Guilherme Guimaraes, Chris Stride and Daragh O'Reilly
The purpose of this paper is to link the notions of brand community, loyalty and promise as a reminder to marketers of the importance to brands of keeping their commercial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to link the notions of brand community, loyalty and promise as a reminder to marketers of the importance to brands of keeping their commercial promises to brand community members.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports on a questionnaire survey (n=500) of members of a sport brand community as part of an investigation into the relationship between brand community and brand loyalty.
Findings
Brand loyalty was predicted by age, frequency of attendance, motivations for joining the brand community and the degree to which expectations built by the brand promise are met.
Research limitations/implications
In common with many inquiries in the area of brand community, this is a single case study. It is primarily a cross-sectional study, with a minor longitudinal element.
Practical implications
Branding practitioners and consultants with responsibility for brand community management issues need to balance the consumer-to-consumer dimensions of community with a careful understanding and operationalisation of the brand promise.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to integrate the constructs of brand community and brand loyalty with that of brand promise.
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Rodrigo Helleis, Guilherme Arielo Rodrigues Maia, Eryza Guimarães de Castro, Larissa Oliveira Berbel, Isolda Costa and Everson do Prado Banczek
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the protection against corrosion of carbon steel SAE 1020 promoted by a niobium- and titanium-based coating produced from a resin obtained…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the protection against corrosion of carbon steel SAE 1020 promoted by a niobium- and titanium-based coating produced from a resin obtained by the Pechini method.
Design/methodology/approach
A resin was prepared with ammonium niobium oxalate as niobium precursor and K2TiF6 as titanium precursor. Carbon Steel SAE 1020 plates were dip coated in the resin and calcinated for 1 h at 600 ºC. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to characterize the coating morphologically and structurally. Open circuit potential, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, anodic potentiodynamic polarization and scanning vibrating electrode technique were used to evaluate the corrosion protection of the coating.
Findings
The electrochemical analyses evidence slight protection against corrosion of the coating by itself; however, the needle-like crystal structure obtained may potentially provide a good anchorage site, suggesting the coating could be used as a pretreatment that may present similar application to phosphating processes, generating lower environmental impacts.
Originality/value
Due to increasingly restrictive environmental laws, new environmentally friendlier surface treatments must be researched. This paper approaches this matter using a combination of niobium- and titanium-based coating, produced by a cleaner process, the Pechini method.
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Marina Cardoso Guimarães, Guilherme Tortorella, Carlos Manoel Taboada, Moacir Godinho Filho and Felipe Martinez
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the main decisions for designing distribution centers (DCs) and the contextual characteristics of the distribution networks.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the main decisions for designing distribution centers (DCs) and the contextual characteristics of the distribution networks.
Design/methodology/approach
Experts were surveyed and responses analyzed quantitatively through multivariate data techniques. This study considered four contextual characteristics that were deemed as influential for DC design: types of routes in the distribution network, quantity of DCs, distribution network levels and company size.
Findings
This paper evidenced which decisions are affected by each contextual characteristic encompassed in this study. This paper identified that the characteristic types of route in the distribution network must be carefully considered, as it had the greatest amount of associations with the decisions for designing a DC.
Originality/value
Despite its importance, most studies on design of DCs disregard the effect of the context in which DCs are inserted. This research provides arguments to support decision-making process of DCs design, increasing assertiveness of their planning. This work fulfills a literature gap by empirically examining the effect of contextual variables on the decisions related to DC design. Regarding practice, this paper addressed a fundamental issue for managers looking to design a DC, as it evidenced how contextual characteristics impact the decision-making.
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Thiago A. Souza, Guilherme Luís Roehe Vaccaro and Rui M. Lima
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a performance indicator that is been used to measure manufacturing productivity. The purpose of this paper is to propose the operating…
Abstract
Purpose
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a performance indicator that is been used to measure manufacturing productivity. The purpose of this paper is to propose the operating room effectiveness for hospital operating rooms (ORs), adapted from the OEE, to measure performance and identify losses based on lean health-care principles.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study is an exploratory, descriptive and applied research work. Literature review, documents of the hospital, observation and interviews with employees of a large university hospital in southern Brazil were analyzed to organize the proposed effectiveness indicator. After that, historical data of the ORs was collected and the usefulness of the indicator was analyzed. The indicator was applied for 10 months and validated with an expert committee from the hospital.
Findings
The present study describes an adaptation of a performance indicator to ORs of hospitals, allowing to classify its types of operational losses in a lean health-care context. The application of this indicator and the development of improvement actions to a university hospital, resulted in operational efficiency gains of 12 per cent and estimated annual savings of US$400,000.
