Small and medium sized companies can utillise information systems (IS) to overcome restrictions imposed by their often limited resources. This dissertation investigates which factors contribute to an IS’s success in enabling managerial accounting at small and medium sized manufacturing firms in Germany. An adaptation of the IS Success Model is used as the research model for a quantitative empirical survey among 5,831 companies. Structural equation modelling confirms the model and reveals two major findings: (1) The users’ Satisfaction with the IS is the strongest determinant of Net Benefits for managerial accounting. By contrast, the Perceived Usefulness of the IS has only an indirect influence. (2) Satisfaction has a significant influence on all Net Benefits, of which Reduced Uncertainty has the largest explained variance.

Cette recherche porte sur le rapport que les enseignants entretiennent au e-learning, en tant qu’apprenants. En France, comme dans d’autres pays, les enseignants semblent réticents à recourir à ce type de dispositifs, alors que l’offre institutionnelle en ligne est en plein développement. Ce phénomène de désaffection du e-learning apparait en contradiction avec l’attitude favorable qu’ont les enseignants par rapport à la formation en présentiel. Lors de l’étude exploratoire, ce hiatus n’a pu être suffisamment expliqué par des facteurs motivationnels. L’objectif général de cette recherche est d’examiner les facteurs qui interviennent dans l’adoption ou le rejet du e-learning. L’approche théorique utilisée s’inscrit dans le cadre de l’UTAUT (théorie unifiée de l’acceptation et de l’usage des technologies). Trois études quantitatives menées auprès d’enseignants et de futurs enseignants (220 répondants) ont permis d’identifier les déterminants principaux dans le processus d’adoption du e-learning : l’acceptation du e-learning est directement liée à l’utilité perçue, à l’expérience antérieure du e-learning et à la perception de compatibilité avec le style d’apprentissage. L’âge a un effet modérateur important, en ce sens que les plus jeunes sont plus favorables au e-learning et en perçoivent plus l’utilité que leurs ainés. Par contre, les facteurs de rejet du e-learning n’ont pu être expliqués par le modèle UTAUT. Une analyse qualitative complémentaire, ainsi qu’une revue de littérature, ont conduit à mettre en lumière d’autres facteurs qui contribuent à expliquer directement le rejet du e-learning. Ces facteurs laissent entrevoir la peur de la disparition de l’enseignant et de son remplacement par la machine. Une analyse des MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) comme écosystème d’apprenance potentiel dans une perspective d’ingénierie de formation visant à articuler dispositions des apprenants et dispositifs de formation, vient conclure ce travail. / This research focuses on the relations between teachers, as learners, and e-learning. In France, as in other countries, teachers seem to be reluctant to use e-learning as a professional training device, whereas institutional on-line offer is expanding. This phenomenon of disaffection towards e-learning seems to be inconsistent with teachers’ favorable attitude towards ‘face-to-face’ training. Motivational factors couldn’t explain this gap adequately, as we concluded from a previous exploratory study. The general purpose of this research is to determine the occurring factors of e-learning acceptance or rejection. Theoretical approach is based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of the technology (UTAUT). Results of three quantitative studies among teachers and future teachers (220 respondents) enabled us to identify the determining factors of e-learning acceptance. Results show that e-learning acceptance is directly influenced by perceived usefulness, former e-learning experience and if it fits with the personal learning style. Age is an important moderator, in the sense that the youngest are more favorable to e-learning and perceive more its usefulness than their older professional colleagues. However, the UTAUT model couldn’t explain factors of e-learning rejection. A complementary qualitative analysis and a review of former studies on e-learning led to highlight other explicit variables which contribute directly to e-learning rejection. These factors may reflect the fears of the disappearance of human pedagogues and the substitution of computer.An analysis of the MOOCs (Massive open online courses) as an ecosystem of “learnance” was conducted to get across the ability of the learners and the training tools, in view of training course design.

Submitted by Fabio Bellegard (fabio.bellegard@gmail.com) on 2016-08-22T21:44:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação F Bellegard_revised.pdf: 372701 bytes, checksum: 8d1c99a4838c7a053ab2329ee7af8f90 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Renata de Souza Nascimento (renata.souza@fgv.br) on 2016-08-22T22:09:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação F Bellegard_revised.pdf: 372701 bytes, checksum: 8d1c99a4838c7a053ab2329ee7af8f90 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-23T12:23:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação F Bellegard_revised.pdf: 372701 bytes, checksum: 8d1c99a4838c7a053ab2329ee7af8f90 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-25 / Through simultaneous equations and based on the Value Relevance Literature, this study discusses the relevance of BNDES loans to explain the stock prices of companies listed in BOVESPA. The simultaneous equations model allows exogenous variations on the credit offer by BNDES. Such variations permit the identification of the model that defines stock prices as function of BNDES loans as well as control variables. Results found do not confirm that the presence of BNDEs loans is significant to explain stock prices. / Por meio de equações simultâneas e respaldado pela literatura de Value Relevance, este estudo discute a relevância do financiamento BNDES para explicar preço da ação de empresas listadas na BOVESPA. O modelo de equações simultâneas permite variações exógenas sobre a oferta de crédito do BNDES. Tais variações viabilizam a identificação do modelo que define o preço da ação em função do financiamento BNDES e demais variáveis controle. Os resultados encontrados não permitem afirmar que a presença de financiamento BNDES é significante para explicar o preço da ação.

