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O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma taxionomia de vitalidade setorial de organizações que caracterize os diferentes setores econômicos, dentro de qualquer geografia e com qualquer nível de agregação setorial, dando instrumento para o desenvolvimento de estudos empíricos abrangentes, estratificáveis e longitudinais, com potencial de contribuir para suprir as lacunas da teoria da ecologia organizacional. Com uma taxionomia estabelecida é possível caracterizar uma tipologia de setores econômicos, sejam nacionais ou regionais, fornecendo uma estrutura para descrever e entender a diversidade das populações organizacionais identificando as populações úteis para pesquisas sobre outras questões substantivas sobre as organizações. Para tanto, buscou-se: (a) uma única métrica de caráter bidimensional, que capture simultaneamente a natalidade e a longevidade de organizações, possibilitando estabelecer uma taxionomia de vitalidade de setores econômicos; e (b) aplicar a taxionomia de vitalidade para descrever a tipologia da vitalidade setorial encontrada no Brasil, no período de 2007 a 2019, no primeiro nível de agregação, ou seja, as 21 seções CNAE. Os dados utilizados foram minerados no cadastro nacional das pessoas jurídicas (CNPJ) da Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB) alcançando todas as organizações formalmente constituídas no Brasil e em condições legais de trabalhar. O tratamento dos dados foi feito com os pressupostos do big data analytics e do e-science de forma a buscar conhecimento fornecendo resultados processáveis. Os principais resultados alcançados foram: (a) um modelo de taxionomia de vitalidade setorial de organizações e (b) um perfil de vitalidade setorial de organizações brasileiras, útil para investidores, empreendedores e formuladores de políticas públicas.

The aim of the study is to analyze the production of round wood from planted forests and the price of pulp and paper and other forestry purposes in southern Brazil, from 2000 to 2019. In this study, we worked with historical series from secondary data collected from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics IBGE, referring to the produced and traded quantity in forestry (m³), forestry production value (one thousand dollars) and price ($/m³), obtained through the ratio between the production value and the respective produced quantities in each year. The silviculture production value (PV) is a derived variable calculated by the weighted average of quantity and average current price paid to the producer (m³), according to the harvest and commercialization periods of each product. The price evolution (P) was separated according to purpose and obtained through the quotient between the production value and respective quantities produced in each year. The trend models were estimated, in which annual growth rates of the real price and produced quantity were calculated for the two roundwood purposes in the evaluated period. Then, we sought to fit the results according to the possibilities of shift of the supply and demand curves. The results indicate that pulp and paper presented positive rates of produced quantity and price, of 5.8775 and 1.3704, respectively. The nomenclature for other purposes had a positive rate for the produced quantity (4.1929) and a negative rate for price (-0.3203). Thus, logwood for pulp and paper showed a dominant shift in the demand curve to the right, showing a rising market, while for other purposes, there was a dominant shift in supply to the right, corroborating the concept of positive variation in quantity and a negative variation in price. Given these results, it is important to highlight that the study refers to one federative unit in Brazil, which signals the recommendation that other similar studies be carried out in other states to better understand the impact of production and price of these purposes on the Brazilian market

Ao conceber a sustentabilidade dos negócios como uma contribuição efetiva para o desenvolvimento sustentável, as inovações passam a ter outros critérios de avaliação além daqueles convencionais, onde as inovações devem gerar resultados econômicos, sociais e ambientais positivos, de forma simultânea atendendo a todas as partes interessadas. A partir destas concepções, este estudo teve como objetivo caracterizar as cooperativas agropecuárias atuantes na região sul do Brasil em função de sua postura inovadora tanto em produtos quanto em processos, considerando as dimensões da sustentabilidade. Como procedimentos metodológicos, fez-se uso da abordagem quantitativa de pesquisa, com o desenvolvimento de um survey cross-sectional com uma amostra de 93 cooperativas agropecuárias. A partir do levantamento junto a 38,7% do universo de cooperativas agropecuárias atuantes na Região Sul do Brasil, definiu-se uma taxonomia composta por quatro clusters, inferindo que há uma diferença no foco para a inovação em produtos e processos. Os resultados demonstraram também que há diferença entre os clusters quando consideradas as dimensões econômica, ambiental e social.

