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The purpose of this paper is to analyze from an adopters’ perspective the European Quality in Social Services (EQUASS) Assurance standard, a certification program to implement a quality management (QM) system specifically tailored to European social service organizations (SSO). Specifically, it analyzes the motives, internalization, impacts, satisfaction, and renew intentions of this standard.

The research uses a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey methodology with both closed and open-ended questions. Of the 381 organizations contacted, 196 responses from eight different European countries were considered valid (51.4 percent). Descriptive statistical techniques and content analysis were employed to analyze closed- and open-ended questions, respectively.

The results show that SSO typically implement the certification for internal reasons, internalize EQUASS Assurance principles and practices in daily usage, obtain mainly operational and customer benefits, and consider main pitfalls such as increased workload and bureaucracy. Around 85 percent of the respondents are very satisfied or satisfied with the standard, which suggests that it meets their needs. The intention to renew the certification is also encouraging, but the final decision may be contingent on several aspects. Overall, the results reveal a rather optimistic picture, though there are some reasons for concern.

Recent years have seen many social services implementing QM systems, but there have been few studies investigating this phenomenon. Social service managers, consultants, auditors, and the EQUASS certification body can find in this work valuable information to make their practice more effective. This is the first study to report the results of an EQUASS survey in a scholarly journal.

This paper aims to investigate how service providers are using their channels to support the handling of customer complaints in a technology-based business network (Tb2N) environment. It aims to discuss the implications from existing misalignments between the service delivery debilities and the complexity of the Tb2N recovery process.

This study used an exploratory case study research conducted in a Portuguese private bank. Data collection involved multiple sources for corroboration purposes, such as reports from customer complaints, semi-structured interviews, direct observation and official documents. Data were analysed to identify paths and relationships between constructs, to reduce data, to enable interpretation and to achieve valid and reliable results.

The case analysis revealed four types of Tb2N debilities: weaknesses in what concerns the channel migration to new technologies, automated physical and virtual barriers in accessing the firms’ common channel, non-automated barriers concerning the cross-training of employees and, finally, barriers concerning the service operations management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to characterize the service failure and recovery in a Tb2N context. Complaint management is an essential tool for managers, as failures in service delivery are inevitable and the recovery of such encounters encompasses significant challenges. For academics, this is the first effort to discuss a growing topic in the operations management literature. Further investigation is needed, and with this contribution, the authors expect to stimulate other researchers to provide their contribution.

The rapid advancement of new technologies necessitates the adaptation of existing resources to address the evolving demands of contemporary conflicts among nations. As exemplified by the emergence of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), these technologies have become indispensable components of military drone operations. This study investigates the role of innovation models in driving Portuguese Innovation and Development, focusing specifically on military drones.

Through an examination of existing scientific and doctrinal literature, this research establishes a connection between theoretical concepts and the practical deployment of drones within the Portuguese ground forces. Employing a qualitative approach, this study follows a case study, with data collection following the principle of triangulation.

The findings of this research reveal several attributes crucial to drone utilization, such as optronic capability and drone range. These attributes are vital for ensuring high-quality, real-time imagery transmission and operational effectiveness in military activities.

This study contributes to the understanding of the implications of drone attributes for the Command, Control, Communications and Information Systems (C3IS) capabilities of the Portuguese ground forces. It highlights the importance of continued emphasis on drone development and innovation as a key priority for the Portuguese Army.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the benefits, disadvantages and success factors associated with the adoption of ISO 9001:2000 in educational organizations, more specifically in Portuguese vocational schools.

Through a rigorous literature review, an a priori model was developed which was then refined and validated by case studies in five Portuguese vocational schools.

The findings reveal rich and meaningful insights into a much under‐researched area, including four internal benefits, two external benefits, three disadvantages and four success factors. This research uncovered that vocational schools are using the standard as a means to provide strategic focus and as a foundation for planning. Interestingly, contrarily to previous studies, bureaucracy is depicted in a more positive light and, management commitment and support is not seen as the most important success factor.

The findings suggest the need, on the one hand, for schools to be more proactive in showing the benefits of quality concepts and the certification to stakeholders, and, on the other hand, for international and national quality bodies to make more efforts to produce, divulge and maintain ISO 9000 interpretation guides tailored to the specific needs of educational institutions. Overall, the findings may assist practitioners in identifying courses of action to make the implementation of this standard more effective.

This paper validates and extends the dispersed findings of existing literature by providing a useful unifying conceptual model of the impacts and success factors of ISO 9001 in vocational education, which can be tested in other levels of education, countries and application domains. This is also perhaps the first reported study of its kind conducted at a European country.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits, obstacles and challenges in implementing the balanced scorecard (BSC) in non‐higher education public schools, more specifically, in a Portuguese school district.

An action research approach was used to develop a BSC, help to implement changes and reflect about the outcomes.

The paper presents the BSC for the school district and discusses five benefits, two obstacles and three challenges that emerged from the study. While some findings are in line with those found in other levels of education, others seem to be context‐specific.

The results refer to a single intervention in Portugal and the methodology used precludes any generalization attempts.

The findings are particularly relevant to the Portuguese context, providing evidence that the BSC can overcome some weaknesses of schools in the area of strategic management, as identified by the literature. They also raise implications for the wider field of the BSC's use in non‐higher education public schools, suggesting reasons why things may go wrong. The results may be of value to practitioners wishing to make the implementation of the BSC more effective.

This paper contributes to the scarce body of literature on the application of the BSC to non‐profit organizations by providing an understanding of its possible benefits, obstacles and challenges in non‐higher education public schools. It shows how the BSC methodology can be adapted to fit the specific requirements of a school district. This is one of the first papers to discuss an application of the BSC to non‐higher education public schools.