Ações e políticas públicas têm sido desenvolvidas com o objetivo de incentivar os agricultores brasileiros a diversificar sua produção. Entretanto, tais ações têm sido incapazes de incentivar a diversificação produtiva e econômica. Justifica-se a importância da diversificação da produção agrícola na medida em que esta contribui para o desenvolvimento rural, diversificação das fontes de renda e consequente ampliação da renda familiar, auxilia no aumento da produção agrícola e possibilita maior segurança em relação aos efeitos das oscilações dos mercados. O objetivo geral deste estudo consiste em verificar quais são os fatores que afetam a intenção dos agricultores familiares produtores de leite na decisão de diversificar a produção agrícola na região Noroeste do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Para tanto foi realizado um survey com 101 produtores rurais. A Teoria do Comportamento Planejado (TCP) foi utilizada como abordagem teórico-metodológica para analisar e explicar os constructos psicológicos subjacentes que influenciam a decisão de diversificação dos agricultores. Os resultados revelaram que a intenção foi principalmente determinada pela avaliação dos agricultores em diversificar a produção agrícola (atitude), seguida pela sua percepção sobre a pressão social em desenvolver tal estratégia produtiva (norma subjetiva). A percepção dos agricultores sobre sua própria capacidade de diversificar (controle comportamental percebido) mostrou-se insignificante neste estudo. A análise de cluster permitiu identificar dois grupos com distintos níveis de intenção, um composto por agricultores com forte intenção de diversificar e outro com fraca intenção. Os grupos apresentaram diferenças quanto aos constructos psicológicos, algumas características socioeconômicas e a orientação de seus objetivos. Entretanto, os grupos não diferiram quanto aos estilos de decisão. Assim, os resultados desta tese sugerem que, para aumentar a diversificação da produção das propriedades rurais, é necessário desenvolver ações que forneçam informações aos agricultores referentes às vantagens e possibilidades da diversificação nas pequenas propriedades rurais, bem como aumentar a pressão social para que os produtores rurais diversifiquem suas atividades. / Public actions and policies have been developed to stimulate Brazilian farmers to diversify their production. However, those actions have been unable to stimulate the economic and productive diversification. We justify the importance of the diversification of agricultural production because it contributes to the rural development, diversification of income sources and consequent increase of familiar income, it helps the growth of agricultural production and enables more security in relation to the effects of the market changes. This research intends to verify the factors that affect the intention of familiar farmers that work with milk production on the decision to diversify the agricultural production in the north of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. To this end it conducted a survey of 101 farmers. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as a theoretical and methodological approach to analyze and explain the subjacent psychological constructs that influence the farmers’ diversification decision. The results revealed that the intention was mainly determined by the farmers’ evaluation to diversify the agricultural production (attitude), followed by their perception about the social pressure to develop this productive strategy (subjective norm). The farmers’ perception about their own capacity to diversify (perceived behavioral control) was insignificant in this research. The cluster analysis permitted to identify two groups with different intention levels, one composed by farmers with a strong intention to diversify and another one with a weak intention. The groups showed differences in relation to the psychological constructs, some socioeconomic characteristics and the orientation about their aims. However, both of them didn’t disagree in relation to the decision styles. So, the results of this thesis suggest that, to increase the productive diversification in rural properties, it’s necessary to develop actions to provide information relative to the advantages and possibilities of the diversification in small rural properties, as well as increasing the social pressure in order that farmers diversify their activities.

