Ana Maria Dias Simões da Costa Ferreira

Objetivo: Compreender como o perfil, os valores e a base cognitiva, propostos pela Teoria dos Altos Escalões, são percebidos nas escolhas estratégicas do controller em empresas atuantes no Brasil e em Portugal. Método: Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa com paradigma de investigação interpretativista. Foram realizados dois estudos de caso em organizações com realidades empresariais distintas, sediadas no Brasil e em Portugal. Utilizou-se o shadowing para a coleta de evidências e, complementarmente, foi feita a triangulação das fontes mediante a realização de entrevistas e coleta de documentos. Originalidade/Relevância: Averiguar as características pessoais, sob a perspectiva dos valores e da base cognitiva, propostos pela Teoria dos Altos Escalões, em uma abordagem qualitativa no campo de pesquisa considerando o controller. Resultados: Os resultados apontam que a experiência profissional anterior e a formação acadêmica são percebidas nas escolhas estratégicas realizadas pelos controllers investigados nos dois países. Sobre a formação acadêmica, percebe-se que aspectos peculiares são determinantes: no Brasil, a formação em Contabilidade foi predominante, enquanto em Portugal prevaleceu a formação em Gestão entre os controllers. Valores como coletivismo, racionalidade, dever e inovação foram destacados como esperados para o exercício do cargo de controller. Contribuições: O estudo amplia o campo de aplicabilidade da Teoria dos Altos Escalões; avança na discussão sobre o perfil e as funções dos controllers, bem como no envolvimento desse profissional frente às diferentes escolhas estratégicas. Na perspectiva empírica, evidencia como as características pessoais do controller estão presentes em suas escolhas estratégicas, impactando nas decisões organizacionais. Ademais, elucida o quanto a formação acadêmica, as experiências profissionais e os valores pessoais de cada controller influenciam na visão gerencial desse gestor, permitindo às organizações estruturarem os seus recursos humanos de forma hierárquica, a fim de alcançar e otimizar os resultados.

This study investigates the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on society, business, and management, using a qualitative approach centered on the analysis of interviews and a review of literature. Text mining techniques were applied through the KH Coder tool, allowing for a detailed exploration of how AI is transforming these three dimensions. The results reveal significant changes in management practices, deep economic impacts, and relevant social changes brought about by the rapid adoption of AI. The originality of this study lies in the combination of qualitative analysis with the exploration of textual data, providing a comprehensive view of the ethical and practical implications of AI. It also acknowledges limitations, such as the rapid pace of technological development and the potential bias in the perceptions collected. This work contributes to a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, and suggests pathways for ethical and effective integration.

The unprecedented combination of social, environmental and economic challenges, known as the sustainability megatrends, has led to widespread sustainability-driven change across society. These megatrends are having a significant impact across the political, economic and environmental dimensions and are expected to have lasting effects over the coming decades. As a result, organisations are increasingly faced with the need to adapt and manage these transformative forces in order to remain relevant and competitive. This study focusses on Portuguese organisations and their response to sustainability megatrends. A qualitative research methodology, followed by a secondary data set of 101 interviews, revealed that the megatrends are highly relevant for Portuguese organisations. While the majority of organisations are currently implementing sustainable practices in their business strategy and adapting production to become more sustainable, it is evident that there is still progress to be made in order to fully integrate sustainability into their business model.

Companies try to acquire the finest advantages and techniques in a technologically advanced and end-to-end market to have a stronger foothold there. Although empirical research on this topic links IT to a decline in vertical integration, corporations are increasingly using this corporate strategy. The goal of this study is to show how over the past 22 years, scientific literature has changed with regard to how information technology (IT) affects vertical integration, one of the main types of corporate strategies. The findings demonstrated that vertical integration has been evolving in a balanced manner in a technological environment. Three categories—information technology, innovation, and processes—help explain this association and were discovered through cluster analysis. The direction of operational integration, the degree of industry concentration, demand unpredictability, and innovation should all be considered while making integration decisions.

Drawing on the growing literature that has addressed the role of Management Control Systems in innovation and the literature on institutional theory, this study explores the case of Amorim Cork Composites to analyse how the situated rationalities within the company get reflected in the management control practices in use, and then how these practices are used to communicate and provide guidance when innovation is part of the strategy. The study uses a single case study approach at an innovative company, collecting data from 32 interviews, direct observations, and documentation of the company. Based on that data, this study is able to perceive the existence of a rationality that is constructed around the importance of innovation, which becomes a paramount part of the defined strategy and leaves signs on to the internal control practices of the company. After that, through a mix of strategic objectives, well-defined cascaded process of these objectives, values, mottos, objectives related to that situated rationality within the company, and with the commitment created within the “signing” of objectives contracts, managers are able to communicate strategically and provide guidance to the collaborators, driving them to action that makes them more aware.