This research aims at analyzing bank credit of legal entity (in non-default, default and temporarily default), for the purpose of assisting the decision made by the analyst of this area. For that, we used Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), more specifically, the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and the Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and, also, the statistical model of Logistic Regression (LR). For the implementation of the ANNs and LR, the softwares MATLAB and SPSS were used, respectively. For the simulations developed 5.432 data with 15 attributes were collected by the experts of the institution bank (called “XYZ”). The results show that the default clients are easily identifiable, but for the nondelinquent clients and for the temporarily defaulters, the techniques had greater difficulty in the discrimination, suggesting that they are no so discriminants. The main contributions of this work are: the analysis of three classes of clients (non-default, default and temporarily default), rather than just two (non-default and default) as is usually done; the coding of variables (attributes) of the company XYZ aiming to maximize the accuracy of the techniques and the use of the one-against all method, little used by the researchers of this research area. This work presents new insights towards research over Credit Risk Assessment showing other possibilities of client classification and codification, allowing different types of studies to take place.

The damming of rivers has been long used for electricity generation and is among the most used sources of renewable energy. However, building dams may cause several transformations in the environment, being changes in fish assemblage one important consequence, especially when there are communities that rely on fishing as a source of income. The aim of the present study is to analyze the trophic changes in fish species caused by the damming of rivers. Trophic data (stomach content) on fish from the Corumba Reservoir in the State of Goias, Brazil, which was collected prior (River phase) and after (Reservoir phase) the building of the dam, were used to carry out the study using Clustering techniques. The methodology used was composed of data exploratory analysis, followed by the assignment of clusters for the later implementation of knowledge. The definition of the number of clusters, the usage of different types of clustering distances and the use validation indexes are discussed. A modified version of the Teitz & Bart algorithm, originally used for facilities location problems, was introduced for Clustering problems and the results were compared with three well-known Clustering algorithms from literature. The clustering approaches were applied separately in both phases and in both cases, five large clusters of fish were determined: generalists, insectivores, herbivores, piscivores, and detritivores. With this evaluation, could be used by biologists in order to evaluate environmental effects and managers can develop strategies to address the social and economic impacts caused to the communities that depend on fishing.

The use of tools which can aid in the productive units evaluation may become a key-factor for the companies management, resulting in an important competitive advantage. The goal of this paper is to evaluate Parana’s credit union’s efficiency and productivity change. For that, it was used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Malmquist Index (MI) techniques. The analysis considered 45 units (each credit union researched), each of one with 10 variables in each period (8 inputs and 2 outputs). This evaluation has taken into account quarterly credit union’s data, from January 2009 to July 2015 (27 periods). The results showed that DMUs 453, 498 and 517 were considered 100% efficient in all periods, considering them as benchmarks. There was no case that a DMU was not considered 100% efficient in at least one observation. The MI showed that the difference between the biggest and the smallest average was significant (varying between 19.837 for DMU 251 and 0.926 for DMU 450). The average between all MI was 4.735 with a standard deviation of 3.547, evidencing the different measures of efficiency between each DMU when compared to the others.

This study sought to gauge to what extent companies in the production chain focus on the relationship between contextual factors and the definition of eco-innovation strategies. The methodology is based on a quantitative approach using a survey in 117 companies. The results show that, in general, the companies in the sample the correlation with proactive innovation strategies was especially strengthened for those at the beginning of the production chain, with an increase in the mean for this group. This result is not in keeping with the literature when it comes to the sample data. In the literature, companies that operate in the latter stages of the production chain ought to have a greater impact at the environmental actions, as they have more direct contact with consumers of the end product. This improved performance for companies at the beginning of the production chain could be explained by the fact that these are the most polluting companies and have become the focus of environmental legislation.

