Este trabalho tem por proposta analisar a credibilidade da política monetária brasileira. O período verificado pelo trabalho é a partir de outubro de 1997 a dezembro de 2007, marcado principalmente por políticas antiinflacionárias e por dificuldades externas. Particularmente, busca verificar se houve ou não credibilidade neste período. Para tanto, é utilizado instrumental econométrico, via modelo autorregressivo com variáveis dummies. São feitos também testes necessários à detecção de correlação serial. Considera-se que há credibilidade quando se têm resultados nos quais a variável desemprego gera impactos negativos sobre o diferencial de taxa de juros entre Brasil e EUA. Os resultados da regressão do modelo mostram uma medida válida para a questão da credibilidade da política monetária no caso brasileiro. / This research has for proposal to analyze the credibility of Brazilian monetary policy. The verified period is between October/1997 and December/2007, manly characterized by anti-inflationary policies and external difficulties. Specifically, this research proposes to verify if there was or not credibility on the period. For that, it is used an econometric instrumental, by an autoregressive model with dummie variables. The necessary tests for the detection of serial correlation were made. Credibility exists when the unemployment variable generates negative impacts on the interest rate differentials between Brazil and USA. The results of model’s regression show a valid measurement to Brazilian monetary policy credibility.

Os conceitos de reputação e confiança, tão difundidos em outras áreas de pesquisa, mostraram-se úteis também em sistemas multiagentes (SMA), particularmente no processo de formação de parcerias, em que agentes selecionam parceiros com os quais irão cooperar. Apesar dos inúmeros trabalhos desenvolvidos na área de SMA que propõem modelos para o cálculo de reputação e confiança, um aspecto essencial do uso de tais modelos ainda não foi suficientemente estudado: como estes conceitos podem efetivamente ajudar agentes autônomos a agir em um sistema aberto. Do ponto de vista do agente, existem algumas questões importantes relacionadas a este cenário: (1) como escolher um parceiro, levando em conta a reputação do candidato e o custo associado à parceria? (2) o quão vantajoso é manipular informação? (3) como agir em uma sociedade norteada pelo conceito de reputação a fim de atingir melhores resultados? Este trabalho tem por objetivo promover uma análise de tais questões por meio da discussão de resultados obtidos com uma ferramenta de simulação denominada RePart, criada especificamente para este fim. As simulações apresentam como cenário um modelo simplificado de um mercado constituído por consumidores e empresas. / The concepts of reputation and trust, largely researched in other fields, have proved to be also very useful in multi-agent systems (MAS), specially in the process of partnership formation, in which agents select partners to cooperate with. Despite all research that has been carried out in the past few years concerning different reputation and trust models for autonomous agents, an essential aspect related to the use of these models was not sufficiently stressed: how these concepts may effectively help an autonomous agent in order to better evolve in an open MAS scenario. From an agent perspective, there are some important questions regarding this issue: (1) how to choose a partner, taking into account its reputation and the costs associated with the partnership? (2) is it worth to manipulate information? (3) how to act in a society guided by the concept of reputation in order to achieve better results? This work promotes the analysis of these questions through the discussion of the results obtained from a reputation-based partnership formation simulator called RePart, which was specifically designed for this goal. The simulations present a simplified consumer/enterprise market scenario as a target domain.

This thesis focuses on issue of reputation of higher education institution. Theoretical part defines reputation and specifies it in context of image, identity and brand and describes evaluation methods of these terms in context of higher education. Importance of reputation for public institutions and universities is also described. The objective of the research part was to investigate reputation of University of economics Prague (VŠE) in view of different stakeholders. Second objective was to analyze reputation of private higher education institutions competing with VŠE. Questionnaire was selected as a research method, 3 groups of stakeholders were asked to participate: students of VŠE, students of other universities and companies. Result of the research confirmed the hypothesis, that reputation of private schools worsens their position on the market. Also hypothesis that VŠE has bad reputation in eyes of students of other universities, but great reputation in eyes of companies was confirmed. In the conclusion, some steps to increase reputation of VŠE were recommended.

