Knowledge about the economy and its functioning is fundamental to make informed decisions within the various roles that each individual plays in society, as consumer, seller, producer, investor, worker, and citizen. Economic literacy also has long-term consequences on the stability of the economy as a whole. In Portugal, in the last quarter of 2017, 76.8% of the insolvency judgments decreed by the courts concerned cases involving private individuals. In the third quarter of 2007, compared to the third quarter of 2017, the weight of insolvency of private individuals in the total number of cases almost tripled, from 21.2% to 76.8%. Thus, the objectives of this research are: to evaluate undergraduate students' knowledge on economics and to analyze their ability to understand basic economic concepts. To collect the data, it was applied a questionnaire that included socioeconomic variables and the Economic Literacy Test (ELT) developed by the National Council on Economic Education. This test includes twenty questions of multiple choice about basic economic concepts and allows to evaluate the literacy of students and adults in four issues, namely consumer economics, production economics, financial economics, government's economic role, and international trade. The E LT was applied to all students enrolled in the General Economics Principles (GEP) curricular unit, which were present in the first class, in the second half of September 2017, in the context of the Languages for International Relations degree from a public higher education institution, located in the northern interior of Portugal. Of the 95 students enrolled in GEP, 70 completed the questionnaire corresponding a obtaining a 73.7% response rate. Students were, mainly, female (62.9%), with a mean age of 19.7 5 years old (SD = 2.31), 20% had previous training on economics during secondary education and 14.3% have already attend GEP without success. The level of knowledge was, on average, 12.46 (SD = 2.783) out of 20. The distribution of students by level of knowledge was as follows: poor (14.3%); fair (44.3%) good (40%) and very good (1.4%). Previous training in economics during secondary education (p = 0.438) or in GEP (p = 0.218) revealed not to be a differentiator factor of the knowledge level. This research revealed that students had a fair knowledge level on economic issues and they performed better on microeconomic issues related to consumer behavior. They performed worse on macroeconomic issues, in issues related to the government role and inflation. ; This work is supported by: the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project No. 006971 (UID/SOC/04011)]; and national funds, through the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/SOC/04011/2013. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
This research study intended to describe and to analyze the nature of the phenomenon of private tutoring in the Autonomous Region of Madeira. The 413 respondents, secondary senior students, have ages between the 17 and 23 years. Of the total of respondents, 56.4% were of feminine gender and 42.1% were of masculine gender. During secondary education, a significant number of students attended weekly private tutoring sessions, on the 11th and 12th grades, 44% and 41.9%, respectively. Mathematics is the subject that makes the majority of students to look for this type of educative service (87,7%). A great part of students spend between 4 and 6 hours, weekly (68,4%) in private Centres (66,7%) and the financial expenses average 80 dollars a month (56,7%). The majority of the students consider positive (87,7%) the frequency of private tutoring sessions. This parallel educational issue raises important questions that need to be studied and reflected on: a) the inequity introduced in the student population - are the prosperous families that can get the better and longer private tutoring services. In Portugal, the government introduced legislation (1999 and 2005) in order to regulate this phenomenon (i.e., permission needed for teachers to provide private tutoring and prohibition to provide private tutoring to own students or students of their own schools) however, this legislation has not been followed neither controlled; b) the other important question is the quality of public education – public schools are not providing the educational services that families and students look for; c) another important question is related to rankings of schools – the schools that are on the first places (which in Portugal are private schools) are benefiting from the private tutors who prepare their students introducing one aggravation for public schools which are not able to select their students. These issues need to be addressed in future studies.