Este artigo foi desenvolvido a convite da Revista FLORESTA e da coordenação do curso de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Florestal da Universidade Federal do Paraná em comemoração ao cinquentenário do programa. Trata-se de um artigo apresentando parte dos resultados da tese intitulada “Gestão da atividade não madeireira na Mata Atlântica no litoral do estado do Paraná”, desenvolvida na linha de pesquisa Economia e Política Florestal, sob a orientação do professor Vitor Afonso Hoeflich. A tese foi desenvolvida no período de março de 2014 a março de 2018 em parceria com o Instituto de Florestas do Paraná (IFP) e a Empresa Brasileira de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural (EMATER), escritório de Curitiba e Guaratuba. A Mata Atlântica presente no município de Guaratuba é protegida em sua totalidade pela Área de Proteção Ambiental de Guaratuba. Populações tradicionais que têm o extrativismo intrínseco aos seus costumes, habitam esta região, onde uma boa gestão depende da boa governança. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar o nível de percepção atual dos princípios de boa governança florestal. A coleta de dados foi baseada na aplicação de questionário baseado no método SERVQUAL buscando refletir características predominantes na governança florestal dos principais atores-chave. As três seções do método SERVQUAL foram substituídas pelos pilares de boa governança e as dimensões de qualidade foram substituídas pelos princípios de boa governança florestal. Em todos os constructos medidos, bem como nas variáveis individuais, o nível de percepção atual se apresentou muito abaixo do nível mínimo aceitável, tanto em cada um dos pilares como em todos os princípios de boa governança. Nenhum aspecto estudado atende ao nível mínimo desejado com relação ao estado de governança, seus pilares e princípios, demostrando a real necessidade de melhorias em todo o processo, sendo urgente a melhoria de todo o processo de gestão da área.

The purpose of this article is to compare the performance of a credit scoring model by applying different Machine Learning techniques for the classification of payers in bank financing of companies (5 432 historical records). Clients were considered “non-default” or “default” depending on their default index, thus, 4 238 were considered “non-default” and 1 194 “default”, including the information related to 10 variables (features) that composed the database. First, a random undersampling technique was applied to solve the unbalanced data problem. The variables were then coded in two ways: Code I (categorical variables) and Code II (binary or dummy variables). This was followed by the feature selection methods to detect the most important variables. Finally, we used three classifier algorithms of Machine Learning (ML), Bayesian Networks (BN), Decision Tree (DT) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) comparatively. All these techniques were implemented in WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) software. The best performance was 95.2% using balanced classes, with the attributes coded in a binary way and the SVM machine learning technique. So, in this way, it is possible to automatically classify (“non-default” or “default”) new instances making use of the proposed methodology with high performance.

Conifer wood moldings are classified as high value-added wood products and are used for several purposes in civil construction. Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of this product and the United States are its main destination market. It is very important to analyze the behavior of such importations and exportations to set strategies to obtain or increase the competitive advantage and improve the commercialization of these products. The objective of this study was to analyze the US importation seasonality of conifer wood moldings from Brazil and Chile, the main competitor of the Brazilian product in the US market. To write this paper, monthly data of the quantity of US importations of Brazilian and Chilean moldings from the period of 2011 to 2017 were collected from the database of the United States Department of Agriculture/Foreign Agricultural Service. The methodology proposed by Hoffman (2006) was employed to calculate the seasonal and seasonality indexes. The results indicated that the US importation of conifer wood moldings, both from Brazil and Chile, have a seasonal behavior, with great variation of the seasonal index.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency and productivity change of Paraná’s Credit Union. The analysis considered 45 units (each credit union researched), each of one with 10 variables in each period (8 inputs and 2 outputs). This evaluation has taken into account quarterly credit union’s data, from January 2009 to July 2015 (27 periods). The methodology included Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Malmquist Index (MI) techniques. The results showed that DMUs 453, 498 and 517 were considered 100% efficient in all periods, making them ideal benchmarks. There was no case that a DMU was not considered 100% efficient in at least one observation. The MI showed that the difference between the biggest and the smallest average was significant (varying between 19.837 for DMU 251 and 0.926 for DMU 450). The average between all MI was 4,735 with a standard deviation of 3,547, evidencing the different measures of efficiency between each DMU when compared to the others.

