Repositório RCAAP

A well-organised transport administrative structure serves as a necessary tonic for transport system development of any society. This study identifies existing state of transport administration and major challenges facing transport administrative structure in Lagos, Oyo and Ogun States, Nigeria. It adopted cross-sectional research design and anchored on both primary and secondary sources of data. Transport administrative structure (consolidation and unbundling designs) were used to show state of transport administration operating in the selected States, while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to prove statistical variation among problems associated with transport administrative structure. Findings revealed that the transport administrative structure in the selected States is not uniform as Lagos State operates consolidation design; Ogun State follows unbundling design; while Oyo State operates on neither consolidation nor unbundling designs. Findings further revealed that fragmented administrative bodies with overlapping responsibilities; incomplete supervision mechanisms; corruption and mismanagement of funds are major challenges affecting existing transport administrative structure. ANOVA result shows significant variation among the observed problems. Thus, study recommends that Ministry and Agencies in charge of transport systems should run on consolidated structure that allows for easy day-to-day planning, monitoring and coordination of various transport modes under one administrative body.

The objective of this research was to examine the contribution of the disseminative capability of the sources in the knowledge transfer between two international mother companies and a joint venture installed in Brazil. Successful research on international knowledge transfer generally emphasises the absorptive capability of the receivers and other factors, while the role of the knowledge source(s) has been neglected. Considering this gap, the literature review synthesised the main attributes related to the source’s disseminative capability in the knowledge transfer process, among them, the ability to transfer and the motivation to engage in the process. The joint venture involved representatives of companies basedin France and Japan. A qualitative, longitudinal cross-sectional approach was used. This methodology afforded a unique opportunity to examine the phenomenon of the cross-border knowledge transfer process from the perspective of the sources. The results suggest that, in terms of the knowledge transfer capability, the sources used experiences from other projects, experienced expatriates and the exploitation of social integration mechanisms, which allowed satisfactory results concerning the knowledge transfer. Regarding the motivation to transfer, the enthusiasm of the sources was more significant in the initial phases.

Within the workplace, promoting positive feelings in regard to work well-being and work passion has become essential to an increase in health, motivation, and consequently to an increase in productivity. This study aims to assess cultural values, cultural intelligence and multicultural personality as predictors of work well-being and work passion. Based on a sample of 240 workers aged 20 to 64 years (M = 36.78, SD = 10.22), multiple linear regression was carried out. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis show that the dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance have a negative influence on work well-being and work passion, whereas emotional stability is the dimension with the highest predictive value for both constructs. On the other hand, cultural intelligence has no significant predictor effect. As organisations must invest in enhancing work well-being and work passion, the identification of their predictors is of the utmost importance.

This study examines the influence of authentic leadership on employees from public organizations analyzed through self-determination theory. Over the years, researchers analyzed different particularities of authentic leadership and its importance in nowadays’ society. However, fewer researchers were interested in analyzing the influence of authentic leadership on employees through self-determination theory, especially in the perception of public ethical behavior. The theoretical model of this study proposes that authentic leadership is negatively correlated with public employees’ positive attitude toward unethical behavior, namely corrupt acts. Also, authentic leadership and job satisfaction are positively related with public employees’ work motivation. This positive relationship contributes to the decrease level of public employees’ positive attitude toward corruption acts. The study was realized in different public organizations from Republic of Moldova. The total sample is composed by 98 participants. The hypotheses were tested through Multiple Hierarchical Regression. The study results showed that authentic leadership has a positive impact on work motivation. However, job satisfaction does not have any influence on public employees’ perception of corruption acts. By contrast, authentic leadership behavior does have a positive impact on public employees’ perception of corruption acts, but only when they perceive these acts as less serious.

This project discusses the importance of evaluating a company’s staffing methods, in order to improve and optimize people recruitment, selection, as well as integration and socialization in the organization. The particular focus is the implementation of Social Media (SM) and e-recruitment in a private sector company, reveling the importance of these digital media to recruit candidates with the desired profile and to support the new collaborators’ integration and socialization. A business project is presented, following a scientific-technical approach, in the analysis of functions and in the profiles definitions and on information obtained through semi-structured interviews with human resources specialists who are responsible for recruitment and selection as well as interviews with newly hired workers in the company, demonstrating the effectiveness of these means for jobseekers. At the same time, a project study for the implementation of new digital tools in the company is prepared. This study shows that the development of a new website articulated with SM, for which business pages have been built, in addition to the use of e-recruitment portals, is a real benefit for the organization because they facilitate and increase the performance of the recruitment and selection process at the same time promoting the company’s image.

