BAR - Brazilian Administration Review

24

Authors: Fabiana Gondim Mariutti, Janaina de Moura Engracia Giraldi

Country brand equity (CBE) is expanding in theory and in practice; however, little has been published on its conceptualization. By incorporating ‘reputation’ into the place brand equity construct at a country level, we provide a theoretical multidimensional framework for CBE. Seventeen interviews with international researchers were undertaken for theory building. A seven-dimensional CBE framework was developed according to the interpretations of two constructs — country brand reputation (‘share of experience’) and country brand image (‘share of mind’) — along with country brand associations, country brand awareness, country brand loyalty, country brand perceived quality, and channel relationships. We conclude by outlining potential further research avenues and implications for managerial practice. These contributions may guide policymakers, government officials, executives, and scholars in maximizing the value of a place brand (e.g., country, region, or city) by focusing on‘reputation’ as an added (qualitative and/or quantitative) construct. This study may also inspire insights into joint efforts of public and private strategies and actions on economic performance, consumer welfare, and business decisions for national prosperity.

26

Authors: César Tureta, Bruno Luiz Américo

This paper aims to analyze the aesthetic and material/technical controversies surrounding the production of parade floats from a samba school. Starting from actor-network theory and controversy analysis, we show how actors negotiate interests that exist in carnival production project. Our findings demonstrate that the disagreements over material and aesthetic dimensions are temporarily solved by gambiarra, which is the unconventional use of technical knowledge for generating a creative solution in resource and time constraints contexts. We also argue that controversy analysis is an interesting tool to study organizational aesthetics in project management: it allows for understanding the potential conflictual relationship between material/technical and aesthetic dimensions. We conclude by stating that gambiarra can have both positive and negative consequences of generating creative solutions for controversies.

22

Authors: Alan Diógenes Góis (in memoriam), Márcia Martins Mendes De Luca, Gerlando Augusto Sampaio Franco de Lima, Jislene Trindade Medeiros

In view of the influence of corporate reputation on investors’ choices and risk concerns, the purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between corporate reputation and bankruptcy risk in public firms. The investigation is a contribution to the burgeoning literature on corporate reputation associated with accounting, despite reputation being classified as an intangible asset capable of generating competitive advantage. Our sample included 4,578 observations (441 firms) covering the period 2005-2016. The overall score on the World’s Most Admired Companies ranking was used as a proxy for reputation. Bankruptcy risk was quantified by Altman Z-scores (Zang, 2012) and accounting information for each year in the period was retrieved from the database Compustat Global. Our results reveal that corporate reputation has a negative influence on bankruptcy risk, reiterating the importance of risk management. When firms attract and strive to secure the favor of stakeholders, they increase risk for the same reason. However, this effect is counterbalanced by good reputation. Thus, corporate reputation is a valuable strategic resource with which managers can boost confidence among investors, increase the firm’s credit worthiness and perpetuate the organization on the market. Furthermore, these results expand the literature on corporate reputation and risk of bankruptcy, and show signs that companies with high reputation have lower risk of bankruptcy and tend to honor their debts.

26

Authors: Gustavo Hermínio Salati Marcondes de Moraes, Bruno Brandão Fischer, Matheus Leite Campos, Paola Rücker Schaeffer

Research on the concept of entrepreneurial universities has dedicated significant attention to understand how academic ecosystems shape the propensity of its members to establish new ventures. In this article we look at a prior step of the entrepreneurial event, i.e., how universities’ dynamics and initiatives related to entrepreneurship affect the proclivity of faculty to engage in entrepreneurship support. We propose and validate a conceptual model that directly relates the university ecosystem with faculty engagement, having entrepreneurial experience of faculty as a moderator and analyzing differences between public and private institutions. Data comprises information from 680 faculty members of over 70 higher education institutions from all regions of Brazil. Analyses were performed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equations Modeling. Results point to a strong positive relation between developed university ecosystems and the engagement of faculty with entrepreneurial activities, especially for individuals with stronger entrepreneurial experience. No differences were found between private and public institutions. From a practical standpoint, it is possible to identify more effective, innovative, and systematic ways to implement intrapreneurial practices in universities.