Ce travail décrit les logiques et les processus des contributions des salariés sur les médias sociaux, pour analyser les relations et les enjeux entre la présence numérique des salariés et celle de l'entreprise. La thèse fait appel à un cadre conceptuel pluridisciplinaire : théorie du don et les théories du capital social et du capital symbolique pour analyser la logique sous-jacente de la contribution, les notions d’ordre de l’interaction et de genres de contribution pour appréhender le processus de la contribution et enfin, les notions de présence numérique et de gouvernementalité pour aborder les enjeux de la contribution. La posture interprétativiste justifie une méthodologie de recherche qui repose sur trois approches complémentaires : une étude exploratoire, six études de cas et une étude Delphi. Les résultats desdifférentes études menées montrent que la contribution des salariés aux médias sociaux repose principalement sur une logique de légitimation de la "figure du contributeur", que le processus de contribution se concrétise dans un répertoire des "genres de contributions" et que les "traces numériques" définissent les enjeux de la présence numérique des salariés et de l'entreprise. / This work describes the logic and the processes of employees’contributions on social media in order to analyze the relationships and issues between their own numerical presence and that of their company. Our thesis is based on a multidisciplinary framework: we mobilized the the gift theory as well as the theories of social and symbolic capital in order to understand contribution logic, the notions of interaction order and contribution genres in order to understand the contribution process and, finally, the concepts of numerical presence and governmentality in order to address the contribution issues.Our research methodology adopts an interpretativist approach, based on three complementary studies: an exploratory study, six case studies and a Delphi study. The results show that employees’ contribution to social media is primarily based on a logic of legitimizing the "figure of the contributor", the contribution process materialized in a repertoire of "contributions genres" and that "digital traces" define the challenges of the numerical presence of employees and that of their company.

Esta dissertação propõe uma Ontologia Funcional de Reputação para agentes. Tal ontologia representa uma parte do conhecimento científico sobre reputação provido tanto pelas Ciências Humanas quanto pelos trabalhos em Inteligência Artificial. Seu objetivo é oferecer uma perspectiva funcional para a representação e análise da reputação como mecanismo de controle social em sociedades de agentes, de forma a sustentar a implementação de modelos de reputação para agentes. A Ontologia Funcional de Reputação foi construída a partir das categorias de conhecimento da Ontologia Funcional do Direito, proposta por Valente (1995), e utiliza a categorização de conceitos definida para o mundo jurídico para a representação do mundo social. A ontologia foi codificada em OWL DL, uma linguagem formal baseada em lógica descritiva. Uma vez construída a ontologia, os conceitos utilizados por diversos modelos e sistemas de reputação foram utilizados na sua avaliação. A utilização de um motor de inferência permitiu comparar estes conceitos, representados por meio de classes OWL, com as classes da ontologia. Tal comparação permite avaliar, de modo preliminar, a adequação do uso da Ontologia Funcional de Reputação como uma possível interlingua entre diversos agentes heterogêneos, cada qual utilizando um modelo de reputação diferente, que necessitam interoperar. / This work presents a Functional Ontology of Reputation for agents. This ontology represents the broad knowledge about reputation produced in some areas of interest such as Social Sciences and Artificial Intelligence. Its goal is to provide a functional perspective both to represent and analyze reputation as a social control mechanism for agent’s societies, in order to support the implementation of reputation model for agents. The Functional Ontology of Reputation employs the primitive categories of knowledge used in the Functional Ontology of Law proposed by Valente (1995). The idea is that the concepts of the legal world can be used to model the social world, through the extension of the concept of legal rule to social norm and the internalization of social control mechanisms in the agent's mind, so far externalized in legal institutions. The Functional Ontology of Reputation contains five main categories that have been borrowed from or inspired by the Functional Ontology of Law: Reputative Knowledge, Responsibility Knowledge, Normative Knowledge, World Knowledge and Common Sense Knowledge.As in the Functional Ontology of Law, the distinction among the categories of the reputation ontology are accomplished according to a functional perspective, in which each component of the reputation system, embedded in the social system, exists to perform a specific function in the effort to achieve social objectives, such as trust, reciprocity and social cooperation. The Functional Ontology of Reputation was implemented in OWL, a description logic language. This ontology was evaluated by using several concepts related to reputation, included in different reputation models and reputation systems. These concepts were defined as OWL classes and a reasoner was used in order to produce the comparison between these concepts and the ontology classes. This comparison allows evaluating, in a preliminary way, the Functional Ontology of Reputation utilization as a possible interlingua between several heterogeneous agents that need to interoperate, despite the utilization of different reputation model.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar os efeitos do uso da marca pelo titular ou por terceiros sob a ótica da integridade. O uso da marca traz consequências negativas ao próprio signo no que tange à sua integridade material, causando o desgaste da sua distinção entre marcas de concorrentes, o que faz diminuir a distância distintiva entre os sinais de uma mesma atividade econômica ou afins. Além disso, o uso da marca também pode causar a perda completa de sua unicidade, corpo distintivo da marca, chegando, às vezes, à vulgarização da mesma, tornando-se res communis omnium. Do outro lado, a integridade material da marca pode passar por processos positivos que fortalecem o seu corpo distintivo. O uso da marca com sucesso faz aumentar sua fama perante o mercado e consumidores, diferenciando-a das demais e sendo alçada ao posto de marca famosa. A fama através do uso impulsiona marcas ordinárias ao status de marcas notoriamente conhecidas ou marcas de alto renome. Ambas representam degraus superiores de integridade material em relação às marcas que são ordinariamente protegidas dentro de suas atividades comerciais. Além disso, apesar do direito de uso exclusivo oferecido às marcas registradas, tal direito não é absoluto. Ou seja, mesmo ocorrendo usos desautorizados de marcas de terceiros que ocasionem alterações na integridade material das mesmas, há usos considerados permitidos pela legislação e jurisprudência. Dessa forma, pretende-se demonstrar que o uso da marca é o fio condutor desses fenômenos. / This paper aims to analyze the effects of the use of the trademark by the owner or by third parties from the perspective of the integrity. The use of the trademark brings negative consequences to the sign itself with respect to its material integrity, causing lack of its distinctiveness among competing marks, which slims the distinctive distance between the signs of the same or related economic field. Furthermore, the use of the trademark can also cause the complete loss of its uniqueness, distinctive body of the mark, reaching sometimes the vulgarization of the same, becoming res communis omnium. On the other hand, the material integrity of the mark can undergo positive processes that enhance its distinctive body. The successful use of the mark increases its fame before the market and consumers, differentiating it from others and being raised to a level of a famous mark. The fame through use elevates the ordinary marks to the status of well-known marks or trademarks of high repute. Both represent upper rungs of material integrity towards marks that are ordinarily protected within their fields of activities. Moreover, despite the right of exclusive use offered to registered marks, such right is not absolute. That is, even occurring unauthorized uses of trademarks by third parties which cause changes in the material integrity of the same, there are uses considered permitted by law and jurisprudence. Thus, this paper intends to demonstrate that the use of the mark is the common thread of these phenomena.