Economic literacy can be defined as the ability to use related knowledge and skills to manage financial sources effectively. Economic literacy is about knowing and applying the main economic theories in making rational economic decisions. Higher literacy levels on economy will lead to an increase in society´s and individuals´ economic efficiency and well-being. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact of the General Principles of Economics (GPE) course on students' economic literacy and to identify subjects in which students show greater difficulty. To collect the data, a questionnaire that included socioeconomic variables and the Economic Literacy Test (ELT) developed by the National Council of Economic Education (NCEE) was applied. The ELT includes twenty questions of multiple choice. There were four choices: a correct answer, two incorrect ones and a fourth choice for the students that did not knew the answer. Basically, the ELT is about basic economic concepts and allows to evaluate the literacy of students and adults in four topics, namely consumer economics; production economics; financial economics; government's economic role and international trade. The ELT was applied to all students that were enrolled in GPE, who were present in the first class, in September 2017. At the end of the semester (January 2018), the same questionnaire was applied. GPE is a course of the Languages for International Relations degree from a public higher education institution, located in the northern of Portugal. Of the 95 students enrolled in GPE, 70 completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the semester. Of these, only 45 answered the questionnaire at the end of the semester that corresponds to a response rate of 47.4%. Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 25.0. Descriptive statistics was used to characterize the sample. In order to compare the students' knowledge level on economics, pre and post-course, the Wilcoxon test was applied. For each question (correct and incorrect answer), the McNemar test was used to compare pre and post-course samples, considering each question, in order to verify if the course was responsible for the changes that occurred between the two moments. For both statistical tests, a significance level of 5% was used. Students were, mainly, female (60%), with a mean age of 19.4 years old (SD = 1.63). Only 20.0% had previous training in economics during high school and 8.9% have already attended the GPE course in previous years without success. Most students came from rural areas (53.0%) and their parents were employed (father: 86.7%; mother: 73.3%), and the monthly income level was up to 1000 euros (59.1%). Most mothers had an educational level between 3rd cycle (33.3%) and high school (31.1%) while the fathers´ educational level ranged between 2nd and 3rd cycles with 24.4% and 33.3%, respectively. The knowledge level pre and post-course was, on average, 12.0 (SD = 2.55) and 12.9 (SD = 3.24) out of 20, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in students' level of knowledge pre and post-course (p-value = 0.091). Students proved to have a fair level of knowledge pre and post-course. At the end of the course, most students showed improvements in the literacy level on economy. However, the improvement was not statistically significant. So, in the future, in order to improve the economic literacy level, some topics must be emphasized by the teacher, namely, financial, consumer and producer economics. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Organic farming is a high potential strategic activity for the Portuguese agricultural sector. It generates differentiated value-added products increasingly demanded by consumers, based on environmentally friendly production techniques, thus sustainably managing rural development. Portugal enjoys a renewed interest in organic farming as result of the current economic crisis, the existence of young generations with strong environmental awareness and facing difficulties in finding employment in more traditional activities and the reformed EU agricultural policy backing-up organic farming. However, Portuguese organic farming is far from reaching its potential, showing up a modest weight to agricultural economy. This work aims to contribute to the growth of organic farming in Portugal. To this end it analyses the evolution (1994-2014) and main constraints of Portuguese organic farming, based on statistical data published by Direção Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural and other secondary sources, including academic and industry studies regarding this subject. Portuguese organic farming starts flourishing in the nineties, as the land and number of organic farmers had average annual growth rates above 20% and 40%, respectively. However, recent data show that it lost momentum, being highly dependent of the European Union - EU and national government financial support policy. In Portugal, organic production is concentrated mainly in the regions of Alentejo, Beira Interior and Trás-os-Montes. In 2014, more than 85.5% of livestock breeders and 66.5% of farmers were located in these regions, representing approximately 84% of the total organic farming land. In this year, there were 3,132 farmers dedicated to organic crops, occupying 228,841 