Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2024-07-02"
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- Exploring the impact of smart working on burnout among young Italian professionals : the roles of personality and occupational factors in a mixed-methods studyPublication . Accorinti, Flavia; Rajsingh, PeterWith the widespread transformation of the workplace brought about by smart working, and the growing emphasis on employee wellbeing, it is crucial to look more closely at the elements that may contribute to the likelihood of experiencing burnout symptoms. Responding to demands from academics in the field, this thesis investigates the impact of smart working on the propensity to burnout among young Italian professionals. The role of personality traits, measured by the Big Five model, and the significance of unique elements related to remote work, have been considered. Building upon the Job Demands-Resources framework, a mixed method approach was employed, incorporating a survey to collect perspectives of young employees, and interviews to analyze managerial viewpoints. Using both a quantitative and qualitative study, this work explored the potential organizational and personality factors that could contribute to the experience of burnout in remote job settings. The results suggested that smart working is a significant variable in accounting for the variation in burnout propensity among young Italian workers. Work-related factors exert a greater impact on employees' emotional reactions to remote job environments than personal variables. Nevertheless, intriguing findings have been achieved regarding certain personality traits that may have a more pronounced effect. Overall, the insights generated suggested a more holistic approach to smart working, and emphasized the role of the corporate cultures, managers, and leaders as enveloping drivers, able to generate a positive collective response. Important managerial implications were drawn, with the aim of contributing to the fundamental process of burnout prevention.
- Population structure and history of Mycobacterium bovis European 3 clonal complex reveal transmission across ecological corridors of unrecognized importance in PortugalPublication . Pereira, André C.; Lourenço, José; Themudo, Gonçalo; Botelho, Ana; Cunha, Mónica V.Mycobacterium bovis causes animal tuberculosis in livestock and wildlife, with an impact on animal health and production, wildlife management, and public health. In this work, we sampled a multi-host tuberculosis community from the official hotspot risk area of Portugal over 16 years, generating the largest available data set in the country. Using phylogenetic and ecological modeling, we aimed to reconstruct the history of circulating lineages across the livestock-wildlife interface to inform intervention and the implementation of genomic surveillance within the official eradication plan. We find evidence for the co-circulation of M. bovis European 1 (Eu1), Eu2, and Eu3 clonal complexes, with Eu3 providing sufficient temporal signal for further phylogenetic investigation. The Eu3 most recent common ancestor (bovine) was dated in the 1990s, subsequently transitioning to wildlife (red deer and wild boar). Isolate clustering based on sample metadata was used to inform phylogenetic inference, unravelng frequent transmission between two clusters that represent an ecological corridor of previously unrecognized importance in Portugal. The latter was associated with transmission at the livestock-wildlife interface toward locations with higher temperature and precipitation, lower agriculture and road density, and lower host densities. This is the first analysis of M. bovis Eu3 complex in Iberia, shedding light on background ecological factors underlying long-term transmission and informing where efforts could be focused within the larger hotspot risk area of Portugal.
- Círculos de construção de paz numa escola de ensino básico na cidade de Fortaleza, Ceará-BrasilPublication . Souza, Francisca Eugenia Nogueira de; Ponte, Filomena Ermida Costa Figueiredo Branco daO ambiente escolar é um local multidisciplinar e repleto de experiências e histórias de vida. É o espaço formador que prepara a criança para o convívio social e a capacita nas principais habilidades necessárias, a nível intelectual, social e emocional. A escola também é um ambiente de trabalho e, como em todo trabalho, os profissionais podem apresentar conflitos relacionais que impactam negativamente a rotina escolar. Alguns profissionais não compreendem as funções uns dos outros, ou não compreendem as mudanças que ocorrem em suas vidas, ou mesmo suas histórias de vida, que formam as suas personalidades. Um educador é, antes de tudo, um indivíduo único, com sua história de vida, particularidades, sentimentos e expectativas. A educação especial possui demandas específicas e dificuldades estruturais que fogem dos muros da escola, como o preconceito presente em nossa sociedade, as políticas públicas insuficientes, a carência de preparo para os profissionais e as dificuldades familiares. As técnicas aplicadas visaram facilitar os vínculos entre os profissionais e estruturação das ações educacionais. Um dos ganhos desenvolvidos durante o acompanhamento foi a criação do Plano de Desenvolvimento Individual (PDI), que passará a ser aplicado em cada aluno. Após a aplicação das metodologias presentes neste trabalho, os profissionais passaram a compreender melhor seu papel na instituição, sua função na vida de uma criança com necessidades educacionais especiais e a importância de cada membro da escola.
