RCAAP Repository

In Portugal, researchers have been paying special attention to thebanking history. In the majority of the cases, the responsible people for itdecided to seize the occasion of celebrating an important date in thehistory of the enterprises in order to publish their case studies. In thisbrief study, part of that research’s results will be presented, as well assome important aspects will be reviewed, such as: structure anddevelopment of the banking network; the coverage of its servicesthroughout the country; mergers and amalgamations: strategies andentrepreneurial cultures. Simultaneously, some ill-clarified subjects willbe mentioned, and it would be of a great interest to research them.

Even before the accession of Portugal to the European Union (to whatwas then the EEC), the various supports that our country started toreceive made capital play an important role, as a way to promotedevelopment plans, namely in poor areas. More recently, the CommunitySupport Framework (CSF) has been an important help as regards thedevelopment in Portugal. The II CSF was in force from 1994 to 1999 andPortugal received European funds to promote development actionsmainly at a local level as a way to develop the country. The developmentof the entrepreneurial tissue of a country leads to its development. Underthe II CSF it was launched the RIME Programme (Regime de Incentivosàs MicroEmpresas – Regime of Support to Micro-Firms) which will beanalysed throughout this article. Some aspects related to this programme(in the northern region of Portugal) will be presented here, highlightingstrong and weak points, as well as suggestions in order for futureprogrammes (or changes in the present ones), under the III CSF, topromote a better and well-balanced development of our country.

In this article we concentrate our attention on the activity-basedtechniques as costing, management and budget in the context in which thecompanies need to improve the value they offer to their clients,identifying and eliminating activities that don’t provide value to theproduct. This reflection about company activities is a contribution fromthe activity-based techniques to the global strategy of companies.After being analysed the essential features of the activity-basedtechniques, we will focus on the operational development of the mainactivity-based techniques such as: costing, management and budget,being questioned the “real” value of these techniques.Our goal is to show that any accounting system and managementtechniques are valid provided that they allow companies to go along withtechnology evolution, living cycle of products, management control, inshort, the changes in the company strategies.

The complexity around the financial leasing makes hard to find anotion that includes all the aspects of a contractual operation that joins anadvantageous source of funds, namely for the company owners that wantto use equipment assets, which allows them to amortize the assets withthe profit coming from their exploitation.Representing a financing operation designed to offer a means to use acertain asset, leasing it instead of buying it, it’s comprehensible that the lessor doesn’t assume any inherent risks as regards the leased asset, suchas: loss and deterioration, vices and defects and the absence ofinstalments in charge of the supplier.We are aware that many things remain untold about financial leasingcontracts, being this article a collection of the essential features of anoperation socially recognisable, built by joining together elements fromseveral contractual techniques, and which has specific characteristics thatprovide it with autonomy.

208 teachers from two Portuguese Universities and two Polytechnicshave described their perceptions of fairness as well as their levels ofaffective commitment to the institutions where they work. The resultssuggest that the teachers with a greater sense of “commitment to work”are the ones who believe that: a) the decision-making and promotionprocedures are impartial and fair; b) they are treated with dignity andrespect by their superiors. The fairness as regards the distribution of tasksand rewards doesn’t influence that sense of emotional identification withthe organization. This evidence shows the need of changing theprocedures of decision-making and relationship between the differenthierarchical ranks in order for the teachers to achieve higher levels ofaffective commitment to their institutions. This subject needs specialattention since industrial/organizational psychology has been highlightingthe effect of that commitment on a wide variety of attitudes andbehaviours, which are relevant from an organizational point of view. Whoknows if the pathway that was suggested here will not represent an usefulway (another one) towards the improvements in the so “strategically”disseminated quality in higher education?!