hectares, particularly, grasslands and olive trees, and 1,003 livestock breeders, mainly cattle and sheep. In the last decade, the aromatic plants show up a high dynamism among crop production, while for livestock production the highlight is for beekeeping. Nowadays organic production is already present in the main grocery store chains and became widespread in speciality retailers, such as natural and healthy food stores, gourmet food stores and street markets. Nevertheless, the penetration rate in the market is low. In 2014, Portugal was responsible for 2.23% of the EU organic farming land. However, Portugal had a share of only 0.8% of the European organic market (FiBL, 2016). Also, the domestic market share of organic products was the lowest in Europe, accounting for only 0.2% of the national market, due to a low per capita consumption of organic products (€2). Overall Portuguese organic producers refer struggling with production and marketing difficulties as the major barriers their growth (Barrote, n/d; Cabo et al., 2013, 2014; FiBL, 2014; Ribeiro et al., 2014; Simões et al., 2008). Those producers relate having difficulty in buying production factors approved for organic farming and its high price. This is recurring problem. The market demand is undersized, due to the low number of organic producers, which makes unprofitable for commercial companies to develop therapeutic drug products suitable to organic farming. The scarce supply discourages the entry of new organic producers in the business. Furthermore, since organic farming is primarily based on prevention actions, it needs further monitoring by producers, thus rising labour costs. The farmer's marketing competences can define the success or failure of a farm business. This proves to be the main constraint to the expansion of organic production since the market of organic products is yet small and very fragile. Offer is sparse, scattered and does not guarantee regularity in supply, due to the small size of farms and the lack of organization in the production. The lack of specialized marketing channels for organic products and the distance to the main consumer centres withhold producers, particularly, in the case of perishable products. Finally, the high consumer prices are not reflected in the producer prices and also make organic products only accessible to a minority of population. This price barrier, combined with the economic recession, and the lack of information and knowledge by consumers about the advantages of organic products, holds back consumption growth. However, it is possible to highlight success stories able to break this cycle that traps organic production, by focusing on producers organizations to achieve scale, creating their own marketing channels and adopting differentiation strategies, either by developing their product range or by making use of both organic and geographical certification, such as the Montesinho Protected Designation of Origin and Organic Farming honey.
The vast majority of environmental problems derive from human action, by dangerously disrupting the natural activity of the biosphere. However, as ecological problems are piling up also a greater ecological awareness is developing in the world, supported by several Non-Governmental Organizations – NGO. These organizations often lead governments in the creation of funds for the protection of ecosystems and endangered species. In fact, although legal regulations put pressure on governments to adopt greener policies, recent history shows that there is still a long way to go, since the ecological question does not obey merely the legal norms, but mainly to individual and community ethical values. This work examines the environmental crisis in the perspective of a real and global problem, linked to the concept of Sustainable Development – SD. It aims to instigate a greater sensitivity to environmental issues in the decision-making entities, encouraging them to be more involved in the adoption of more sustainable development models. The study relies on a critical review of the literature. To understand how it reached to a saturation point of the environment on a global scale, it highlights the environmental crisis and the awakening of consciences to the principles of SD, the hegemonic development of capitalism and the environmental ethics, in the context of carrying capacity of the planet. The environmental ethics and the planet's carrying capacity At the beginning of the new millennium the indicators show that mankind consumes natural resources 50% more than the Earth can provide. The ecological footprint is twice the 1966 ecological footprint (WWF, 2010), requiring 1.5 planets to satisfy the needs of the current society. A sustainable community is generally defined as one that is able to meet their needs without reducing the related odds for the next generations. The Earth resistance limits clearly indicate that as the consumption of energy accelerates more quickly decreases the real time available for species. Thus, an organism that consumes their livelihood faster than the environment produces them has no chance to survive (Tiezzi 1988). Throughout human evolution, it can be found registers of societies whose criteria to satisfaction of needs have their genesis in the carrying capacity of the environment (Fernandes, 