33

Authors: Vinicius Andrade Brei, Leonardo Nicolao, Maria Alice Pasdiora, Rodolfo Coral Azambuja

Past research on product upgrades has focused either on understanding who and when will upgrade or on figuring out why consumers will upgrade, but seldom on all. It has also neglected the interplay between these matters with decision context and timing. This manuscript depicts a comprehensive approach where, for the first time, product characteristics, individual differences, process, and contextual variables are analyzed on a predictive model of real product upgrades, identified through the systematic collection of primary data from a panel of smartphone consumers. We tested one traditional linear logistic regression model and two types of non-linear, state-of-the-art machine-learning models (extreme gradient boosting and deep learning) to explain upgrading behavior. Results provide an integrative, yet parsimonious, product-upgrade model showing the importance of resources; news about the smartphone brand; sentimental value; predicted, current, and remembered enjoyment; update capacity; and how much the smartphone meets the user’s current needs as the most relevant variables to determine which consumers are more prone to upgrade their smartphones. Our findings advance upgrade decision theory by taking a holistic approach to the phenomenon and bridging different theoretical accounts of the replacement decision literature.

21

Authors: Duygu Keskin, Georges Romme

The methodology of design science (DS) has been emerging as a new form of engaged scholarship in which key managerial and organizational challenges are addressed and solved. These developments have major implications for management education, which has been repeatedly criticized for its lack of relevance to practitioners. However, design science methodology and its implications for management education are still unclear and disputed. Teaching and learning DS thus often suffers from the lack of a consistent methodology. In this respect, teaching DS is very much like mixing oil with water. The purpose of this paper is to compare various taxonomies for DS methodology proposed in the management literature and then develop a consistent taxonomy and integrative framework that may appeal to management students at undergraduate and graduate levels. The proposed framework for DS involves an iterative cycle of exploration, synthesis, creation and evaluation. Design principles arise from, but also connect and inform, these four steps in DS.

23

Authors: Nelson Rogeri, Manuel Meireles, Cida Sanches, Samuel Ferreira Jr., Marcio Luiz Marietto

This work proposes an artifact oriented by Design Science (DS) methods for measuring the degree of boldness in business social actors, especially entrepreneurs and businesspeople. To construct the artifact, the work of Eysenck and Wilson (1975) was used. The methodological approach used was Design Science, as the present object of study is considered an information artifact and, as such, has functions of data processing, reducing entropy (vision of syntax), forming meaning (vision of representation), and achieving viability (vision of adaptation). To ensure the validity of the study, a sample of users made up of 30 organizational psychologists was used, selected by convenience. The results demonstrated that using the artifact allows to measure entrepreneurs’ degree of boldness, affording them greater assertiveness in choosing and structuring their business. The study has a number of implications for managerial practice since by using the artifact it is possible to measure an entrepreneur’s degree of boldness and allow more assertive choices and structuring of their business, all the while reducing the rate of micro and small businesses that die early. In the academic field, the artifact will enable research on the degree of boldness of businesspeople with diverse other organizational variables.

24

Authors: Fernando Pires Barbosa, Mauri Leodir Löbler

Project portfolio management has been studied through diverse aspects. Different approaches have been used to improve project portfolio selection, but not all of them have been actually used. This study presents an artifact to improve project portfolio selection process in universities. The artifact considers strategic alignment and focuses on achieving consensus, considering university characteristics about strategic planning and decision making environment. The artifact was developed through an incremental approach using quasi-experiments in simulated situations to check and improve the accuracy of the solutions being developed. Finally, the artifact was implemented in a real situation inside a university, involving 185 projects, 15 criteria, and 12 people from different faculties and knowledge areas. Results show that the artifact is suitable to the university environment. Beyond the artifact itself and some highlights involving its development process, the multicriteria constructivist approach, the balanced scorecard, and the scoring technique, another contribution is an adapted AHP tool created to integrate traditional AHP from Saaty (1980) and a study from Bose (2015) to reduce cognitive conflict in group decision making. Other studies, in more diverse contexts, still need to be done, but the proposal seems to be promised.

27

Authors: André Luiz Surdi Debastiani, Graziela Dias Alperstedt, Grazielli Faria Zimmer Santos, Graziele Ventura Koerich

This study aimed to propose a business model framework for Brazilian agriculture from an integrative perspective between theory and practice. To do so, Design Research was adopted from the triangulation of data, combining primary and secondary data collection, a systematic review of the literature on the business model and its main frameworks. Field research included the application of a questionnaire with 531 producers and an in-depth interview with another 30 to capture their insight into the factors that influence their business performance. The results of the study revealed that unlike other sectors, which have customers as the central point of the business value generation proposal, in commercial agriculture organizations occupy this place, as they are focused on the production of commodities. In view of this, the proposed artifact has financial viability as the central pillar of the agricultural business model, with production costs, product sales prices and agricultural productivity as its main components.

