Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-09-26T13:05:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tiago Silva de Souza_.pdf: 989483 bytes, checksum: 54a4ff4a17ced1ad3c89fe08ea1cc911 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-26T13:05:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tiago Silva de Souza_.pdf: 989483 bytes, checksum: 54a4ff4a17ced1ad3c89fe08ea1cc911 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-14 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Institutional voids are typically found in emerging economies. When governments lack in essential facilities, in order to ensure the well function of their supply chains, companies have to properly deal with this situation by themselves. An example is a situation happening in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, since 2013, where a sequence of investigations focused on the dairy industry. Due to a lack of regulation, milk was the target of adulterations throughout the supply chain processes of the companies. The frauds affected processes of companies from different sizes and nationalities. However, in this context, a local cooperative called Cooperativa Languiru, one of the leader dairy companies in the state, has different practices with its suppliers and was not affected by this contingency. Thus, the purpose of this research, through a case study, was to analyze the relationship between a dairy buying company and its suppliers in this environment of regulatory institutional voids. Aiming to have a wider perspective, this qualitative study explored how the lack of institutions affected the sector. As results, it was verified that political and economic interferences affect the chain as well as political lobby acts. Likewise, the lack of inspectors and infrastructure impact the well-functioning of it. Nevertheless, the close relation between the Cooperativa Languiru with its suppliers abled the company to have record results without having situations in terms of adulteration. Thus, this study proposed a research framework conceptualizing that firms must closely manage their relations with suppliers in order to deal with institutional voids.

This dissertation is structured around three original studies that offer unique insights into the challenges of change in business-to-business markets. All three studies share as an important starting point that firms rely on other firms to achieve strategic flexibility in volatile business environments. This means that firms source critical resources from business relationships in order to reduce long-term investments in times of change. From this perspective, firms' competitive advantages cross the boundaries of the firm and are embedded in their business partner networks. Thus, firms' business relationships and networks have become an important locus of organizational change in order to respond to turbulence in firms' business environments. Study one of this dissertation recognizes the importance of supplier relationships as a mechanism to react to changing business environments. The article focuses on the dynamic capabilities that enable firms to structurally reconfigure their supplier portfolios or supply networks in order to access necessary resources. The framework of relationship management capabilities introduced, is structured around three important sub-dimensions: relationship initiation, development, and ending capabilities, which collectively enable a firm to manage the reconfiguration of resource portfolios accessed via supplier relationships. The key implication for management relates to thinking beyond firms' established supply chains in times of change. While to a certain degree change can be absorbed within firms' existing supply chains, there might be a need to be 'agile', i.e. search for other suppliers who are better suited to more efficiently and effectively address such changes affecting firm competitiveness in the long run. While study one highlights the importance of firms' agility in adapting their supply chains in response to changes in their business environment, study two of this dissertation, although with a focus on the demand side of the business model, addresses the managerial challenges associated with such an agile adaptation process. Study two conceptualizes a framework for business model change and provides managers guidance to approach business model redesign. In particular, study two focuses on service business models and introduces the concepts of service infusion and defusion as important processes of business model redesign. The service infusion and defusion framework provides a pragmatic and systematic approach to understanding the nature of the business model change that companies have to manage, as well as linking these changes with knowledge creation and transfer processes. These are shown to be key for successfully managing such a business model redesign. While studies one and two assume strategy and its implementation to be key to a successful response to changes in firms' business environment, study three draws attention to the difficulties of arriving at such an appropriate or fitting response strategy in the first place, given the available information. In particular, this study examines the link between sensing changes in firms' business environments and managerial decision making in the form of strategy choice. Thereby, the study shows that strategy change causes disruptions, which eventually affect firm performance. This effect is compounded with increasing sensitivity to change as well as increasing number of factors that trigger change, and thus impairs the long term benefits of such strategy change. Thus, the effectiveness of strategy or business model changes and their implementation is inevitably contingent on distinguishing key signals from noise that disturb or misguide firms' strategic decisions.