The Project entitled Methodology for Recruitment Capacitor: a case study (Fusion Resourcing - A case study) emerged from a need of the firm Innovagency SA that operates in the technological field and in the digital communication field. This need is associated with the difficulty of recruiting programmers with specific technical knowledge and skills related to the most sophisticated technology platforms, currently used on the web. It presents the design and implementation of a synergetic fusion, recruitment, selection, and training and integration solution supported by a “Trainee Academy” called “i9.station”. Based on the results obtained, the interest and potential of this fusion approach it is approve. Both in terms of recruitment effectiveness and the effectiveness of the selection process associated with training, as well as in the speed and strength of both competency acquisition and process of socio-professional and technical integration in the firm and in the work teams, proving, above all, an investment capable of generating generous positive returns.

In recent years, the mold industry has increased and nowadays it is considered an important export industry for Portugal. However, despite its new technology and modernization, the employers complain of a lack of human resources in this sector. Some CEO’s believe that many young students are not aware of the opportunities in this industry. This research analyses the main reasons for proximity and distance between students’ awareness and the reality of the industry and suggests some of the strategic areas on which we can act on in order to solve the problem. These areas are the unawareness of reality and the industry opportunities; the insufficiency of a practical component in teaching; the expected salary of the students leaving the higher education maladjusted to reality; the long and uncertain working hours; and the unawareness of the job profiles and career plans in the industry This research also tries to achieve some guidelines which can be used for future procedures in mold enterprises, schools or eventually other industries with the same problem.

The aim of this research is to develop and try a conceptual model that examines the impacts of work self-efficacy (SEFF) on female frontline employees’ (FLEs) work-family conflict and perceived politics and at the same time a potential moderating role of tenure in a hospitality context in Turkey. In this research, a total number of 151 utilizable questionnaires were individually collected from a sample of full-time female FLEs in the survey premises. The proposed hypotheses were tested applying PLS-SEM. Findings, according to the hierarchical regression tests, reveal that SEFF made a significant negative influence on both work-family conflict and perceived politics. Findings also show that tenure buffers the effect of SEFF on these outcomes. This research procures implications for hotel organizations in terms of mitigating female FLEs’ work-family conflict and politics perceptions. In addition, this research ensures effective guidelines to apply potential management practices and improve job results within a hotel job context. Theoretically, this study by exploring the untested effects and relationships such as the influence of work self-efficacy on female FLEs’ work-family conflict and politics perceptions lends further contribution to the tourism and hospitality management literature. Also, the current study carried the Conservation of Resources theory to one step further.

Due to rapid development and consumer adoption of technology, the hospitality industry has dramatically increased online-based user-generated reviews for a variety of services, such as those found in eWOM communities (e.g., TripAdvisor). Few studies have tested—among eWOM communities—the correlation between hoteliers’ review site use intensity and hotel characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to examine the predictors of TripAdvisor use intensity, as perceived by Moroccan hoteliers. After the literature review on user-generated content, a quantitative study based on a structured questionnaire survey was developed, and correlation analyses were conducted to empirically validate the relationship between hotel characteristics and the use of TripAdvisor among a population of 48 hotel managers. The results showed that all variables studied commitment, competence, hotel size (number of beds), hotel category, and type of ownership were positively related to the intensity of use of review sites. This study deepens hotel practitioners’ understanding of the importance of user-generated content and offers suggestions on how to improve eWOM advocacy. Moreover, this paper contributes to the recent and still scanty research line on eWOM from the hoteliers’ perspective. The novelty lies in the positive relationships between hotel features (commitment, competence, hotel size, hotel category, and type of ownership) and user-generated review sites (TripAdvisor). It extends current literature and provides practitioners with some guidance on user-generated content and hotel characteristics.

Several studies have shown the impact of social media on tourism and the role of digital influencers. However, the relationship between social media, digital influencers, and the customer decision journey has not been much studied. To help fill this gap, the present study examines the role of digital influencers during each phase of the customer decision journey using an online survey. The findings from 244 social media users show that the majority use social networks when planning a trip, however, sharing the experiences of other travellers is not a relevant aspect. While, overall, digital influencers have no significant impact, their followers tend to value their content, visit the sites they suggest, and share their own experiences, mostly through Instagram.