- Gender identity and relative income within households : evidence from MexicoPublication . Messina, Pietro Eugenio; Silva, JoanaThis dissertation investigates the impact of gender identity norms on income distribution within married households in Mexico, employing census data from 1990, 2000, and 2010. Central to the analysis is the McCrary density test, which assesses the discontinuity when a wife’s income equals or exceeds her husband’s, challenging conventional gender roles. Our findings indicate a significant societal aversion to wives earning more than their husbands, evident across Mexico's diverse regional, temporal, and sectorial settings. This study underscores the profound influence of gender norms on household economic behaviors, highlighting how deeply cultural and social norms can shape family financial decisions.
- Aging workforces and technological change : insights from Portugal’s labor marketPublication . Weinholt, Francisco Maria de Mascarenhas da Maia Bivar; Correia, Isabel Horta; Silva, JoanaThe shift in the structure of the labor force is affecting workers’ productivity and firms’ decisions. Can technology postpone the tipping point, avoiding an early downward inflection of productivity? This thesis examines the relationship between aging workforces, technological intensity, and productivity. It extends traditional analyses of productivity and aging by incorporating the dimension of technology intensity, providing a more granular understanding of how these elements interact across different sectors and age groups, with a focus on effects within firms. Using detailed firm-worker-technology data, it finds that in high technology-intensive firms, productivity increases with age, while in low-intensity firms, the age-productivity profile is flatter. It also finds that ICT training can have a role. These findings are particularly policy-relevant, suggesting that policy actions focused on training and technology can postpone the tipping point. While wage-setting norms may imply that wages continue to increase with age, worker productivity may not. However, technology and training can delay this tipping point, avoiding an early decline in productivity.
- Quantifying corporate culture using machine learning and 10-K filingsPublication . Beecken, Tom Robert; Tran, DanCorporate culture plays a critical role in the success and integration of organizations, particularly during mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This dissertation aims to extract and quantify elements of corporate culture from 10-K textual data and subsequently apply these quantifications to real-world scenarios. To explore this question, a comprehensive dataset consisting of 68,855 Management Discussion and Analysis sections from 10-K Filings stemming from 12,553 companies was utilized. The study employs advanced NLP techniques, including word embedding and sentiment scoring using Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), to generate a culture dictionary and identify as well as quantify linguistic patterns indicative of corporate culture. The findings demonstrate that NLP-driven quantification of corporate culture can provide valuable insights for addressing cultural integration in M&A scenarios. By scoring the core cultural values innovation, integrity, quality, respect, and teamwork, stakeholders can make more informed decisions, potentially improving the success rates of M&A activities.
- Analyzing market dynamics : a comprehensive model using macroeconomic, sentiment and fundamental data for regime detection and asset allocationPublication . Dückerhoff, Fabian; Tran, DanThis dissertation examines the development and application of a comprehensive financial indicator that incorporates macroeconomic, sentiment, and fundamental data. It is demonstrated that various market features, such as high mean returns and low volatility periods, can be clustered into regimes using well-known models like the Two-State Markov Switching Model and Principal Component Analysis. Important discoveries are obtained by combining the findings in a Combined Indicator. For example, both the Dotcom Bubble and the Global Economic Crisis provided early signals of a downturn based on the classification of regimes. However, when applying these models to investment strategies, further results from the out-ofsample dataset suggest that, despite the potential of certain individual models to improve market timing and achieve greater risk-adjusted returns in the training set, these cannot be replicated consistently. Realistic market conditions, such as the inclusion of a time lag due to signaling and the introduction of transaction fees, thus limit the viability of an effective investment strategy. Nevertheless, the results of the dissertation and the prediction of the Combined Indicator itself can be useful and serve as support for asset allocation.