Practical implications
ORs are a critical service for hospitals. This paper presents a new way to measure the performance of ORs and identify their main types of wastes. It also shows how to implement it and the potential gains of its application. The main research limitations are related to technical analysis of care data from doctors and nurses involved.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills the need to study how ORs performance can be measured and its operational wastes can be identified. In addition, this paper classifies the planning, performance and quality related losses, which can be used by researchers and practitioners to improve the performance of operation rooms.
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Lucas Ioran Marciano, Guilherme Arantes Pedro, Wallyson Ribeiro dos Santos, Geronimo Virginio Tagliaferro, Fabio Rodolfo Miguel Batista and Daniela Helena Pelegrine Guimarães
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of light intensity and sources of carbon and nitrogen on the cultivation of Spirulina maxima.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of light intensity and sources of carbon and nitrogen on the cultivation of Spirulina maxima.
Design/methodology/approach
Cultures were carried out in a modified Zarrouk medium using urea, sodium acetate and glycerol. A Taguchi experimental design was used to evaluate the effect on the production of biocompounds: productivities in biomass, carbohydrates, phycocyanin and biochar were analyzed.
Findings
Statistical data analysis revealed that light intensity and sodium acetate concentration were the most important factors, being significant in three of the four response variables studied. The highest productivities in biomass (46.94 mg.L−1.d−1), carbohydrates (6.11 mg.L−1.d−1), phycocyanin (3.62 mg.L−1.d−1) and biochar (22, 48 mg.L−1.d−1) were achieved in experiment 4 of the Taguchi matrix, highlighting as the ideal condition for the production of biomass, carbohydrates and phycocyanin.
Practical implications
Sodium acetate and urea can be considered, respectively, as potential sources of carbon and nitrogen to increase Spirulina maxima productivity. From the results, an optimized cultivation condition for the sustainable production of bioproducts was obtained.
Originality/value
This work focuses on the study of the influence of light intensity and the use of alternative sources of nitrogen and carbon on the growth of Spirulina maxima, as well as on the influence on the productivity of biomass and biocompounds. There are few studies in the literature focused on the phycocyanin production from microalgae, justifying the need to deepen the subject.
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Najla Alemsan, Guilherme Tortorella, Carlos Manuel Taboada Rodriguez, Hadi Balouei Jamkhaneh and Rui M. Lima
The importance of a lean health-care supply chain is increasingly discussed. However, it is still not very clear how lean practices relate to resilience capabilities, as there are…
Abstract
Purpose
The importance of a lean health-care supply chain is increasingly discussed. However, it is still not very clear how lean practices relate to resilience capabilities, as there are synergies and divergences between them. This study aims at identifying the relationship between lean practices and resilience capabilities in the health-care supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a scoping review based on five databases, which allowed the content analysis of 44 articles. Such analysis allowed the verification of trends and volume of studies on this topic. Further, the descriptive numerical and thematic analyses enabled the proposition of a conceptual framework, relating the adoption of lean practices to the development of resilience capabilities according to the tiers of the health-care supply chain in different value streams.
Findings
Three research directions were derived from this scoping review: empirical validation of the contribution of lean practices to resilience capabilities in the health-care supply chain; systemic implementation of lean practices across tier levels of the health-care supply chain; and complementary approaches to lean implementation toward a more resilient health-care supply chain.
Practical implications
The understanding of these relationships provides health-care managers arguments to prioritize the application of lean practices to improve desired resilience capabilities in the entire health-care supply chain.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no similar study in the literature.
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Sérgio Moro, Guilherme Pires, Paulo Rita, Paulo Cortez and Ricardo F. Ramos
This study aims to unveil within the current academic literature the principal directions in the ethnic entrepreneurship and small business marketing research context.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to unveil within the current academic literature the principal directions in the ethnic entrepreneurship and small business marketing research context.
Design/methodology/approach
An automated literature analysis procedure was undertaken, attempting to cover all literature published on the subject since 1962. A total of 188 articles were analysed using text mining and topic modelling.
Findings
The results show a lack of framing of ethnic entrepreneurship literature outside the narrower scope of migration. Some core themes were found (e.g. network, diversity) around which several other themes orbit, including both related issues to the ethnic factor (e.g. barriers and minorities) and managerial issues (e.g. marketing and production).
Originality/value
Ethnic minority business and small business marketing research has seen a growing number of publications. However, a careful review of existing work is missing.