In this article we develop some aspects as regards the relationshipsbetween education and development, with particular emphasis beinggiven to the issues related to human capital. We start to review the mainideas and theories about the subject, from the Mercantilists to thecontemporary authors, pointing out specially the emergence of the humancapital theory in the 60’s. On one hand, we present the reasons for theappearance of this theory; we describe the arguments used by theirsupporters, namely those related to the contributions from which the newneoclassical models of growth have emerged. According to these newmodels the significant factor of economic growth is endogenousinnovation, being this innovative activity produced in the interior of theeconomy and itself influenced by providing economy with human capital.On the other hand, we present the reasons why some authors refuse oraccept conditionally the importance of human capital for the economicdevelopment. Therefore, we present current criticisms as well as refer therequirements and conditions often suggested and considered crucial inorder for the education to become a factor, among many others, that influences positively on behalf of the society. To conclude, we analysedall the opinions, giving our own point of view on the area underdiscussion.

In the present context of higher education in Portugal it is important toanalyse the relationship between the supply of vacancies in the severaldegree courses and the demand of applicants.After a brief introduction as regards higher education, the relationshipbetween the vacancies available and the number of applicants will beanalysed, considering that in 2001/2002 the supply overcame the demandfor the first time in private higher education.We will characterise the supply in private higher education concerningscientific and geographical areas. Furthermore, we will study howapplicants distribute themselves in the available vacancies, as regards thecomparison between Universities and Polytechnics, the geographicallocalisation, the scientific areas and the varied degree courses as well.Finally, we will analyse the grade of the last applicant who wasadmitted in each degree course taking into account the same parameters.

The territory-oriented and integrated approach of the implementationof rural development policies is the main innovation in the presentconceptualisation of the common agricultural policy reformulation. Thispolicy is rural rather than agricultural. The community programmeLEADER illustrates it and some argue that it has been succeeding inchanging the status quo of several rural areas.This work aims at analysing what occurred in the areas of interventionwithin LEADER II at the end of 1999. These areas of intervention matchwith NUTS Douro, which is a peripheral region of the Portuguesecontinent, and with Madeira as well as Azores that, due to their insularfeatures, they have an ultraperipheral nature. Throughout this analysis,special attention will be given to the role played by public and privateinvestment in the changing process for these territories.

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The Marketing of Cities consists in a marketing application field with growing importance for the development and growth of cities, regions, countries, wherever they are located. It is the management process developed in cities in order to fulfil the needs and desires of the individuals as well as organizations. Therefore, this paper is aimed at describing and analysing the use and importance of marketing tools in the development of cities by a model that will be later applied in the marketing analysis of each city.

Clothing Industry plays an important role in Portugal, thus it represents a quarter of the production of the Portuguese transforming industry. It also has an outstanding position as regards national exports. The present paper analyses entrepreneurial internationalization movement of the Portuguese clothing industry from 1985 to 2000, within the context of the internationalization process of this sector at a worldwide level. It is shown that changes in clothing industry at a worldwide level made national clothing companies to carry out deep changing processes based on new strategic orientations. Difficulties and limitations of these changing processes are identified as well as solutions to counteract them.

Asked about what is distinctive in the Portuguese culture, Hofstede answered: “Portugal is a typical Latin country, pertaining to the more feminine group. However, I realized immediately that Portuguese are different from the other Latin countries and, contrarily to the Spanish, they don’t kill the bull. The Portuguese tend to be more sympathetic and they are good negotiators, always trying to found a pacific way. Therefore, they solve many problems by negotiating, not fighting. Gannon, in a book (2001) aiming to compare the cultures of 23 nations, also connoted Portugal with a metaphor: “The Portuguese bullfight”. In the present paper, we will try to extract some insights from several studies performed in Portugal, which suggest the following: (a) the motivation profile more frequent in Portuguese samples is, by decreasing order, affiliation, achievement and power; (b) this profile is similar to the one suggested several decades ago by McClelland (1961); (c) the more effective leadership profile seems to be the one that combines high power motivation with high affiliation; (d) the communication style more frequent and the one evaluated as more effective is the “relater style” (Alessandra & Hunsaker, 1993). This empirical evidence suggests to managers the need to be cautious about the “importation” of techniques and models that can conflict with the Portuguese “feminine” trait.