Submitted by Bruna Rodrigues (bruna92rodrigues@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-10-03T12:26:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissNA.pdf: 1582958 bytes, checksum: 96d6a6328b468f669e8215074d435b9f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-10T18:52:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissNA.pdf: 1582958 bytes, checksum: 96d6a6328b468f669e8215074d435b9f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-10T18:52:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissNA.pdf: 1582958 bytes, checksum: 96d6a6328b468f669e8215074d435b9f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-10T18:52:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissNA.pdf: 1582958 bytes, checksum: 96d6a6328b468f669e8215074d435b9f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-08 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / The so-called "Plant Ecology Strategy Scheme" groups species into categories along the spectrum of their functional traits. When two or more important functional traits are correlated between concurrent species, they define a strategic dimension. There are four main dimensions of ecological strategies for establishing the relationships among functional traits of plants: maximum plant height, size of branches and leaves, leaf structure and physiology, and seed production. Traits that may define these dimensions include: maximum plant height, wood density, leaf area, specific leaf area, fruit size, and seed size. We analysed the relationships among the traits in cerrado woody species and compared the results with those found in tropical forests. In this dissertation, we presented our results in a single chapter, written in english. We measured these traits from 28 woody species at the Vaçununga State Park, southeastern Brazil. We found two significant relationships: between fruit size and seed size and between fruit size and leaf area. We also identified two ecological strategies: species with high specific leaf area and species with low specific leaf area. Cerrado and forest woody species seem to have distinct ecological strategies, probably due to the different environmental pressures to which they are submitted. / Os chamados “Esquemas de Estratégias Ecológicas Vegetais” agrupam as espécies em categorias ao longo do espectro de seus traços funcionais. Quando dois ou mais traços funcionais importantes estão correlacionados entre espécies coocorrentes, eles definem uma dimensão estratégica. Há quatro principais dimensões de estratégias ecológicas para estabelecer relações entre os traços: altura máxima da planta, tamanho dos ramos e das folhas, estrutura e fisiologia foliar, e produção de sementes. Os traços que podem definir essas dimensões são: altura máxima da planta, densidade da madeira, área foliar, área foliar específica, tamanho do fruto, e tamanho da semente. Nessa dissertação, apresentamos os resultados em um único capítulo, escrito em inglês. Coletamos os seis traços para 28 espécies arbustivo-arbóreas no Parque Estadual de Vaçununga, sudeste do Brasil. Analisamos as relações entre esses traços para espécies lenhosas de cerrado e comparamos nossos resultados com os encontrados para florestas tropicais. Encontramos duas correlações significativas: entre tamanho do fruto e tamanho da semente e entre tamanho do fruto e área foliar. Identificamos, também, duas estratégias ecológicas: espécies com baixas áreas foliares específicas, e espécies altas áreas foliares específicas. Espécies lenhosas de cerrado e floretas parecem ter estratégia ecologias distintas, provavelmente pelas diferentes pressões a que estão submetidos.

Ações e políticas públicas têm sido desenvolvidas com o objetivo de incentivar os agricultores brasileiros a diversificar sua produção. Entretanto, tais ações têm sido incapazes de incentivar a diversificação produtiva e econômica. Justifica-se a importância da diversificação da produção agrícola na medida em que esta contribui para o desenvolvimento rural, diversificação das fontes de renda e consequente ampliação da renda familiar, auxilia no aumento da produção agrícola e possibilita maior segurança em relação aos efeitos das oscilações dos mercados. O objetivo geral deste estudo consiste em verificar quais são os fatores que afetam a intenção dos agricultores familiares produtores de leite na decisão de diversificar a produção agrícola na região Noroeste do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Para tanto foi realizado um survey com 101 produtores rurais. A Teoria do Comportamento Planejado (TCP) foi utilizada como abordagem teórico-metodológica para analisar e explicar os constructos psicológicos subjacentes que influenciam a decisão de diversificação dos agricultores. Os resultados revelaram que a intenção foi principalmente determinada pela avaliação dos agricultores em diversificar a produção agrícola (atitude), seguida pela sua percepção sobre a pressão social em desenvolver tal estratégia produtiva (norma subjetiva). A percepção dos agricultores sobre sua própria capacidade de diversificar (controle comportamental percebido) mostrou-se insignificante neste estudo. A análise de cluster permitiu identificar dois grupos com distintos níveis de intenção, um composto por agricultores com forte intenção de diversificar e outro com fraca intenção. Os grupos apresentaram diferenças quanto aos constructos psicológicos, algumas características socioeconômicas e a orientação de seus objetivos. Entretanto, os grupos não diferiram quanto aos estilos de decisão. Assim, os resultados desta tese sugerem que, para aumentar a diversificação da produção das propriedades rurais, é necessário desenvolver ações que forneçam informações aos agricultores referentes às vantagens e possibilidades da diversificação nas pequenas propriedades rurais, bem como aumentar a pressão social para que os produtores rurais diversifiquem suas atividades. / Public actions and policies have been developed to stimulate Brazilian farmers to diversify their production. However, those actions have been unable to stimulate the economic and productive diversification. We justify the importance of the diversification of agricultural production because it contributes to the rural development, diversification of income sources and consequent increase of familiar income, it helps the growth of agricultural production and enables more security in relation to the effects of the market changes. This research intends to verify the factors that affect the intention of familiar farmers that work with milk production on the decision to diversify the agricultural production in the north of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. To this end it conducted a survey of 101 farmers. