses proposed in this study.

The main contribution of this study was that it identified the strong influence of service quality, popularity and online brand image on consumer general satisfaction, and the influence of service quality, trust and general satisfaction on repurchase intention. It also identified the influence of trust, creativity and general satisfaction on declared loyalty, and finally, the influence of trust and general satisfaction on positive WOM.

Because of the extensive and robust model, other statistical interactions among the constructs were gauged. It is possible that new structures and paths for alternative models can be proposed in the future with the inclusion of new relationships not analyzed in the present study. Furthermore, future studies should consider testing the generated model in other countries, as the particular features of collective purchasing in Brazil should be taken into account.

In addition to being concerned with the attractiveness of discounts, marketing managers of group buying sites should concentrate their efforts on strengthening perceived quality, image, trust and the creativity of the site to ensure customer loyalty.

The online group buying business model that was established in Brazil differs significantly from the American and European models. As many online group buying studies have been conducted in these markets, Brazilian consumers will enjoy substantial gains in the quality of the service provided by collective purchasing sites through the development of actions that focus on improving the factors that affect these consumers.

The originality of this study lies in the development of a single model that tests a set of factors gauged separately in other studies related to online purchase behavior in a broader perspective.

Over time, technological intensity has been used as a proxy for innovation capability of firms in an industrial sector. However, not only firms belonging to the stratum of high technological intensity are able to innovate. Therefore, this study aims to explore a potential association between technological intensity and innovation capability in firms from different industrial sectors, using the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s classification and the components of innovation capability proposed by Zawislak et al. (2012, 2013).

The authors conducted an exploratory research with four case studies focusing on the innovation capability of Brazilian firms.

The results show that the four firms, each belonging to one stratum of technological intensity, have innovation capability, and the differences regarding this feature can be explained by the balance and development of all firms’ capabilities (technological, operational, managerial and transactional).

In the literature, studies that relate technological intensity and innovation capability are scarce. Therefore, the originality of this research is to relate these two concepts. The most important is that firms can be innovative regardless of their stratum of technological intensity, which shows the importance of other capabilities to ensure the innovation’s success.

In this study, the authors want to identify current possible causes for citing and referencing errors in scholarly literature to compare if something changed from the snapshot provided by Sweetland in his 1989 paper.

The authors analysed reference elements, i.e. bibliographic references, mentions, quotations and respective in-text reference pointers, from 729 articles published in 147 journals across the 27 subject areas.

The outcomes of the analysis pointed out that bibliographic errors have been perpetuated for decades and that their possible causes have increased, despite the encouraged use of technological facilities, i.e. the reference managers.

As far as the authors know, the study is the best recent available analysis of errors in referencing and citing practices in the literature since Sweetland (1989).

Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil’s progress. This paper aims to present a new perspective on the topic of “Engineering and Development in Brazil, Challenges and Prospects” (Guimarães et al., 2007). Its goal is to discuss the need for restructuring the Brazilian system for research, development and innovation (RD&I) and the training of human resources in engineering in the country.

This article is designed to discuss the relations between the performance of the industrial sector and the maturation of engineering in Brazil by looking at the national scientific production in the area in comparison to the world production and to countries (South Korea and The Netherlands). Finally, in terms of training human resources, the Brazilian study abroad program Science without Borders program is discussed in the article as an important tool for the qualification of engineering students in Brazil.

A few of the main findings in this research are as follows: despite being among the top 20 countries in scientific production in Engineering, Brazil still lacks turning this scientific-technological knowledge into products and patents; Brazilian universities and research institutes must build interorganizational collaborations with the industrial sector to increase innovation in the field of engineering; The distribution of the investment in RD&I in engineering must be strategically distributed among its various fields, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between them. The article concludes that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development while offering indications about Brazilian strategic orientation in the development of engineering.

Despite already being well known that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development, this article innovates by associating academic scientific production in engineering to other variables related to economic development, such as gross domestic product, human development index, industrial and manufactured production and the filing of patents. It comes at an important moment when the Brazilian Government is discussing new strategies to increase social and economic development in the country while controlling for the investment in RD&I. Therefore, it is the right moment to discuss national policies in science, technology and innovation, especially in the area of engineering.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) presents specificities that the entrepreneur must address. Entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in SE should reflect specific characteristics of behavior. The purpose of this study is to identify the intention of Brazilian university students to undertake SE, having individual social EO (individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO)-social) as their predictive behavior.

This paper collected study data from Brazilian university students. To test the study’s hypotheses, this paper used confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model, partial least squares and generalized linear regression model.

The results indicate that Brazilian university students positively respond to their intention to become social entrepreneurs in the future, regardless of gender, courses or types of universities. In line with the literature, IEO-Social proved to be a strong predictor of EI-social.

This study was limited to understanding EI-social from IEO-Social. Besides, its sample is non-probabilistic, therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalized.

The results encourage the inclusion of SE in entrepreneurial education programs. They guide the involvement of students from different areas of knowledge in activities aimed at higher education.

Evidence indicates that including the SE theme in entrepreneurial education programs proves to be valuable for opening purposeful career opportunities for students.

The study contributes to eliminating the gap in studies on EI-social in Brazilian university students. It also offers the IEO-social scale, theoretically constructed and with superior psychometric quality.