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Guilherme Cardoso, Dannie Delanoy Carr and Pablo Rogers
This paper aims to examine the Brazilian stock market behavior and volatility term structure of two portfolios that, theoretically, the companies that comprise them have different…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the Brazilian stock market behavior and volatility term structure of two portfolios that, theoretically, the companies that comprise them have different degrees of idiosyncratic risk: one portfolio consists of firms with good corporate governance and the other comprises firms with poor corporate governance.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprises corporate firms listed in the Brazilian stock market during the period from January 2008 to December 2017. Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity models were applied.
Findings
The results show that the portfolio of firms with good corporate governance practices presents fluctuations that are more often temporary and reactive, with trends’ persistence of shorter durations, when considering the punctual volatility of the parameters estimated. This opposed expectation that the portfolio comprised of companies with good governance practices are better protected from short-term movements. However, over time and with standard error measures in consideration, both portfolios’ volatilities behave in similar ways. These findings may be related to Brazilian market characteristics, such as ownership concentration, ineffective corporate boards and the ever-developing nature of the stock market in Brazil. Any one of these characteristics present challenges to effective enforcement of the corporate governance practices in the Brazilian context.
Originality/value
The findings are potentially to the interest of researchers and practitioners for several reasons. First, this paper contributes to the growing literature on the relationship between corporate governance and market volatility. Second, it informs that volatility in the Brazilian context is likely only partially, if at all, influenced by corporate governance practices. Third, longitudinally, both indices follow the same pattern and converge to the same place.
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Fernanda Leal, Kyria Rebeca Finardi and Maria Julieta Abba
The immersion of global higher education in a competitive, economy-oriented paradigm calls for perspectives on internationalisation that are explicitly aimed at shaping…
Abstract
The immersion of global higher education in a competitive, economy-oriented paradigm calls for perspectives on internationalisation that are explicitly aimed at shaping cooperative, sustainable and alternative/decolonial futures. The authors of this chapter recognise the relevance of research perspectives that – epistemologically aligned with critical internationalisation studies – emphasise the dilemmas and contradictions of internationalisation of higher education (IHE). In this chapter, the authors therefore present reflections that confront the hegemonic discourse that portrays the phenomenon of IHE as an unconditional good. The authors dialogue with the idea of promoting a perspective of IHE from and for the Global South – that is, one that instead of suppressing, recognises the epistemic plurality of the world. To do so, the authors assume that any critical efforts to address internationalisation in the context of the Global South can be enriched when explicitly situated within colonial history. The authors argue that looking towards the future of IHE requires a look towards its past. Specifically, the authors bring together four interrelated lines of argument: (i) recognising the university as a historical producer and reproducer of colonial hierarchies; (ii) conceiving the Global South as a field of epistemic challenges; (iii) having a non-myopic view of South–South cooperation; and (iv) spreading the epistemological horizon of internationalisation. Such reflections might contribute to envisioning new horizons for IHE in the Global South and its relation with those who have been relegated to a status of invisibility.
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Deoclécio Junior Cardoso da Silva, Guilherme Paraol de Matos, Artur Roberto de Oliveira Gibbon, Claudimar Pereira da Veiga, Clarissa Stefani Teixeira, Luis Felipe Dias Lopes and Josep Miquel Pique
This research investigates the barriers impeding innovation within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Brazil, exploring 54 innovation-related barriers categorized into…
Abstract
Purpose
This research investigates the barriers impeding innovation within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Brazil, exploring 54 innovation-related barriers categorized into six distinct groups to offer substantial insights and analyses pertinent to the decision-makers, researchers and SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach
This research employed a mixed quantitative and exploratory approach, utilizing fuzzy Delphi, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methods. The fuzzy Delphi method confirmed the categories and barriers through quantitative analysis, the fuzzy AHP ranked the validated obstacles and the fuzzy DEMATEL method identified causal connections among the top-priority barriers.
Findings
Out of 54 barriers, 23 significantly impacted SMEs. The “Financing and Financial” category was the most significant barrier, with “Access to Financing” being the most critical impediment. The barrier with the most influence was “Instability of Fiscal Policies,” and the highest causal priority was “Survival of the Priority Business,” identifying the government’s unstable fiscal policy as the principal barrier confronting SMEs in Brazil.
Originality/value
The primary challenges for Brazilian SMEs center on financing, fiscal policies and maintaining ongoing operations. By addressing these barriers and fostering a resilient business environment, SMEs’ innovation capabilities and competitiveness can be enhanced, serving as key drivers for sustainable economic growth in fluctuating economic conditions. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting and validating the main barriers to SME innovation, providing highly relevant information about the innovation process.