The digital tourism ecosystem is changing driven by the massive use of new technologies and the increase of data generated by travelers during their trips. In this digital landscape, businesses in the tourism sector are adapting their strategies to take better advantage of new knowledge that can be extracted from the Internet, specifically from social networks. The objective of this research is to define the content strategy in social networks that businesses in the digital tourism sector should follow and to highlight the importance of new data visualization techniques for Marketing and Marketing analytics. To this end, tourist communities of Twitter users have been detected by analyzing the User Generated Content (UGC) and applying algorithms for data visualization on a sample of n = 10.00 tweets from the interactions between the UGC on Twitter and the 25 Top Hotels in the World as designated by TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards. A total of n = 3.158 tweets were analyzed, focusing specifically on comments that had hashtags and interactions with these hotels, with the aim of detecting communities according to the type of content shared, in order to measure the communities’ impact and influence in the digital tourism sector. The results of this research study identify the main topics related to the tourism sector and the most active communities according to their impact, which allows CEOs and managers of tourism companies to refine their marketing strategies for the digital tourism industry.

The recent growth in scale and relevance of social networks has generated new possibilities for communication and interaction with and among their users in the tourism sector. As Spain is among the world’s top tourism destinations, it is valuable to study its presence and engagement with users of official social networks. These social networks are used to promote Spain as a tourist destination. This study’s methodology focused on measuring a series of indicators of destination performance through the online analysis tool ‘Fanpage Karma’. Data were obtained for each of the last four full years (2015 to 2018), with the purpose of deepening understanding of destination performance, including its evolution. The findings show that Facebook’s importance increasingly declined, despite maintaining a large number of followers, it has seen reduced publications and, above all, less interactions with users. By contrast, Instagram has experienced continuous growth in promoting Spain as a tourist destination, demonstrating increasing levels of interaction with potential travellers. Implications for academia and industry are drawn from the findings.

This paper focuses on Creative Cities of Literature of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and analyses how the policies and actions of the cities in this network can contribute to their cultural environment. It builds a mixed theoretical framework that looks at UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, the Educating Cities Network and the European Heritage Strategy for the 21st Century. Then, to establish a set of recommendations that assesses the management of literary heritage in creative cities of literature, we have carried out a two-phase content analysis of the participating cities’ monitoring reports. In the first phase, the analysis is found on the specific criteria of cities of literature that are already part of UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. In the second phase, the analysis is based on the list of challenges and recommendations defined by the European Heritage Strategy for the 21st century. This analysis shows that the City of Literature programme as a whole is a database of best practices for developing an urban literary environment. The article presents a set of actions to enhance the cultural environment of a literary city by focusing on its use of its literary heritage.

This paper discusses how interpretation of an artwork can contribute to intensifying heritage tourism experiences, based on an examination of the altarpiece of the former convent of Santo António do Carmo of Olinda, which was designed to promote Catholic triumphalism. The objective is to present the first level of artwork interpretation and highlight the importance of disseminating information about works of art, thereby providing a fuller understanding of their potential role in enhancing heritage tourism’s value. This qualitative, exploratory study included on-site visits and documentary research on the altar’s interpretation. The results suggest that interpretation about artistic objects is important, including key elements such as artistic movements (i.e. chronology), materials used, functions, artwork commissions, artistic affiliations and a brief corresponding description. The findings support the conclusion that interpretation makes tourist attractions more appealing and contributes to tourism development, as well as promoting interest in heritage and strengthening its value.

Madeira Island is an Atlantic island, that was colonized by Portuguese in the year 1420. The first vineyards introduced in the island were Malmsey, imported from Greece, in the XV century leading to the production of liquorish wine, Madeira Wine. Recently, table wine is also produced. The present study aims to understand the contribution of Madeira Wine production on touristic experiences as well its role on landscape maintenance, local identity, natural resources conservation, job creation and economy. A questionnaire survey was delivered to tourists, and two too semi-structured interviews: to a local wine producer- Quinta do Barbusano and a Chef- Dúlio Freitas respectively, on December 2018. In Quinta do Barbusano two red wines, two white wines and one Rosé are produced. Since 2018, Quinta do Barbusano promotes a new product “Wine tourism”, offering wine tastings, farm’s visits and a lunch providing regional gastronomy, using local products. Secondary data was also consulted, such as governmental and national Official statistical data, concerning Madeira Wine production and Madeira Wine commercialization. The results presented in this study reflect that Madeira Wine production can play a key role in sustainable tourism. The authors also featured as research limitations the need to improve survey sample size, as well the number of interviews in order to reach particularly relevant actors in this field.

