Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2013-06-27"
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- Leasing's impact on firm credit ratingsPublication . Bennett, Thomas Dales; Reis, Ricardo F.By applying two of the most accurate credit rating models, Altman’s Z score and Emery and Cogger’s Lambda, I have been able to set up a framework for comparing small Portuguese companies with larger FTSE corporations. These two credit rating models have been used in this paper as proxies for a firms stability and overall success. In addition to calculating individual firm credit ratings, I have also obtained cross sectional data on firm leasing intensities which I have used as the independent variables in a number of regression analyses. By regressing the credit rating outputs on the cross sectional leasing data, I have been able to establish whether leasing bears any impact on a firms credit rating.
- Is the trend still your friend?Publication . Moniz, Miguel Duarte Pacheco Botelho; Faias, JoséThis dissertation analyzes whether following moving average trading rules make it possible to achieve above the market returns, which would be against the semi-strong efficient market hypothesis. This dissertation analyzes the profitability of five different combinations of moving average rules for the Dow Jones Index and its stocks from 1940 to 2012. We find that the predictability of these strategies is still true, with a better performance during expansion periods.
- Delta Q : to tea or not to tea : marketing case studyPublication . Berchtold, Matthias; Assunção, João Borges de; Marcos, Paulo Alexandre GonçalvesChange is a constant progress and companies need to be able to respond quickly to the market and to their customers. This case illustrates that, in spite of a weaker starting position, companies are able to compete with much bigger competitors if they understand this insight. For that reason, this case demonstrates the importance for a company to align its strategy and its portfolio to changing consumer behaviours and tries to elucidate this to future managers. This dissertation focuses on the writing of a case study about Delta Cafés, a Portuguese coffee company that has recently experienced problems by the implementation of a new product and was facing strong competition by a multinational giant. Delta created Delta Q, a closed coffee capsuled system, in 2007 as a response to the new coffee industry trend towards the use of capsules and the huge success of its strongest competitor Nestlé. The managers at Delta Cafés saw themselves as David fighting against Goliath and their battle seemed even more fierce than expected. A year after the launch, Delta Q landed far off the target (16 % instead of 30 % market share), only reaching the third place, just behind the two Nestlé brands. For the management and innovation team of Delta Cafés the main challenge was therefore how to change this situation in order to achieve or to exceed the desired market share of 30 % by the end of 2009. The case depicts several decisions in the range of brand positioning, distribution channels, switching costs and differentiation the management team around the CEO Nabeiro can undertake in order to (re-)gain its market position.
- Risk aversion in financial crisesPublication . Cunha, Gonçalo Silva Ramos da Silva; Kokkonen, JoniThis study is designed to understand how investors risk preferences change, when faced by financial crisis. Option prices implied densities provide information about market movements and risk preferences. The data used are European call options prices on the DJIA with a time to maturity of four weeks. This paper obtains the risk aversion estimates by the extraction of options implied risk neutral densities and their translation to real world densities, applied to three crisis : Dotcom bubble in 2001; Subprime mortgage in 2008 and European sovereign debt in 2011. RND is achieved by the use of two parametric methods: mixture of lognormal densities (MLN); and generalised beta distribution of the second kind (GB2). The risk transformation procedure from RND to RWD (real world densities) is achieved by applying the power utility function. The RND empirical results imply that the GB2 method is disregarded due to inferior quality whilst the MLN produces results of higher uncertainty and expected future results of index levels corrected downward. The risk aversion estimates obtained from the RWD generation process do not present any evident pattern of evolution from a stable financial period to one of financial shock. It is also important to mention that for some periods the risk aversion reached negative values. This is a surprising result due to existent theoretical assumption of positive risk aversion. Overall, this study documents inconclusive results. Nevertheless, several important topics are left for future research. Interesting developments would consist: either replicating this study considering more expiration dates, bearing in mind that too many periods would imply an extremely generalised risk aversion estimate that would be counterproductive for achieving the objective of this paper; apply another method from the available literature; or testing the negative estimates with more sophisticated models that are beyond the focus of this paper.
- A União Europeia face à imigração clandestinaPublication . Pires, Ana Filipa Gaspar; Piçarra, NunoO presente trabalho estuda a atitude da União Europeia face à imigração clandestina, mediante uma abordagem tridimensional (institucional, política e legislativa) da questão. Numa primeira abordagem, este Estudo dedica-se ao Tratado de Lisboa, às inovações introduzidas por este em sede de combate à imigração clandestina, nomeadamente as inovações referentes a princípios e competências da União Europeia através da análise dos artigos 79.º (n.º 2, alíneas c) e d) e n.º 3) e 80.º, do novo papel da Cartas dos Direitos Fundamentais, e as inovações institucionais introduzidas por este Tratado, tais como a supressão das restrições relativas às competências do Tribunal de Justiça e o envolvimento mais intenso dos PNs. Numa segunda abordagem, analisamos a questão sob um ponto de vista político, estudando a forma como os instrumentos oriundos das recentes evoluções políticas, tais como o Pacto Europeu sobre a Imigração e o Asilo, de 2008, e o Programa de Estocolmo, de 2009, abordaram a questão da imigração clandestina. Por fim, numa terceira e última abordagem, legislativa, analisamos as Directivas 2008/115/CE e 2009/52/CE, relativas, respectivamente, a normas e procedimentos comuns nos Estados-Membros para o regresso de nacionais de países terceiros em situação irregular e que estabelece normas mínimas sobre sanções e medidas contra os empregadores de nacionais de países terceiros em situação irregular, assim como a jurisprudência emanada do Tribunal de Justiça e do Tribunal dos Europeu dos Direitos do Homem, pertinente para a interpretação destes mesmos actos. O presente trabalho tem assim por finalidade traçar, mediante um estudo realizado a partir de doutrina, jurisprudência e legislação europeia e nacional, um estudo pluridimensional da atitude da União Europeia face à imigração clandestina.