Cette recherche interroge l’évolution du rapport entretenu par EDF, ancienne entreprise publique, avec sa clientèle. A travers une approche communicationnelle, on questionne en particulier le sens des pratiques et des discours marketing qui ont accompagné l’émergence récente de la notion, des dispositifs et des pratiques de Gestion de la Relation Client. Après avoir montré la nécessité d’une approche contextualisée pour saisir l’objet de recherche dans sa complexité, le rapport entre EDF et son public est analysé à l’aune des évolutions socio-politiques et économiques qui ont présidé à son développement. Dans un deuxième temps, cette recherche analyse la manière dont l’entreprise a mis en pratique et mis en scène sa relation au client depuis sa fondation en 1949. L’accent est mis notamment sur le glissement des messages de l’entreprise vers une dimension symbolique plus affirmée. Enfin, ces pratiques et leur présentation par EDF sont questionnées, à la fois à travers la perception qu’en ont les clients et par une mise en perspective opérée sur la base d’une étude de cas. Des entretiens collectifs d’explicitation permettent ainsi de mettre en évidence le déficit de signification propre aux messages diffusés. Le cas de l’énergéticien allemand Yello Strom permet, quant à lui, de confirmer l’intérêt d’une approche communicationnelle de la relation au client, appréhendée dans ses dimensions à la fois sensible et symbolique. / This research investigates the evolution of the relationship developped by EDF, a former state company, with his clientele. Implementing a communicational approach, we are notably questioning the sense of marketing practices and speeches, which came with the recent emergence of the notion, systems and practises of the Customer Relationship Management. After showing the necessity of a contextualised approach in order to tackle the research object in its whole complexity, the relation between EDF and its public is analysed at the rise of the socio-political and economical evolutions which underpinned its development. In a second part, this research analyses the way the company put in practice and staged its customer relationship since its creation in 1949. In particular, a stress has been put on the move of the company messages towards a stronger symbolic dimension. Finally, these practises and their presentation by EDF are questioned through customer perception and put in perspective through a case study. Consequently, collective interviews allow to identify the lack in signification of broadcasted messages. The case of the German energy provider Yello Strom confirms the interest of a communicational approach of social interactions between companies and customers, apprehended in their symbolic and sensible dimensions.

Cílem práce je navrhnout systém hodnocení zákazníků a predikace jejich odchodu pro aplikaci CeMF společnosti Digital Resources. Navržený systém je základem pro vytvoření nadstavby typu Customer Intelligence pro řízení zákaznického portfolia. Cíle je dosaženo pomocí propojení Balanced Scorecard, Customer Relationship Managementu a principů Business Intelligence. Práce stanovuje 122 zákaznických ukazatelů ve 28 dimenzích a obsahuje i obecný návrh implementace pro Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

The master's thesis focuses on distribution in a selected company. The company has been going through many changes which affect the whole logistic chain. The company is pushed by the current market situation to change processes in the central warehouse and in the costumer distribution. The author analyses all these changes and compares them to the theory. The author also proposes some improvements for efficiency increase in single parts of the logistic chain. There is not only theory used for these proposals. The proposed solutions are based on his own work experience and inspiration from different companies.

Esse trabalho propõe uma solução de um Data Warehouse distribuído para implementação de um sistema de CRM, Customer Relationship Management, com o objetivo de uso no ambiente bancário possibilitando que ações de relacionamento com clientes sejam planejadas e implementadas. É proposta uma arquitetura para implementação de um Data Warehouse em ambiente distribuído, utilizando programação paralela. Com o aumento no volume de dados armazenados nos Data Warehouse, as arquiteturas tradicionais exigem processadores e sistemas de entrada e saída cada vez mais robustos em termos de desempenho. Isso fica mais bem caracterizado quando são executadas procuras complexas (Ad hoc). A utilização de ambientes distribuídos em conjunto com programação paralela é uma alternativa para redução de custo e aumento de desempenho. É apresentada, aqui, uma proposta de arquitetura de Data Warehouse distribuído, integrado ao uso de programação paralela. / This lecture proposes a solution for Data Warehouse in an distributed environment for implementation of a CRM, Customer Relationship Management in a banking system. It\'s possible to create, plan and implement relationship actions with clients. Architecture is proposed for implementation of a Data Warehouse in a distributed environment, using parallel programming. With the increase of volume of data stored in Data Warehouse, the traditional architectures needs high performance in terms of processors and input and output systems. This kind of problem is well characterized when high complex queries (Ad hoc) is performed. Using distributed environment, together with parallel programming is a good choice to increase the performance and reduce cost. It\'s presented, here, a proposal for architecture of distributed Data Warehouse, integrated with the use of parallel programming.