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as a theoretical and methodological approach to analyze and explain the subjacent psychological constructs that influence the farmers’ diversification decision. The results revealed that the intention was mainly determined by the farmers’ evaluation to diversify the agricultural production (attitude), followed by their perception about the social pressure to develop this productive strategy (subjective norm). The farmers’ perception about their own capacity to diversify (perceived behavioral control) was insignificant in this research. The cluster analysis permitted to identify two groups with different intention levels, one composed by farmers with a strong intention to diversify and another one with a weak intention. The groups showed differences in relation to the psychological constructs, some socioeconomic characteristics and the orientation about their aims. However, both of them didn’t disagree in relation to the decision styles. So, the results of this thesis suggest that, to increase the productive diversification in rural properties, it’s necessary to develop actions to provide information relative to the advantages and possibilities of the diversification in small rural properties, as well as increasing the social pressure in order that farmers diversify their activities.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:30:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ullisses Kazumi Shimizu.pdf: 3392580 bytes, checksum: 3d41f9a6c3184e8aaa2d3a9136a656cd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-23 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / The innovation has been considered the engine of the major developments that capitalism has reached, and under this umbrella, this study aims to evaluate the causal relationship between innovation of Brazilian firms and their performance.The study of this subject is justified by the importance of the topic in academia, nationally and internationally, and also by the need to do a study that took into account both Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), as large companies, in addition to analyzing the new service sector recently (2005) included in Technological Innovation Research (PINTEC).We crossed the CNPJs (national registry of legal companies) at PINTEC with those contained in the Annual Industrial Survey - PIA and the Annual Services Survey - PAS, and create variables to measure seven constructs: Innovative Activity, R&D Internal Activity, Innovation Cooperation, Government Support, Patent and other Protection Machanisms, Organizational and Marketing Innovation, and Performance.The three surveys are periodically conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). We used exploratory factor analysis in order to aggregate related variables and structural equation modeling, to create models that can better explain the relationship between innovation and performance. We note the existence of a relationship between innovation and the result of the innovation process latent variable measured by the "impact of innovations", formed by iivli (share of sales of new products related to sales of the company) and iiexp (share of exports of new products in relation to sales of the company), in the converged models, the inpact was approximately 40%.However, the relationship between innovation and performance (measured by profitability and margin) was not supported. / A inovação vem sendo considerada o motor das grandes evoluções que o capitalismo tem alcançado, e sob essa égide, este trabalho tem o objetivo de avaliar a relação de causalidade entre a inovação das firmas brasileiras e seu desempenho. O estudo deste tema justifica-se pela relevância do tema no meio acadêmico nacional e internacional, e também pela necessidade de se fazer um estudo que levasse em consideração tanto Micro, Pequenas e Médias Empresas (MPMEs), quanto grandes empresas, além de analisar exploratoriamente o setor de serviços recentemente (2005) incluído na Pesquisa de Inovação Tecnológica (PINTEC). Cruzamos os CNPJ s (cadastro nacional da pessoa jurídica) da PINTEC com aqueles constantes na Pesquisa Industrial Anual PIA e na Pesquisa Anual de Serviços PAS, e criamos variáveis para medir sete construtos: Atividade Inovativa, Atividade Interna de P&D, Cooperação para Inovação, Apoio do Governo, Patentes e Meios de Proteção, Inovações Organizacionais e de Marketing e Desempenho. As três pesquisas utilizadas são realizadas periodicamente pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). Utilizamos a análise fatorial exploratória com o intuito de agregar variáveis afins e o modelo de equações estruturais, para a criação de modelos que possam explicar melhor a relação entre inovação e desempenho. Constatamos a existência de uma relação entre a inovação e o resultado do processo de inovação medida pela variável latente impacto das inovações , formada por iivli (participação das vendas de novos produtos em relação às vendas da empresa) e iiexp (participação das exportações de novos produtos em relação às vendas da empresa), que nos modelos convergentes foi da ordem de 40%. Porém a relação entre inovação e desempenho (mensurado pela margem e lucratividade) não foi corroborada.