Rural tourism meets the needs of a growing group of urban consumers who seek to break away from everyday life and gain a reinvigorating, rural and authentic experience that integrates traditions, customs and local identity. Through its peculiar characteristics such as hospitality and its symbolic materials, rural tourism company owners have an opportunity to diversify their activities here.The offer of interactive and dynamic experiences refers to the singularity of places and the personalization of experiences, which are decisive factors in the affirmation of destinations with rural characteristics and for the differentiation of rural tourism establishments.The present research presents the first phases of an investigation using a set of semi-structured interviews with the owners of rural settlements (rural tourism), with selection based on their location in the county, their size and the experiential activities they promote and that are disseminated through communication channels. The aspects considered in the collection of data are related to the need to deduce the symbols of hospitality, characterized by history, local culture, gastronomy and tradition, along with other aspects that influence good service.From the analysis of the results, it was possible to conclude that rural tourism establishments, know well what tourists are looking for in rural space and develop several activities (individual or in partnership) to attend their needs. The managers also reveal distinguished behaviour to give a personalized and high-quality customer service.

This study sought to investigate the importance of cultural and creative tourism associated with ‘celebrations’ (i.e., festivais, festas, feiras and eventos [festivals, feasts, fairs and events]) in the Algarve region of Portugal. The resulting paper first discusses the significance of cultural and creative tourism and its interconnections with sustainable development in a region traditionally linked with ‘sun and sea’ tourism products. The methodological framework was a case study that focused on links between cultural and creative tourism and the dynamics of celebrations in 16 Algarve municipalities (concelhos municipais). The study was based on content analysis of data gathered with a questionnaire distributed to camara municipal (city council) culture and/or tourism responsibles from the 16 Algarve municipalities, namely, those (technicians) whose jobs are related to enhancing the attractiveness of the cultural resources associated with celebrations. The results reveal an increasing recognition of the importance of cultural patterns to municipals’ tourism offers based on popular and everyday culture, which contribute to the Algarve’s authentic identity and heterogeneous features.

This study aims to analyze the uses of industrial heritage as a possibility for tourism. The theme is new and offers a range of alternatives for tourism as it includes, in this field, demonstrations of industry histories and their relationship between the city's past and future. The tourist possibility focused on industrial heritage shows the construction of historical heritage, its memory and identity. The object of study chosen is a former metallurgist founded one of the main industries in Brazil, located in the northeast of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and that had a strong influence on the economic development of this region. The methodological approach is descriptive and used to support the theoretical studies about heritage, memory and identity, as well as cultural tourism. The discussion about industrial heritage opens the possibility of knowing and understanding how the productive processes that collaborated for the industrial development of regions that had technologies and workforce needed to make the transformation that has occurred. Thus, it is verified that the governmental recognition of heritage can be an instrument for stimulating cultural tourism, through new uses to the industrial heritage collections.

The purpose of this study was to explore creativity and wellbeing characteristics in a sample of Portuguese tourists while simultaneously building a creative tourist profile. A sample of 857 Portuguese tourists with ages ranging from 17 to 76 years was used. The Creative Personality Scale short form and the Tourism Experience Scale were applied for data collection. The results indicated positive and significant correlations between wellbeing and creativity. Women showed higher levels of wellbeing. Older tourists performed better in creativity. Age had a significant influence only on creativity and not on tourists’ overall wellbeing. Non-students obtained higher and significant scores for creativity, while overall wellbeing was not influenced by having a job (student vs non-student). A significant multiple linear regression model suggested that wellbeing and age are significant predictors of creativity in tourism settings. Wellbeing rankings showed positive emotions in first place, creativity in second place and meaning in third place. In conclusion, the results indicated that creativity and wellbeing are important factors for tourism experiences and that Portuguese tourists’ psychological profile already shows evidence that unique and memorable experiences are essential in tourism destinations.

Financial crises often lead to an increase of pathological symptoms which have a negative impact on life satisfaction. This study analysed the moderating role of social support on the relationship between perceived financial threat and life satisfaction, during austerity periods. Structural equation modelling (SEM) using multiple-group analysis was used to assess the obtained results. The collected sample was composed by 901 Portuguese individuals, 603 females and 298 males, with an average age of 37 years old. Overall, results indicated a model in which perceived financial threat and social support were negatively and positively associated with life satisfaction, respectively. The moderating effect of social support revealed that in the group with the highest level of support there was a significant decrease in the association between perceived financial threat and life satisfaction, i.e., social support mitigated the negative effects of perceived financial threat on life satisfaction. The implications of these results are discussed.