The production of soybean and corn has increased steadily in Brazil, with the Parana State being the second largest producer of these grains. The increased production has now necessitated the storing facility also to be increased. Accordingly, partitioning the storage facility is a proposal to aggregate the municipalities of Parana into regions for effective transportation of the grains. Motivated by the requirement, the present work aims to organize the storage regions by aggregating the municipalities as a multi-objective graph (territory) partitioning problem with the municipalities being the nodes and roads linking them as the edges of the graph. In order to find the effective number of new silos to be constructed and their region-wise locations, maximization of the homogeneity of storage deficit and minimization of the inter-region product transportation cost from production sources to storage points are considered as two objective functions for the problem. A multi-objective genetic algorithm based results, presented here, should have a strong impact on the grain storage system management in Parana. Moreover, the proposed methodology might act as a useful grain storage management decision aiding tool in other territories.

In an increasingly competitive environment, the quality of the services offered by organizations is a decisive factor to ensure their success. Most of the time, the service can be defined as a series of activities of an intangible nature, occurring through the interaction between the company and the client, and leading to the ownership of something not associated to a physical product. Therefore, the service quality is related to the management of their processes, and their improvement becomes difficult due to simultaneity between production and customer participation. The identification of the critical requirements for the customer during each interaction and translating them into performance specifications will provide greater control and the identification of potential failures that may occur during service. This study’s objective is to propose a conceptual model for quality diagnosis in service processes. Its methodology was defined in four specific stages: 1. Identify recent publications that address the topic under study; 2. Identify, among these publications, the main approaches suggested by the authors for the quality management of processes in services; 3. Propose a conceptual model for this research, contemplating the identified approaches; 4. Validate the proposed model through a case study at a higher education institution (HEI). Through the application of the four methodology phases, it was possible to identify the critical moments of the HEI service cycle, analyze its failures and identify the improvements to be implemented.

This study investigates the association of contextual factors with the adoption of eco-innovation strategies, comparing groups of internationalized and not internationalized companies. It also analyzes the average values of the adoption of these contextual factors and eco-innovation strategies in these two groups of companies. Research methodology follows a quantitative approach, being performed a cross-sectional survey in 124 Brazilian companies of chemicals manufacturing sector. Main results of the analysis showed better association between the contextual factors of support from top management, technological competence, environmental standards and proactive eco-innovation strategies, concerning not internationalized companies. Results also reveal that internationalized companies do not differ from those not internationalized, regarding the adoption of environmental regulatory factors, reputation effects, support from top management, reactive strategies and proactive strategies. In general terms, this outcome may indicate that the surveyed companies have been concerned about eco-innovation, regardless of the scope of their market.

Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar o processo de formulação da estratégia organizacional, considerando as dimensões econômica, ambiental e social em Cooperativas Agropecuárias. Fez-se uso da abordagem qualitativa de pesquisa, com o desenvolvimento de dois casos. Foram utilizadas as técnicas de entrevista e pesquisa documental e a análise de conteúdo para fins de análise dos dados coletados. Os resultados a partir dos dois casos sugerem que há conhecimento e preocupação com a formalização das estratégias organizacionais por parte das cooperativas agropecuárias, no entanto não se verificou uma participação significativa dos cooperados (considerado principal stakeholder) neste processo. Quando a perspectiva da sustentabilidade é incorporada às decisões estratégicas, a dimensão econômica prevalece sobre as demais, demonstrando não haver ainda um equilíbrio entre os pilares da sustentabilidade no contexto destas organizações.