20

Authors: Letícia Fantinel, Eduardo Paes Barreto Davel

Sociability is quintessential to some types of organizations, such as cafes, clubs, sports associations, gyms, bars, nightclubs, and festivals. If sociability is broadly theorized and discussed in the Social Sciences, it is indirectly, fragmentally, and diffusely considered in Organization Studies. Our study aims to theorize on the centrality of sociability within organizations by developing the concept of sociability-intensive organization and by discussing its effects in terms of organizing and organizational space. We have produced three main conceptual axis: relation, experiences of space, and ambience. Based on an ethnographic study, sociability-intensive organizations are conceptualized from three organizing processes: the fabrication of spontaneity, the fluidity of spatiality, and the fertilization of dialogue. These processes emerge from the ethnographic interpretation and contribute to theorize sociability as a paramount key for understanding organizations.

24

Authors: Cláudia Rodrigues Maia, Guilherme Lerch Lunardi, Décio Dolci, Lívia Castro D’Avila

The evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and social media has changed the way online business is conducted. With increasingly popular social networks, the connections among Internet users emerge as an important source of information, allowing consumers to share their ideas, opinions, or even content on the web, in order to find better and cheaper products, originating a new type of electronic commerce, known as social commerce (s-commerce). In this context, price and trust stand out as two important factors influencing the decision to buy online. Thus, we aimed to analyze the effects of trust and competitive price on the purchase intention of Brazilian consumers in s-commerce. Through a survey conducted with 160 online consumers, we identified trust as the main predictor of consumer purchase intention in s-commerce followed by competitive prices. We also indicated a set of important antecedents of trust in the context of s-commerce. The study contributes to the literature surrounding the effects of competitive price and trust — and its antecedents — as important factors that influence the intention to buy in s-commerce, providing managers with some key elements they can use to improve their firm’s competitiveness in this new business environment.

22

Authors: Hamilton Coimbra Carvalho, Giuliana Isabella, José Afonso Mazzon

The analysis of public policies often fails to account for effects beyond mere cost-benefit analysis. Incorporating elements from the literature on system dynamics, complexity and legitimacy, the present paper develops a framework to understand long-term effects and important constraints for public policies. We call it the thresholds framework, considering the existence of different thresholds in the life of a policy. The framework relies on the application of conceptual lenses to understand essential aspects of the social reality. Using the proposed conceptual repertoire, the paper applies the framework to a specific policy, the Brazilian Worker Food Program (WFP), which currently benefits around 20 million employees working for 250,000 companies in Brazil. The thresholds framework incorporates legitimacy and complexity issues and it is sufficiently flexible for the pursuit of different strategies of inquiry. It may be used to guide the design of business programs in dynamic contexts, such as the ones found in modern social cause environments.

26

Authors: Glessia Silva, Luiz Carlos Di Serio, Éder Danilo Bezerra

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the adequacy of public policies that support innovation in small businesses in a swinging economy, particularly in Brazil.1In order to make our case for more adequatepublic policies on innovation, we develop five propositions based on the assumptionthat innovation policies focused onfostering socioeconomicdevelopment should meet.We adopted a documentary research design, as we examined the policiesproduced by governmental bodies and agencies at the three governmentallevelsin Brazil–federation, states, and cities. Also, qualitative content analysis was performed in order to organize, codify and interpret the messagesdelivered by current innovation policies in thecountry.We found that most public policies on innovation and small businesses are short-sighted and generalist, borrowing metrics and evaluation criteria from the bigenterprise context in an one-size-fits-allmanner that, ultimately, cannot be applied to most small businessesand local contexts.As a contribution to theory, our five propositions could be used as starting points for future policy and administration research. On a practical level, we propose recommendationsto policy-makers and offer insights on how an adequate policy affects a country’s competitiveness and socioeconomic development.

28

Authors: Amanda Cainelli, Raquel Janissek-Muniz

In turbulent and competitive scenarios, strategic intelligence is a crucial process for organizations to reduce uncertainties during decision-making and to anticipate changes that may affect their performance and sustainability. Despite the relevance of the activity, continuous and structured processes based on intelligence in organizations are not a reality due to the difficulty of implementing and formalizing it. Executing a diagnosis to evaluate conditions that precede the adoption of a structured intelligence activity allows companies to recognize their efficiency to perform monitoring, to further improve or implement it. This paper explores organizational, informational, individual, technological and material conditions that precede the adoption of the intelligence process, reviews six diagnostic models and proposes a diagnostic tool to evaluate issues that must be considered in advance. The Delphi method was used to exploit opinions among 30 intelligence practitioners in order to define which conditions of the process should be evaluated before its adoption in companies. As a result, this work contributes to filling the gap observed in the literature about the motivation to initiate the intelligence process in organizations and presents a formalized tool to evaluate its pre-adoption stage.