2001), connecting to the cosmos and feeling part of it. In these societies, the man is connected by ties of training and information to land, air, water, plants and animals (Branco 1989). Closely linked to the society development is the concept of 'carrying capacity' expression originally proposed by the ecology, indicating the maximum theoretical density of individuals that the environment can support in the long-term (Odum 1997). This concept is much more complex when related to human societies. In fact, in these societies, the carrying capacity takes on a new dimension to incorporate other elements such as technology, accumulated knowledge and the relationship between social groups (Odum, 1997). It shows how human societies have skills to acquire and incorporate natural resources from other environments or societies (Odum, 1997). So, while poor countries cannot meet their needs with their own resources, technological resources and accumulation of knowledge, the rich countries' lifestyle based on high consumption of resources, energy and technology largely exceeded the carrying capacity of their territories. To satisfy their demand, they import energy, goods and services from poor countries, which mean an extension of the carrying capacity promoted by political, economic and even military mechanisms (Odum, 1997). If, for example, each person wishes to achieve the lifestyle of an American, it would not be possible to accommodate the entire planet's population. Americans represent 4% of world population, but consume 33% of energy and natural resources of the world (Medina, 2010). In the begin of this millennium the developed countries represented less than 25% of the world population, but consuming 75% of all the energy produced, 70% of fuels, 85% of timber and 72% of steel (Kraemer, 2003). This development model requires high rates of rejection of waste and effluents. Therefore, while developed societies perform as a model for all other societies, it rejects the maintenance of the natural system which systematically is destroyed (Medina, 2010). There have been several discourses grounded in ethics and solidarity to deal with the ecological crisis. Arruda (1998) appeals to the logics of the 'solidarity socio-economy', of the 'being' and the 'enough', as opposed to the logic of the 'big', of the 'only has value who owns' and the 'unlimited growth'. Similarly, Fernandes (2001) considers the 'ethics of the necessary', a reflection on what is the quality of life and the individual and social needs and desires, given the physical limits of the Earth, the technological uncertainties and the prospective of reducing inequalities between people. Acselrad (2006) argues that the 'discourse of efficiency' is the dominant model in liberal economies; the remaining ones correspond to alternative proposals to achieve sustainable development, all having the same common denominator – the reduction. Main findings Development is a geographical, vast, dynamic and constantly changing concept. What seems to be transversal to all communities is ensuring an improvement project of life quality. Thus, in every time and place, each social group acquires and adapts the resources according to their beliefs, values, culture, social organization and the dominant economic system. In the last half of the twentieth century, societies assumed the development as a right, and the governments were responsible for achieving it. However, the economic centred models that were adopted resulted in extreme inequalities between world northern and southern countries. Overall, cultural diversity was despised and adjusted to global hegemonic model, turning people into monocultural societies. The ecology radically reproves the rationality of modern society and the prevailing economic ideology, and various thinkers claim that the current capitalist expansion stage will result in further increase in social inequalities, injustices and intense devastation of nature. Even so, the socio-political dynamic continues incompatible with the carrying capacity of the planet, compromising the quality of life of future generations. Therefore, it is necessary to change mentalities and to promote an ethical attitude of respect for nature, as advocated by the world summits, environmental NGO and science, in order to test a new paradigm of social organization.
The economic valuation of environmental goods and services (EVEG&S) results of the increasing concern with the quality of industrial products and the reduction of social welfare. The EVEG&S presents the direct and indirect costs and benefits of quantitative and qualitative environmental changes in goods and services and corresponding impacts. This is particularly important in the valuation of investment projects and governmental policies. This study consists in a survey of environmental appraisal methods, focusing into the hypothetical and complementary market based ones. The review reveals that evaluation of environmental quality is very complex. In fact, for each criterion there are several assumptions that are inapplicable to all situations. Effectively, despite the evident complementarity of conventional goods environmental quality, the values attributed to these resources could be underestimated and complementary and substitute markets can be inefficient parameters.