Motivated by a proposal of the local authority for improving the existing healthcare system in the Parana State in Brazil, this article presents an optimization-based model for developing a better system for patients by aggregating various health services offered in the municipalities of Parana into some microregions. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective partitioning of the nodes of an undirected graph (or network) with the municipalities as the nodes and the roads connecting them as the edges of the graph. Maximizing the population homogeneity in the microregions, maximizing the variety of medical procedures offered in the microregions, and minimizing the inter-microregion distances to be traveled by patients are considered as three objective functions of the problem. An integer-coded multi-objective genetic algorithm is adopted as the optimization tool, which yields a significant improvement to the existing healthcare system map of the Parana State. The results obtained may have a strong impact on the healthcare system management in Parana. The model proposed here could be a useful tool to aid the decision-making in health management, as well as for better organization of any healthcare system, including those of other Brazilian States.

Among the different heuristics theories that attempt to explain the decision making process, this study explores the gambler's fallacy and the hot hand theory. This paper investigates the influence of self-regulation in heuristics and biases used during consumer decision making. Two experiments were conducted. The first one assessed if results of past performance of stocks affected consumer preference to buy or sell those stocks. Results indicated a significant difference between gender in decision making, with the occurrence of the gambler's fallacy for the male sample, but not for the female sample. The second experiment investigated the role of self-regulation in the gambler's fallacy and hot hand bias. Results showed that after the induction of self-regulation, it was noticed the gambler's fallacy and the hot hand theory in some conditions, indicating changes in the decisions made by consumers. We conclude that there is a significant influence of affective state in decision making and that women are less susceptible to the gambler's fallacy than men.

This article aims to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of a possible adoption of new technologies and methodologies applicable to the education of administration systems, such as PBL, distance learning, and new evaluation systems, taking into account the impact that these can have on the performance of undergraduate Business students. Twelve in-depth interviews were conducted with students and teachers. The results indicate that the use of PBL is viewed with suspicion and restriction by students, while teachers believe that this methodology is a tool that aids student transformation. Distance learning is also viewed with caution by both parties, because of the stigma still attached to it, although both agree that it plays a key role as a teaching aid. Teaching innovations aim for greater student autonomy and multidisciplinary projects, which enable a broader view not restricted to the discipline. Finally, it was found that assessment systems must be reviewed by teachers and that preference is given for mixed forms that take individual aspects of students into account.

Quality in education has been the subject of many debates, be it among managers in schools, in the media or in literature. However, the literature appears not to include methods or techniques for exploring databases to obtain classifications for this quality; nor is there a consensus as to the definition of “education quality”. To address these issues, this article proposes a methodology similar to the KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases) to classify Education Quality in schools comparatively, based on grades scored in school performance tests. For the purposes of this study, the test used was the Prova Brasil examination, which is part of the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) used in Brazil. The methodology was applied to public municipal schools in the town of Araucária in the metropolitan district of Curitiba in Paraná State. Seventeen schools that offer elementary and junior high school education were included. All the grades of every student were considered from the early and later years at the schools. During the Data Mining stage, the main stage of the KDD process, three comparative methods were used for Pattern Recognition: Artificial Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines and Genetic Algorithms. These methods supplied satisfactory results in the classification of schools represented by way of a “Quality Label”, with Artificial Neural Networks having the best performance for the problem in question. With this quality label, educational managers can decide on which measures to adopt at all the schools to help them achieve their goals.

The evolution of knowledge related to Integrated Management (IM) is clearly discernible. The growing complexity of the subject can be seen by the incorporation of new concepts and their increasing interrelationship demanding changes in education specially the relationship between what is taught in Industrial Engineering and Business schools and what is applied in companies. Here we introduce the e-tangram simulator, which seeks to develop conceptual (strategic), technical (operations management) and human skills in business managers. It provides a virtual learning environment that allows experimentation in a company operating in a competitive environment. Once the simulation environment has been defined, students acting as managers can develop their ability to strategically manage a company, combining variables from the external environment and the functional areas of marketing, operations, human resources and finance. To determine the impact of the simulator on learning among undergraduate Industrial Engineering and Business students data were collected from 500 students and analyzed according to The Collective Subject Discourse methodology. The results showed that the activities carried out in the simulation environment were of great help in consolidating technical and conceptual learning among undergraduates; developing human skills, particularly those related to negotiations.