abstract: This dissertation consists of three essays, each examining distinct aspects about public organization adaptation to extreme events using evidence from public transit agencies under the influence of extreme weather in the United States (U.S.). The first essay focuses on predicting organizational adaptive behavior. Building on extant theories on adaptation and organizational learning, it develops a theoretical framework to uncover the pathways through which extreme events impact public organizations and identify the key learning mechanisms involved in adaptation. Using a structural equation model on data from a 2016 national survey, the study highlights the critical role of risk perception to translate signals from the external environment to organizational adaptive behavior. The second essay expands on the first one to incorporate the organizational environment and model the adaptive system. Combining an agent-based model and qualitative interviews with key decision makers, the study investigates how adaptation occurs over time in multiplex contexts consisting of the natural hazards, organizations, institutions and social networks. The study ends with a series of refined propositions about the mechanisms involved in public organization adaptation. Specifically, the analysis suggests that risk perception needs to be examined relative to risk tolerance to determine organizational motivation to adapt, and underscore the criticality of coupling between the motivation and opportunities to enable adaptation. The results further show that the coupling can be enhanced through lowering organizational risk perception decay or synchronizing opportunities with extreme event occurrences to promote adaptation. The third essay shifts the gaze from adaptation mechanisms to organizational outcomes. It uses a stochastic frontier analysis to quantify the impacts of extreme events on public organization performance and, importantly, the role of organizational adaptive capacity in moderating the impacts. The findings confirm that extreme events negatively affect organizational performance and that organizations with higher adaptive capacity are more able to mitigate those effects, thereby lending support to research efforts in the first two essays dedicated to identifying preconditions and mechanisms involved in the adaptation process. Taken together, this dissertation comprehensively advances understanding about public organization adaptation to extreme events. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2020

This thesis explores the effect of transformational leadership, employee work environment, job satisfaction, and work-life balance on employee work performance. It begins by looking at existing literature on the effectiveness of transformational leadership as one of the relevant leadership styles in situations that require urgent business system transformation and adaptation as witnessed in the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the consequences of the pandemic is the definition of what a work environment is. Working from home, although not new, has become popular due to the pandemic and there are several publications around this subject under the “New Ways of Working” (NWW) theme. The implementation of working from home for employees within an organization as well as its success and support available to employees depend to some extent on the leadership style practised by persons in senior management positions of such organizations. Two research questions are investigated: (1) What are the effects of transformational leadership style on employee job satisfaction and consequently on work performance? (2) What are the effects of the employee work environment on work-life balance as well as employee satisfaction and consequently on work performance? To answer these questions, structural equation modelling (SEM) is applied to data from a survey questionnaires with 224 respondents. Since the overall aim of the thesis is to assess the effect of transformational leadership style and employee work environment on work performance, the survey measures two intermediate outcomes (employee job satisfaction, and employee work-life balance).  It has been demonstrated through other works that transformational leadership and employee work environment play an important role in overall work performance. Good transformational leadership promotes employee satisfaction. A suitable employee work environment promotes a positive work-life balance as well as high employee satisfaction.  Our findings regarding the effect of transformational leadership on employee work performance are in line with findings of previous work. The results of the SEM analysis demonstrate that transformational leadership positively affects employee job satisfaction which in turn positively affects employee work performance. Interestingly, despite several works suggesting that work environment positively affects work-life balance, our results did not show any statistically significant relationship either with work performance directly or with the mediating variables work-life balance and job satisfaction, to substantiate this link. We discuss our results and make suggestions for policy, practice, and future work implications.

The Chocó-Darien Global Ecoregion (CGE) in South America is one of 25 global biodiversity hotspots prioritized for conservation. I performed the first land-use and land-cover (LULC) change analysis for the entire CGE in this dissertation. There were three main objectives: 1) Select the best available imagery to build annual land-use and land-cover maps from 2001 to 2015 across the CGE. 2) Model LULC across the CGE to assess forest change trends from 2002 to 2015 and identify the effect of proximate causes of deforestation and reforestation. 3) Estimate the effects of underlying drivers on deforestation and reforestation across the CGE between 2002 and 2015. I developed annual LULC maps across the CGE from 2002 to 2015 using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro radiometer) vegetation index products and random forest classification. The LULC maps resulted in high accuracies (Kappa = 0.87; SD = 0.008). We detected a gradual replacement of forested areas with agriculture and secondary vegetation (agriculture reverting to early regeneration of natural vegetation) across the CGE. Forest loss was higher between 2010-2015 when compared to 2002-2010. LULC change trends, proximate causes, and reforestation transitions varied according to administrative authority (countries: PanamanianCGE, Colombian CGE, and Ecuadorian CGE). Population growth and road density were underlying drivers of deforestation. Armed conflicts, Gross Domestic Product, and average annual rain were proximate causes and underlying drivers related reforestation.