- Can game theory be used to address PPP renegotiations? : a retrospective study of the Metronet : London Underground PPPPublication . Kennedy, Gregory Michael; Reis, Ricardo Ferreira; Sarmento, Joaquim MirandaPublic Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been introduced in many countries in order to increase the supply of public infrastructure services. The main criterion for implementing a PPP is that it will provide value for money. Often, however, these projects enter into financial distress which requires that they either be rescued or retendered. The cost of such a financial renegotiation can erode the value for money supposed to be created by the PPP. Due to the scale and complexity of these projects, the decision either to rescue or retender the project is not straightforward. We determine whether game theory can aid the decision making process in PPP renegotiation by applying a game theory model retrospectively to the failure of the Metronet - London Underground PPP. We study whether the model can be applied to a real PPP case, whether the application of this model would have changed the outcome of the case and, finally, whether and how the model can be used in future PPP renegotiations. We show that the model can be applied but that its parameters are not easy to quantify, that the model indicates that the outcome of our case was correct and, finally, that as long as the users of the model are prepared that it can be used in to aid decision making in future PPP decision making.
- Galp Energia´s customer care program : improving the existing customer care program in order to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty in transitory stage of market liberalizationPublication . Eren, Eser; Xavier, RuteMany energy markets in Europe, which previously had been dominated by monopolies, are now exposed to free market competition. Portugal is one of the countries that has been liberalized recently and it is going through the transitory stage. As energy market in Portugal is now open to free competition and new suppliers are entering in the market, it is likely the price of the utilities to decrease and be more advantageous to the consumers. With new companies entering the market, customers are looking for alternative providers that will fit their needs best in terms of price and service quality. The purpose of this consulting project is to improve Galp Energia´s existing customer care services and strengthening them in order to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In return Galp intends to retain existing client base in natural gas regulated market and increase its market share in residential electricity market in the transitory stage of liberalization. In our project we focused on four segments of the customer experience cycle and proposed seven recommendations to Galp Energia to improve their existing customer care program. In each step of our analysis and recommendations we have considered our client´s and advisor´s opinions to provide the best results to Galp Energia. Based on our interviews, meetings, best practices and survey results, we have provided proposals with moderate implementation difficulty. Some of our proposals like sms/e-mail care needs further analysis by Galp Energia or posterior projects about customer care. Our recommendations are as follows: Discovery; Didactic Channels, Publicity and Google Keywords; Using Service; New energy cutting warning process via Sms/E-mail and Sms/-Email care; Paying for Service; New invoice layout; Solving Issues and Complaints; Online customer care centre. We based our proposals on the dynamic modern identity of Galp Energia aligned with social responsibility and vision of the future.
- Consulting project : recommendations for the services marketing plan do Ginásio Clube PortuguêsPublication . Gonçalves, Ana Margarida Teixeira Santos de Sousa; Xavier, RuteThe increasing awareness of health problems that are a consequence of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle as well as the snowballing popularity of the concern with aesthetics have been contributing to the growth and development of the Health and Fitness Industry worldwide. Portugal is no exception and, especially due to the contracting economy, new opportunities are emerging for this market. Moreover, in the past few years, motivations towards physical activity have shifted and the fitness centers have to adapt to this change in the customers’ preferences and attitudes. Ginásio Clube Português (GCP) requested a consulting project that involved the development of recommendations for the Services Marketing Plan for the upcoming year that counteracts the challenges stated above. The renowned Gaps Model of Service Quality, developed by Parasuraman et al. (1985), was used as a starting point for this analysis to support future recommendations, by assessing the gap between members’ expectations and perceptions of the service quality of GCP. The research questions that emerged to respond to the problem in hand are: (1) how do GCP members perceive the quality of this health club and what do they expect of such an institution, (2) what is the general opinion on the practice of physical activity, especially in the context of gyms and health clubs, and (3) how can GCP attract new members while retaining the existing ones. The methodology adopted to answer these questions involved the combination of three different research techniques: in-depth interviews, mystery shopping and questionnaires.
- Services marketing strategy recommendations for Ginásio Clube PortuguêsPublication . Marques, Filipa Sofia Dias Miguéns; Xavier, RuteGinásio Clube Português (GCP) has been facing some difficulties regarding not only the attraction of new members but also maintaining the existing members. The main goal with this dissertation was then to identify areas of concern and formulate recommendations to be analyzed by Ginásio Clube Português. This dissertation contains a Literature Review chapter, in which concepts related to the consulting project developed are explained and clarified. A brief explanation of Ginásio Clube Português’ history and indicators as well as the proposed challenge for this project follows. The Methodology used in this project for the identification of problems is then explained and Recommendations are formulated. It was possible to identify several areas of concern and formulate three sets of different recommendations to be analyzed by GCP: recommendations focused on the attraction of new members, recommendations focused on the maintaining of current members and general recommendations.