CLSBE - Dissertações de Mestrado / Master Dissertations
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- Liderar com sentido : estudo sobre o impacto dos estilos de liderança nos resultados organizacionais mediado pelo significado do trabalho: o caso Airbus PortugalPublication . Oliveira, Daniela Filipa Magalhães; Gonzalez, Oliver PerezEste estudo começou com uma questão pertinente: Como os estilos de liderança (transformacional, transacional e laissez-faire), mediados pelo significado percebido no trabalho, podem afetar os resultados operacionais (engagement, satisfação, compromisso e intenção de turnover). Para conseguirmos responder a esta questão aprofundamos o conhecimento na literatura existente. Foi elaborado um questionário, através de instrumentos de autores de renome na literatura e distribuído por todos os colaboradores da Airbus Portugal. De forma a analisar os dados foram efetuadas correlações e análises de mediação recorrendo à utilização de SPSS. Os resultados demonstram que a liderança transformacional é a que mais se destaca na tradução de significado para os trabalhadores. Dos outcomes, o engagement foi o que teve uma mediação total, ou seja, o impacto do líder transformacional depende inteiramente da capacidade do colaborador encontrar propósito e sentido nas suas tarefas diárias. Em relação às restantes lideranças, a transacional não apresentou qualquer correlação significativa com o sentido do trabalho e o laissez-faire apresentou um impacto negativo na satisfação e no compromisso. Com estes resultados, o estudo permite concluir que num ambiente de alta complexidade como o da empresa de estudo, para garantir o bem-estar e a retenção de talento a liderança deve ter como prioridade a criação do sentido do trabalho nos seus colaboradores.
- Understanding the drivers of cancellations and no-shows in sports field reservations : a practical case study with FIELDPublication . Grilo, André Caldeira; Coelho, JoséThis thesis addresses the understanding of cancellations and no-show drivers. Despite possessingrecords from 2019 to 2025, the company relied on an operational database that required manualanalysis, leading to a more time-consuming identification of the reasons for cancellation. A Decision Support System was developed, with the methodological analysis progressing from a conceptual model to a star schema, ensuring the correct integration of data, resulting in the productionof interactive dashboards in Power BI. Three distinct categories of cancellation drivers were analyzed, focusing on the characteristics of the matches, the attributes of the fields, and temporaland geographical aspects. The analysis identified possible drivers, such as longer lead times and“weekly” recurring slots. Football 5 and prime-time windows also show significant instability inthe completion of scheduled matches, as do matches played on wooden pitches or fields with fewreviews. Seasonality and location also play a measurable role as possible drivers. The solutionvalidation involved tests conducted by FIELD stakeholders using the Task-Based Usability Testand supplemented with the System Usability Scale, demonstrating with strong evidence that theDSS has high usability, reduces Time-to-Insight, and is geared towards the specific context of thecompany. These results show that cancellations are not random occurrences but result from specific drivers and that the tool optimizes the TTI, compared to what was in effect, accelerating thecompany’s decision-making process.
- Assessing the financial materiality of ESG : risk propagation and management implicationsPublication . Marques, Ricardo João Cabrita; Venter, ZoeThis study examines the relationship between Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance and firm-specific risk, measured by idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL), across the United States (S&P 500) and Europe (STOXX 600) from 2005 to 2025. Using multi-factor asset pricing models and a Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC-GARCH) framework, the research finds a consistent negative correlation between high ESG engagement and IVOL in both regions. Notably, the study uncovers institutional differences: in North America’s shareholder-centric market, governance is the key risk mitigation factor, reflecting efforts to reduce litigation and agency costs; in Europe’s stakeholder-oriented market, social factors dominate, aligning with strong labor protections and workforce cohesion. Additionally, ESG proves to be a practical tool for active risk management, with a minimum-variance hedge using high-ESG assets reducing low-ESG portfolio variance by about 80%. The finding that a simple static hedge rivals dynamic strategies suggests that ESG’s risk-mitigating effects are structural and enduring. Overall, these results support a contextual theory of ESG materiality and provide valuable insights for regulators, managers, and investors aiming to incorporate non-financial attributes into resilient portfolio strategies.