Gastronomy experiences are becoming a fundamental factor that influences the making of a decision regarding choosing a travel destination, as well as being a crucial factor in shaping tourists’ satisfaction regarding their overall travel experience. The aim of the study is to identify and explain the simultaneous impact of the key factors that influence a gastronomic experience and their impact on tourists’ satisfaction with a trip and the destination’s brand. These issues were addressed within the context of Ukraine, as this is an overlooked area of academic research, and an online survey was conducted, targeting domestic and international tourists. Structural equation modeling was used to assess and reveal the proposed hypotheses in the model. The study contributed to the theoretical understanding of the key factors that increases the occurrence of a memorable gastronomic experience and the relationship between the experience of food and its role in the satisfaction of and the perceived brand of a destination. Moreover, the finding showed that past experience and prior knowledge have a positive influence on the gastronomy experience, while tourists’ prior knowledge effects the perceived quality of a destination’s cuisine, as well as the food activities in the destination. Linkages in the model were empirically supported by statistical analyses. Nonetheless, the various level of the tourists’ involvement with gastronomy might be used as an input to examine and improve the memorable gastronomic experience on-site. The research simultaneously highlighted the importance of gastronomy to tourist destinations for positioning on international and domestic markets. The paper not only provides theoretical but also practical implications. The hospitality and tourism businesses benefit from acknowledging the importance of local food and the local food market. The findings of this study are also deemed to assist destination marketers who observe that tourists have become more demanding in search of unique experiences offered by destinations.

This study analyses whether country-level innovation performance and firm-level innovation commitment are associated to adopting the integrated reporting in Europe. The empirical analysis relies on a logistic regression model applied to 388 firm-year observations regarding firms located in Europe and data between 2016–2019. The results show a positive and significant association between country-level innovation performance and integrated reporting uptake. Moreover, at a firm level, the data partially support that the influence of innovation commitment on the likelihood of publishing integrated reports is higher for firms with a higher-level of sustainability performance. This research contributes to the literature by focusing simultaneously on the impact of country-level innovation performance and firm-level innovation commitment on integrated reporting acceptance in the European setting. In addition, the adopted country-level conceptual support is based on the institutional theory combined with the framework of the national innovation systems. The latter, to the best of our knowledge, has not yet been applied in this line of research.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo compreender como os valores e a base cognitiva propostos pela Teoria dos Altos Escalões são percebidos nas escolhas estratégicas de controllers que atuam em empresas do Brasil e de Portugal. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo com abordagem qualitativa. Os dados foram coletados entre os anos de 2018 a 2020 a partir de entrevistas realizadas com controllers e ex-controllers vinculados a empresas de diferentes segmentos dos dois países. No total, foram realizadas vinte e três entrevistas, tendo sido os dados analisados por meio da análise de conteúdo. Os resultados revelaram que a experiência profissional prévia e a formação acadêmica dos profissionais, assim como o perfil do indivíduo, a estrutura hierárquica, a cultura organizacional e o nível de autonomia que é dado aos controllers, interferem em suas escolhas estratégicas em ambos os países. Coletivismo, racionalidade, dever e inovação foram os valores mais destacados pelos entrevistados como sendo essenciais para o cargo de controller.

Purpose: By designing a pilot time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) model, this study aims to examine in depth the suitability and the complexity of TDABC in a manufacturing company. Design/methodology/approach: To obtain a deeper understanding on the matters to analyse, this research adopts an interventionist approach. The host organisation is GP, a Portuguese company in the frozen food sector. Findings: The authors’ experience allows them to assert that TDABC is suitable for a manufacturing company and it is able to deal with the variability of the industrial processes. Nonetheless, through a comparison with the models presented in the literature, TDABC appears to be more complex for manufacturing. The authors argue that this happens for two reasons. First, the two types of resources (human labour and machinery) used in production areas create a need to split tasks and to create two equations for each process, something that does not happen in service companies. Second, times are difficult to individualise for certain highly automated procedures, which could also give rise to some errors. Research limitations/implications: The designed model is compared to other models presented in the literature. Practical implications: This study shows a real example of TDABC in manufacturing and the procedural innovation of the time equations. Originality/value: As the TDABC literature has been mostly focused on examples of service companies, the authors examine the technical suitability and the complexity of TDABC in manufacturing companies.