Os conceitos de reputação e confiança, tão difundidos em outras áreas de pesquisa, mostraram-se úteis também em sistemas multiagentes (SMA), particularmente no processo de formação de parcerias, em que agentes selecionam parceiros com os quais irão cooperar. Apesar dos inúmeros trabalhos desenvolvidos na área de SMA que propõem modelos para o cálculo de reputação e confiança, um aspecto essencial do uso de tais modelos ainda não foi suficientemente estudado: como estes conceitos podem efetivamente ajudar agentes autônomos a agir em um sistema aberto. Do ponto de vista do agente, existem algumas questões importantes relacionadas a este cenário: (1) como escolher um parceiro, levando em conta a reputação do candidato e o custo associado à parceria? (2) o quão vantajoso é manipular informação? (3) como agir em uma sociedade norteada pelo conceito de reputação a fim de atingir melhores resultados? Este trabalho tem por objetivo promover uma análise de tais questões por meio da discussão de resultados obtidos com uma ferramenta de simulação denominada RePart, criada especificamente para este fim. As simulações apresentam como cenário um modelo simplificado de um mercado constituído por consumidores e empresas. / The concepts of reputation and trust, largely researched in other fields, have proved to be also very useful in multi-agent systems (MAS), specially in the process of partnership formation, in which agents select partners to cooperate with. Despite all research that has been carried out in the past few years concerning different reputation and trust models for autonomous agents, an essential aspect related to the use of these models was not sufficiently stressed: how these concepts may effectively help an autonomous agent in order to better evolve in an open MAS scenario. From an agent perspective, there are some important questions regarding this issue: (1) how to choose a partner, taking into account its reputation and the costs associated with the partnership? (2) is it worth to manipulate information? (3) how to act in a society guided by the concept of reputation in order to achieve better results? This work promotes the analysis of these questions through the discussion of the results obtained from a reputation-based partnership formation simulator called RePart, which was specifically designed for this goal. The simulations present a simplified consumer/enterprise market scenario as a target domain.