- Trade credit or bank credit? : evidence on the financing of portuguese SMEsPublication . Leitão, Ana Lúcia Machado; Bonfim, DianaThe goal of this dissertation is to examine how Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adjust their use of bank credit and trade credit between 2016 and 2023. Using a panel of 50,744 firms, the study evaluates three dimensions of trade credit to understand whether firms rely more on suppliers when bank credit declines (trade credit received), whether they redistribute liquidity through credit granted to customers (trade credit granted), or whether they adjust their net financing position within the supply chain (net trade credit). The empirical strategy relies on fixed effects models and explores heterogeneity according to firm size, financial constraints and sector of activity.The results provide evidence of a substitution mechanism, which means that SMEs increase their reliance on trade credit when bank credit decreases. This pattern persists across all specifications, highlighting the central role of supplier financing in a bank-based economy. In Portugal, no evidence supports the redistribution theory, that is, firms with higher levels of bank credit do not tend to grant more trade credit. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, a temporary increase in trade credit granted is observed, although this effect dissapears in subsequent years. Regarding the net effect, SMEs with greater access to bank credit are more likely to hold positive net trade credit positions, acting as net suppliers within the supply chain, whereas firms with lower access tend to remain net borrowers of supplier financing.
- Internship report : French embassy in Brazil 2025Publication . Smeeckaert, Antoine Salomon; Djebbari, HabibaThis six-month internship at the Regional Economic Service (SER) in Brasília, from February to July 2025, offered a full immersion into economic diplomacy and analysis. Working under Rafael Cezar and Célia Devant-Perrotin, I contributed to weekly economic briefs, thematic notes, interview summaries, biographies, and other supporting documents. Weekly briefs summarized Brazil’s economic news, market indicators, and macro-financial developments, while thematic notes provided deeper analysis on topics like the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, local government budgets, and social program costs. Research involved extensive use of Brazilian media, government reports, academic studies, internal SER databases, and direct interviews with experts, complemented by AI tools for research, translation, and transcription. The internship also included attending seminars, preparing biographies of speakers, participating in bilateral events, and coordinating diplomatic activities. These tasks strengthened my skills in economic analysis, writing, organization, and professional communication. The experience highlighted the role of the embassy in facilitating the flow of strategic information between Brasília and Paris, informing policy decisions, and supporting French economic interests abroad. On a personal level, the internship provided significant cultural immersion and multilingual practice in French, Portuguese, and occasionally English and Spanish. It enhanced my adaptability, independence, and understanding of Brazilian society, politics, and economy. Living and working in Brasília offered insights into the complexities of international diplomacy, teamwork in multicultural environments, and the intersection of economic policy and foreign relations. Overall, this internship was a transformative experience, combining professional growth, cultural enrichment, and practical knowledge of economic diplomacy in an international context.
- Forecasting euro-area sovereign bond spreads : evidence on accuracy and economic valuePublication . Delgado, Jhon Dalton Cevallos; Tran, DanThis thesis studies the forecasting and economic performance of euro-area sovereign bondspread models, with a particular focus on the relationship between statistical accuracy andcross-sectional ranking ability. I develop an error-correction modeling framework that combinesa theory-consistent econometric specification with a machine-learning extension, allowinglong-run equilibrium relationships to be preserved while capturing nonlinear short-run dynamics.Model performance is evaluated not only using conventional forecasting metrics, but also throughlong–short portfolio strategies designed to test economic value.Using monthly data for ten euro-area sovereign issuers over the period 2010–2024, I showthat incorporating machine-learning techniques into the short-run dynamics substantially reducesforecast errors relative to a linear error-correction benchmark, even though out-of-sample R2 values remain negative. However, improvements in statistical accuracy do not translatemechanically into superior cross-sectional ranking or uniformly higher risk-adjusted portfolioreturns. Instead, economic performance depends on the interaction between forecast signals,persistence in spread dynamics, and the way predictions are implemented within portfolios underdifferent interest-rate hedging configurations. The results highlight a central accuracy–ranking puzzle: models that improve point-forecastprecision do not necessarily generate better investment outcomes. For long–short strategies, theability to correctly rank relative tighteners and wideners is more important than minimizingforecast errors. These findings underscore the importance of aligning forecasting objectives,evaluation metrics, and portfolio implementation when assessing predictive models in sovereignbond markets.
- Unmasking the global sin premium : macro-financial risks and business cyclesPublication . Rodrigues, Pedro Miguel Gomes; Venter, ZoeDespite the consensus that social norms create a "sin premium," it remains debated whether this excess return compensates for behavioral exclusion or rational macroeconomic risk, and whether these assets truly outperform when economic conditions deteriorate. This thesis addresses these issues by analyzing the global dynamics of sin stocks relative to risk-free, market, and ESG benchmarks. The analysis uses a dataset of 421 firms across the United States, Europe, and Asia (1990 - 2024), employing conditional Fama-French factor models extended with macroeconomic state variables and the OECD Composite Leading Indicator. The findings confirm a significant unconditional premium across all regions, highest in Asia and lowest in Europe. However, when conditioning on macro-financial state variables, the statistical significance of the premium largely disappears, suggesting it primarily compensates for exposure to dynamic systematic risks rather than reflecting pure mispricing. Crucially, cyclical behavior shows strong regional differences: while U.S. sin stocks display countercyclical (defensive) resilience, European and Asian counterparts tend to behave procyclically, outperforming mainly during economic expansions. Consequently, the opportunity cost of ethical exclusion for global investors is not static; it fluctuates significantly with geography and economic conditions.