- Exploring the impact of ESG on factor modelsPublication . Capasso, Giacomo; Silva, António Baldaque daGiven the increasing interest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics, mainly driven by both rising regulation for corporations and investors appeal to long-term sustainability, it has become necessary and useful to test the relevance of the ESG factor, namely a strategy that involves going long on stocks with low ESG performance and shorting those with high ESG score, on asset pricing. This thesis investigates the integration of ESG factor in traditional factor models and its explanatory power, in particular in FF 3-factor and 5-factor models, recognizing their central role in contemporary markets. The review of the ESG topic starts with a discussion of the overall performance of ESG stocks, their evolution over time, compared to non-ESG stocks. The analysis of ESG factor is divided in two parts: first, it analyzes the factor given by the combined ESG score; second, the three pillars (Environmental, Social and Governance) are examined individually, as three factors. By outlining these “subfactors”, the aim is to capture the blended dynamics within each ESG dimension and explore their respective impacts on investment performance and risk. Further breakdown is made by analyzing the impact of factors at industry-level and within different exchanges. The analysis highlights how firms with low ESG scores experienced higher returns in the period considered than ESG leaders, implying the possibility of a particular risk borne by the former. Moreover, significant results are found when the ESG factor is added to asset pricing models in all its specifications and with varying degrees of relevance.
- Climate change and firm performancePublication . Ceglie, Flavio Di; Silva, JoanaThis thesis explores the impact of climate change on firm performance and examines the possible mechanism by which weather shocks influence sales outcomes. Leveraging a comprehensive dataset spanning Brazilian manufacturing firms between 2003 and 2009, coupled with high-resolution weather data, the study analyzes the impact of weather shocks. Employing the identification strategy of location-specific z-scores with the analytical framework advanced by Colmer (2021), the findings underscore the profound effect of weather shocks causing substantial declines in firm sales. Furthermore, the research investigates the distributional impacts of weather fluctuations. A closer examination reveals that the Northern regions of the country bear the brunt of these adversities, experiencing disproportionately greater sales losses compared to their Southern counterparts. In addition, the study delves into the transmission mechanisms of the weather-firm performance nexus. It finds that frequent power outages and inclines in energy costs as drivers of the declines in sales through productivity shocks.
- How the interaction of the big five personality traits and brand personality of luxury brands impacts customer purchase intentionsPublication . Gall, Lena; Rajsingh, PeterThis study examines the interaction between consumer personality traits and luxury brand personalities to understand their influence on purchase intentions. Utilizing Aaker's (1997) brand personality model and Goldberg's (1992) Big Five personality model, the research addresses gaps in knowledge about the psychological foundations of luxury brand loyalty and purchase behavior. The study surveyed 214 participants familiar with Hermès, Prada, and Balenciaga. Six hypotheses explored the relationships between consumer traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and brand personality perceptions (sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, ruggedness) on purchase intentions. Results indicate that most personality traits do not significantly influence purchase intentions, except for a partial positive relationship between neuroticism and purchase intentions for Prada. This emphasizes the importance of brand attractiveness and familiarity over personality congruence in luxury purchases. The study highlights the complexity of luxury consumer behavior, suggesting that luxury brand strategies should integrate broader cultural, social, and economic factors to effectively engage diverse consumer segments. Additionally, it underscores that while personality traits offer some predictive value, luxury branding strategies must consider the larger context in which consumers operate to maintain and grow market presence. These insights are crucial for developing effective brand strategies that resonate with consumers' evolving preferences and behaviors in the dynamic luxury market. Understanding these interactions can help luxury brands craft more effective and nuanced marketing strategies aligned with their target audiences' psychological traits and broader cultural contexts.
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