In this paper, we propose a methodology to classify Power Quality (PQ) in distribution systems based on voltage sags. The methodology uses the KDD process (Knowledge Discovery in Databases) in order to establish a quality level to be printed in labels. The methodology was applied to feeders on a substation located in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, considering attributes such as sag length (remnant voltage), duration and frequency (number of occurrences on a given period of time). On the Data Mining stage (the main stage on KDD Process), three different techniques were used, in a comparative way, for pattern recognition, in order to achieve the quality classification for the feeders: Artificial Neural Networks (ANN); Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Genetic Algorithms (GA). By printing a label with quality level information, utilities companies (power concessionaires) can get better organized for management and mitigation procedures by establishing clear targets. Moreover, the same way costumers already receive information regarding PQ based on interruptions, they will also be able to receive information based on voltage sags.

O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar as influências da Qualidade Percebida, dos Valores de Consumo e das Emoções como antecedentes da Satisfação do consumidor. Sendo assim, foi realizada uma revisão de literatura acerca dos construtos centrais deste estudo, onde pretendeu-se demonstrar a relação existente entre eles e como os mesmos podem ser considerados elementos antecedentes da Satisfação, fazendo-se ao final a proposição de um modelo no qual as relações propostas entre estas variáveis formaram as hipóteses testadas. A pesquisa pode ser caracterizada como um survey de caráter Interseccional, e foi realizada na cidade de Curitiba/PR com 392 consumidores de Shopping Center. Os dados coletados foram analisados por meio dos softwares: SPSS e AMOS. Por meio da relevância apresentada nos seus resultados, comparativamente com as premissas propostas, este estudo apresenta sua contribuição tanto para a teoria do comportamento do consumidor, quanto para o contexto de Shopping Center. Além de corroborar com os achados dos estudos tomados como base para a construção destas relações, este estudo também apresentou outras duas importantes contribuições: (1) considerar três dimensões (utilitária, hedônica e simbólica) aos valores de consumo e propor a relação destas dimensões com outras variáveis, conseguindo verificar empiricamente a relação destes valores com as emoções e com a satisfação; bem como a verificação da relação da qualidade percebida nos valores de consumo, relação esta que ainda não havia ficado muito clara em estudos anteriores; (2) analisar conjuntamente a relação entre as variáveis qualidade percebida, valores de consumo, moções e satisfação, já que estas variáveis ainda não tinham sido testadas em nenhum outro estudo. Por fim, ainda são apresentadas limitações do estudo e sugestões para futuras pesquisas.

This study aimed to analyze the Brazilian competitiveness in the world market of the main non-timber forest products (NTFPs) exported by Brazil during the subperiods from 2006 to 2010, and from 2011 to 2016. The products were selected based on their relevance in the Brazilian NTFP export. In order to analyze competitiveness, we used the competitiveness matrix, which is given by the performance point of view. In the construction of this matrix, the vertical axis was represented by the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage index while the horizontal axis was represented by the growth rate. The results showed that natural rubber was in the “missed opportunities” quadrant in the first period and in the “retreat” quadrant in the second period analyzed. On the other hand, honey, mate and cashew nut were positioned in the “optimum” sector in both periods, although cashew nut had showed a decrease both in the world growth rate and in the RSCA in the second period studied. In the final analysis, we concluded that Brazil is competitive in exports of honey and mate, it has been losing competitiveness in exports of cashew nuts, and is in decline as regards natural rubber exports.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo identificar e descrever o estágio em que se encontra a produção científica a respeito do Marketing Internacional no Brasil. Por meio de meta-análise qualitativa, foram verificadas 70 pesquisas publicadas, sendo 42 artigos de periódicos e eventos nacionais da área de administração e 28 teses e dissertações desenvolvidas em Instituições de Ensino Superior brasileiras com cursos de mestrado e doutorado com conceito Capes 4 até 7 na área de Administração. A pesquisa descritiva foi desenvolvida pela aplicação de meta-análise qualitativa com perspectiva longitudinal com corte transversal, levantando 10 variáveis que foram analisadas individualmente, ordenadas por artigo, tese e dissertação, tendo-se partido para a análise de períodos estabelecidos pela segmentação de 14 anos de estudo (1997-2010). As conclusões levaram ao entendimento de que as pesquisas científicas na área de Marketing Internacional ainda são poucas, porém, apresentam crescimento. São ainda desenvolvidas em empresas do setor industrial, com perspectiva metodológica descritiva e exploratória e apresentaram-se predominantemente como survey, com coleta de dados eminentemente feita por entrevista estruturada e com direcionamento, concentrando-se em poucos autores.