- Nonlinear ESG factors : noise or signalPublication . Aeckerle, Dominic; Venter, ZoeThis study investigates whether Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) characteristicsexhibit non-linear pricing effects in equity markets. Extending Yang et al. (2025), the analysis incorporates polynomial ESG score transformations into asset pricing models for European, NorthAmerican, and Japanese markets (2005–2024). Three hypotheses are tested: (H1) ESG attributes are priced non-linearly; (H2) non-linear effects differ across regulatory environments; and(H3) investor sentiment moderates ESG pricing. For Europe, the Social dimension shows thestrongest evidence, with significant linear returns (t = 2.52) and cubic factor alphas (t = 2.08,Ǣ < 0.05). Environmental exhibits weaker unconditional pricing but marginally significant non-linear effects (t = 1.72, Ǣ < 0.10). Governance plays a minor role. Unconditional ESG premiaremain statistically indistinguishable from zero, though rolling-window estimations reveal substantial temporal instability. Pooled logistic regressions indicate pronounced cross-regionalheterogeneity: European markets exhibit positive sentiment effects (17–21 percentage pointsper standard deviation), North American markets display negative effects (12–22 percentagepoints), and Japanese markets yield mixed, largely insignificant results. The findings demonstrate that ESG characteristics are priced in state-dependent, non-linear ways across institutionalenvironments. H1 and H2 receive support; H3 is validated for regulatory-driven European markets but rejected for market-driven North American contexts.
- Is greenness rewarded? : a comparative analysis of european and United States equitiesPublication . Dionísio, Pedro Manuel Correia Roboredo Chaves; Venter, ZoeThis work investigates whether realised stock returns in Europe and the United States reflect a carbon premium or a green premium when both regions are analysed under a common emissions-based framework. I compile firm-level data on reported Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and link these to monthly equity returns spanning the period from 2013 to 2023. The research employs two complementary methods: first, categorizing firms into portfolios based on their total emissions and emissions intensity; second, performing panel regressions that analyze the relationship between monthly returns and emissions measures while accounting for firm-specific traits, industry differences, and time fixed effects.The results reveal a clear divergence across regions. In Europe, green firms consistently outperform brown firms in both portfolio and regression settings. Brown-minus-Green spreads range from roughly -0.3 to -0.7 percentage points per month, depending on the sorting method, and these differences are statistically meaningful. Panel regressions support this finding, showing that greener firms generate approximately 0.6 percentage points higher monthly returns compared to comparable brown firms. In the United States, corresponding spreads are weaker and far less stable, and the regression estimates are smaller and not statistically robust.These results demonstrate a consistent green premium in Europe, while indicating the absence of significant, systematic carbon premiums in the United States when using the same data and methodologies. The thesis highlights the importance of harmonised approaches in cross-regional studies of climate-related return patterns and provides a disciplined empirical benchmark for future work on these patterns.
- Firm characteristics and crisis resilience : an event study on the United States equity market (1990–2024)Publication . Röver, Mauritz Georg Max Hieronymus; Meira, MárioMajor U.S. equity market crises have repeatedly challenged firms over recent decades. Even when prices fall broadly, losses vary substantially across firms. Such variation raises the question of what explains differential firm responses to crises and whether these differences vary across different stages of a crisis. This dissertation examines which firm characteristics are associated with crisis resilience across different phases of major U.S. equity market crises. Crisis resilience is measured as firm performance relative to the market using cumulative abnormal returns around the onset of crisis phases. The analysis assesses how firm characteristics relate to resilience within distinct crisis phases and whether these relationships generalize across crisis episodes. The main findings indicate pronounced phase dependence and limited stability in firm characteristic effects when crises are examined separately. More consistent patterns emerge when crises are compared within the same phase. Lower return volatility is consistently associated with higher resilience. In contrast, higher systematic market risk is linked to greater resilience during extreme market conditions. Beyond risk exposure, higher profitability is generally related to stronger resilience, while larger firms tend to be more resilient in particularly adverse market environments. In conclusion, the evidence indicates that crisis resilience arises from a combination of stable and phase-specific determinants rather than a single firm profile that is consistently resilient across crisis phases.