O objetivo da presente tese consiste na determinação de novas estruturas de governança capazes de fornecer os incentivos e controles necessários para a sustentação de estratégias de diferenciação de produto na cadeia produtiva de frutas, legumes e verduras frescos (FLV), focalizando o papel do varejo moderno na definição e adoção de padrões e classificações privados que visam aumentar a coordenação vertical da cadeia. A tese mostrará que as novas estratégias adotadas pelo varejo moderno utilizam como mecanismo de coordenação das transações com produtores e consumidores a criação de padrões privados próprios, que têm como objetivo principal informar a qualidade desejada dos produtos comercializados aos produtores e, ao mesmo tempo, atender às exigências de qualidade do consumidor. Novas estruturas de governança surgem buscando sustentar tais transações. A conjunção de mecanismos de sinalização, credibilidade e o efeito reputação constituem o fator chave para a efetividade do padrão privado como mecanismo de coordenação ao longo da cadeia. / The thesis’ objective consists in the determination of new governance structures capable of providing the necessary incentives and controls to the maintenance of product’s differentiation strategies in the fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) productive chain, focusing the role of the modern retailers in the definition and adoption of private standards and classifications that intend to increase the chain’s vertical coordination. The thesis will show that the new strategies adopted by the modern retailers use the creation of private standards as a coordination mechanism of the transactions with producers and consumers, under the main objective of providing information to the producers about the commercialized products’ desirable quality and, simultaneously, fill up the consumer’s quality demands. New governance structures arise in the search of sustain to these transactions. The conjunction of signalizing mechanisms, credibility and reputation effect is the key factor to the effectiveness of the private standards as a coordination mechanism along the chain.

BACKGROUND: Corporate reputation refers to an organisation’s past and present action, which has a huge impact on how the organisation is viewed by its internal and external stakeholders. In the context of business organisation, the importance of reputation in public service and government organisations needs to be recognised, especially in South Africa, where many problems are associated with local government. Coupled with this, there has been lack of emphasis on collaborative consultation processes and participation by the communities in matters that affect them. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: The purpose of this qualitative, interpretive study was to analyse personal experiences of employees at a local municipality, on the management of corporate reputation. Systems theory was adopted as a theoretical framework for the study. METHOD: This research employs a qualitative research method and a case study design. The qualitative research was relevant for this research as it is naturalistic, which is research based in natural settings where communication occurs. The in-depth individual, semi structured interviews enabled the researcher to get rich information from the participants, who are employees of the municipality and work within the broad frame of public relations, communications, event management and marketing. These participants engage with the external stakeholders on events management or on expertise, leadership and management skills with regard to corporate reputation management. RESULTS: The results reveal that management of reputation is probably a multifaceted concept. Hence corporate social responsibility, emotional appeal, financial performance, products and services, vision and leadership and workplace environment all feature but it is unlikely that the participants perceive reputation as separate from image and identity as they use the terms synonymously. The responses reveal that a systems view of an organisation, being social in a social system, indicate that the various components in the internal environment cannot be separated from the external environment as they are continuously and dynamically interacting with one another with corporate communication acting as a ‘glue’, which holds them together. Corporate communication is thus an essential part of the system as it serves to align the organisation’s vision, culture and image that people have of an organisation.

Supply chains are developed to reduce business expenses and increase efficiency. However, a disruption in the supply chain, or a failure in one of the links, can expose organizations to crises that can severely impact short-term bottom line and long-term corporate reputation. This study examines the communication challenges inherent in supply chain crises using Samsung’s 2016 Galaxy Note 7 phone crisis as a case study. Results of this study show, in a supply chain crisis, stakeholders hold the organization responsible, regardless of where in the supply chain the break occurred. This study also examines the impact of complexity inherent to supply chain crises and the challenges organizations face during a crisis when organizational reputation is impacted by links in the supply chain outside the organization’s direct control.