The understanding of loyalty programs’ participation rules is tested in this study within three experiments conducted to check the influence of the regulatory focus, prize type, and of the interaction of both. Experiment 1 shows that the regulatory focus somehow affects the degree of understanding of the programs’ rules. Experiment 2 shows that the prize type also affects the degree of understanding of the programs’ rules. And, at last, it is shown that Experiment 3 does not corroborate the hypothesis of the interaction of those variables on the degree of understanding of the programs’ rules. The conclusion is that the understanding of loyalty programs’ rules is higher to individuals in the state of prevention and of receiving utilitarian award, and that, however, there is no influence of their interaction. The study contributes to corroborate the matching effect and the hypotheses of the regulatory focus theory on the consumer behavior, also proposing managerial implications to loyalty programs’ managers.

This paper presents a proposal for optimizing the public health service in the state of Parana in terms of the flow of patients within the state's boundaries and the regionalization (division) of the state into new hierarchical configurations for this service. In terms of regionalization, the proposal consists of dividing the state into smaller regions comprising several towns connected to a headquarter city, which would be responsible for decisions affecting the region. With regard to the flow of patients, an algorithm is proposed which organizes the information while simultaneously optimizing the flow. The state was regionalized using a branch-and-price algorithm, which uses a column generating algorithm in each node of a branch-and-bound tree. The technique proposed here to optimize the patient flow proved effective and useful, controlling not only the medical procedures performed in each town but also defining the city to which each patient should be taken, according to the hierarchical division of the state. The branch-and-price algorithm used to optimize the regionalization of the state is very interesting, for it improves the hierarchical division of the state taking into account the number of inhabitants and the number of medical procedures in each city of the state. The results have met the expectations of State Health Services. Neste trabalho é apresentada uma proposta para a otimização no serviço de saúde no estado do Paraná com relação ao fluxo de pacientes dentro do estado e a regionalização (divisão) do estado, obtendo novas configurações hierárquicas para o mesmo. Quanto à regionalização, a proposta consiste em dividir o estado em regiões menores, formadas por várias cidades, vinculadas a uma cidade sede, principal responsável pelo atendimento no seu nível de resolutividade. Com relação ao fluxo de pacientes, é proposto um algoritmo que, ao mesmo tempo em que organiza as informações, otimiza o fluxo. Já para a regionalização, fez-se uso do algoritmo branch and price, que utiliza o algoritmo de geração de colunas em cada nó de uma árvore branch and bound. A técnica proposta apresentada para otimizar o fluxo de pacientes mostrou-se eficaz e útil, pois além de fazer o controle dos procedimentos médicos realizados em cada cidade, também define para qual cidade o paciente deve ser encaminhado, respeitando a divisão hierárquica do estado. Já o algoritmo branch and price, utilizado para a otimização na regionalização do estado, é bastante interessante, pois tenta melhorar a referida divisão hierárquica do estado, levando em consideração o número de habitantes e o número de procedimentos médicos de cada município do estado. Os resultados obtidos têm atendido às expectativas da SESA-PR.