In today's professional arena, organized sports have grown to become institutionalized and highly organized through corporations in a multi-billion dollar industry. Through the use of in depth interviews completed online, this study investigated the role franchise communication plays in the development of nineteen minor league players' relationships within the Major League Baseball (MLB) sports industry. Results found that players feel their organizations disproportionately help some players achieve success over others and withhold information. As players, they felt they have a limited voice regarding the direction of their careers. Despite a difficult working environment, the players' desire to achieve success and perform at their best on a consistent basis remains strong. A majority of the players experience job satisfaction and feel motivated, but these factors were not related to their employer's organization.

Historically Black colleges and university managers lack sufficient understanding of customer-relationship management strategies to create high enrollment rates leading to increased financial stability. The focus of this qualitative single case study was to explore customer-relationship management strategies managers use to improve financial performance from historically Black colleges and universities located within the state of Georgia with a student enrollment that exceeds 2,000 students. The conceptual framework for this study was the general system theory. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and employee handbooks. The data analysis consisted of compiling the data, disassembling the data into common codes, reassembling the data into themes, interpreting the meaning, and reporting the themes. The use of member checking and methodological triangulation increased the trustworthiness of the study. Themes that emerged were efficiencies with technology, student retention, and financial performance. Using up to date and effective technology including customer relationship management, and creating strategies to focus on student retention can help educational organizations improve their financial performance. The potential for social change includes the opportunity to increase the graduation and student retention rates to provide more opportunities for local business leaders and enhance the economic sustainability of local communities.

At a glance, journalists and public relations practitioners appear to have a dysfunctional relationship, despite having many professional similarities. Both groups use comparable skill sets in their jobs, including writing, information gathering, and making decisions based on news values. Both groups often work with each other in their professional positions; journalists look to public relations practitioners for sources and news tips, while public relations practitioners look to journalists to help send organizational messages to publics. To better understand the issues of trust in this unique working relationship, ten journalists and ten government public information officers from the Tampa Bay, Florida area were interviewed about their perceptions of the integrity, dependability, and competence of their professional counterparts. Using a coorientational lens, themes derived from the comments of both groups were compared for accuracy and agreement. The results indicated that both journalists and public relations practitioners were slow to generalize positive or negative experiences to other individuals or organizations, and that they mostly understood the professional ethics and motivation of the other occupation. However, once an established trust was broken in a relationship, participants universally described that it could not be regained. By comparing themes between the two groups, the data indicated that there were more issues of true consensus than any other situation. Both journalists and government communicators indicated a mutual respect for their professional counterparts and a shared appreciation for the principle of open government, though the data suggested that the two sides were unaware of this agreement. This exploratory qualitative analysis uncovered several interesting trust-related issues in this unique working relationship, many of which are worthy of additional research and exploration.

In Service-Learning (S-L) partnerships, universities and community organizations exchange resources and influence. Community engagement scholars Cruz and Giles proposed that relationships within S-L partnerships serve as units of analysis for the study of community outcomes of engagement. Yet, the scholarship of engagement lacks a suitable instrument to assess such relationships. This study brings together two lines of scholarship-relationship studies within community engagement and cocreational studies within public relations-to address the problem of assessing the community outcomes of S-L relationships, and it applies Cruz and Giles' ideas about using relationship analysis to assess community outcomes when it considers the perspectives of representatives of nonprofit organizations relative to their relationships with S-L students. Specifically, this qualitative study applies public relations theory to the problem of assessing project-based S-L relationships.