A "Descoberta de Conhecimento em Bases de Dados" (Knowledge Discovery in Databases, KDD) é um processo composto de várias etapas, iniciando com a coleta de dados para o problema em pauta e finalizando com a interpretação e avaliação dos resultados obtidos. O presente trabalho objetiva mostrar a influência da análise exploratória dos dados no desempenho das técnicas de Mineração de Dados (Data Mining) quanto à classificação de novos padrões por meio da sua aplicação a um problema médico, além de comparar o desempenho delas entre si, visando obter a técnica com o maior percentual de acertos. Pelos resultados obtidos, pode-se concluir que a referida análise, se conduzida de forma adequada, pode trazer importantes melhorias nos desempenhos de quase todas as técnicas abordadas, tornando-se, assim, uma importante ferramenta para a otimização dos resultados finais. Para o problema em estudo, a técnica que envolve um modelo de Programação Linear e uma outra que envolve Redes Neurais foram as técnicas que apresentaram os menores percentuais de erros para os conjuntos de testes, apresentando capacidades de generalização satisfatórias.

Resumo As reações afetivas que os consumidores experimentam em um processo de compra têm a maioria dos seus estudos voltada para a satisfação do consumidor. Contudo, emoções negativas, como o arrependimento, são de extrema importância, embora pouco estudadas. Dessa maneira, o presente trabalho tem dois objetivos, além de colaborar para o desenvolvimento da literatura, também o de verificar se o esforço empreendido pelo consumidor no processo de busca de informações influencia o seu grau de arrependimento, ao mesmo tempo que analisa a relação da intensidade do arrependimento com futuras intenções de reclamação, divulgação a terceiros (boca-a-boca negativo) e recompra. Os resultados com a amostra composta de adolescentes sugerem que: a busca de informação não influencia a intensidade do arrependimento; a probabilidade de boca-a-boca negativo e reclamação aumentam juntamente com a intensidade do arrependimento; e, as pessoas com alto grau de arrependimento tendem a não efetuar a recompra. Quando a amostra é estratificada pelo gênero, evidencia-se que a hipótese de quanto maior a intensidade do arrependimento, maior a probabilidade de reclamação, é confirmada para o sexo masculino e rejeitadas para o sexo feminino. Palavras-chave: Satisfação do consumidor; reações afetivas; arrependimento. Abstract The affective reactions experienced by consumers in a purchase process have most of their studies focused on consumer's satisfaction. However, negative emotions, such as regret, have extreme importance, although there is little research addressing this issue. Other than collaborating for the literature development, the present thesis has two objectives: verify if the effort undertaken by the consumer in the searching information process influences his or her regret degree and analyze the relation between regret intensity and future claim intentions, negative ‘word-of-mouth’ and repurchases. The results of the sample composed by teenagers suggest that: the search of information doesn't influence the regret intensity; the probability of negative ‘word-of-mouth’ and claim increase according to regret intensity; people with high regret degree tend to avoid repurchases. When the sample is stratified by gender, the hypothesis of ‘the larger the intensity of regret, the larger the complaint probability’ is confirmed for men and rejected for women. Keywords: Customer satisfaction; affective reactions; repentance.

This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of publications dealing with the Eco-innovation and Strategy issues in the databases Web of Science and Scopus in the period 2001-2015, and identify what topics are being studied along this theme and which are the most relevant, conducting a comparison of results found in the two databases (Web of Science and Scopus). The study has a quantitative approach in order that sought to evaluate some variables related to scientific production on the subject researched. The analysis found 96 publications in the Web of Science and 109 in Scopus. Comparing both surveyed bases it is found that the number of publications increased dramatically in the last decade and that European countries lead the ranking as the number of publications. It is noticed that in both databases, the authors of the most cited publications are not among the authors who have published over in the period. The most cited articles in both surveyed bases belong to the journals: Journal of Cleaner Production and Technovation.