In developed countries chronic disease is currently the main reason why people betake to health care [1]. Negative effects of non-compliance with medical prescription reduce the clinical benefits of the medication, leading in most cases to the use of unnecessary treatments, hospitalization and death [2]. Factors associated with non-compliance with medical prescription may be related to: the doctor-patient relationship, the treatment, the health system, the health condition and the socioeconomic situation. Objective/Aim: To assess the impact of the doctor-patient relationship on non compliance with pharmacological medical prescription in chronic disease. Methods: A cross-sectional design was developed based on a random sample of 141 patients with pathologies covered by Portuguese Exceptional Legislation. To collect the data, it was applied a questionnaire by interview between July 2017 and April 2018. The questionnaire included a list of non-compliance factors associated to doctor-patient relationship, developed by Cabral & Silva (2010) [3]. The IBM SPSS 24.0 software was used to analyse the data. Besides descriptive statistics, the data analysis involved the estimation of a logistic regression model, at a confidence level of 95%. Results: Chronic patients were aged between 20 and 95 years old, with a mean age of 65.3 years (SD = 19.39). Most were female (51.8%), married or lived in marital cohabitation (62.4%), retired (55.3%), and had up to the 3rd cycle of schooling (61%) and an income up to € 1,000 (62.4%). These patients suffered from Chronic Renal Insufficiency (CRI) (63.1%), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Psoriatic Arthritis (PA) (20.6%), Multiple Sclerosis (MS) (10.6%), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (2.1%), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) (2.1%), Hepatic disease (HD) (0.7%) and Gaucher Syndrome (GS) (0.7%). The active substances most dispensed were: ferrous sulphate (76.6%), folic acid (73.8%), calcium polysterenonosulfonate (53.2%), alfacalcidol (48.9%), epoetin β (43.3%), complex B (26.2%) for CRI; adalimumab (8.5%), etarnecept (7.1%) and Ustecinumab (4.3%) for RA and PA; interferon B (8.5%) for MS. Modal treatment time was 24 months. The main reason for non-compliance associated to doctor-patient relationship dimension was "the doctor prescribes too many medicines" (35%). The second most mentioned reason was "the fear to ask questions"(18.4%), followed by "I do not understand what doctors say" (17.5%) and the "lack of confidence in doctors" (6.8%). A patient who does not consider that "the doctor prescribes too many medications" has a lower risk of non-compliance with the therapeutic prescription [OR= 0.262; CI (95%): 0.112-0.617]. Conclusion: The doctor-patient relationship is fundamental for compliance with the prescribed therapy and consequently for the improvement of the clinical benefits of medication and well-being of the patient. References (Vancouver Style): [1]. Dowrick, C., Dixon-Woods, M., Holman, H., & Weinman, J. What is chronic illness? Chronic Illness, 1, 2005, 1-6. [2]. Bugalho A & Carneiro A. (2004). Intervenções para aumentar a adesão terapêutica em patologias crónicas. Lisboa Centro de Estudos de Medicina Baseada na Evidência - Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa. [3]. Cabral, M., Silva, P. A adesão à terapêutica em Portugal: Atitudes e comportamentos da população portuguesa perante as prescrições médicas. APIFARMA, 2010. ; The authors thank FCT, Portugal and FEDER under the PT2020 program for the financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013). UDI/IPG ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Medication adherence is a multidimensional phenomenon determined by the interaction of factors of diverse nature. The World Health Organization classified in five groups the reasons for non-adherence to therapy, related to, patient, disease, therapy, health system and socioeconomic factors [1]. Objective/Aim: To identify the most prevalent extrinsic and intrinsic factors for non adherence to therapy and to verify the existing differences taking into account the socioeconomic variables. Methods: A random probabilistic sample of 141 outpatient suffering from pathologies covered by specific legislation with dispensing medicines at the hospital pharmacy, treated at the Local Health Unit of the Northeast in Portugal, was selected. The sample included patients with Chronic Renal Insufficiency (n=89), Rheumatoid Arthritis and Psoriatic Arthritis (n=29), Multiple Sclerosis (n=15), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (n=3), Hepatitis C Virus (n=3), Hepatic disease (n=1) and Gaucher Syndrome (n=1). To collect the data, was applied a questionnaire, by interview, that included socioeconomic variables and a list of non-adhesion factors adapted from Cabral and Silva [2], between July 2017 and April 2018. The list of factors for non-adherence to the therapy consisted of 35 factors that were later aggregated into three dimensions. The first dimension "extrinsic factors", consisted of 11 reasons that could lead patients not to follow completely the indications recommended by the doctor. The second dimension "intrinsic factors" was constituted by 20 factors related to the characteristics of the medicines and the therapeutics. The SPSS 24.0 software was used to analyse the data. The internal consistency was analysed through Alpha Cronbach. For the comparison of groups, the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test was used at a significance level of 5%. Results: In the "extrinsic factors" dimension, the three most prevalent factors were "patient does not like to have the trips to go to consultations" (39%), "patient does not like to take medications" (37.6%) and "patient does not like to think he is ill "(31.9%). It was the female patients with the lowest level of education and the lowest income who were most likely to leave the treatment. The "intrinsic factors" that stand out were: "the schedule of the shots" (36.9%), "drugs were difficult to take" (29.8%) and "treatment duration was long" (29, 1%). It was women, aged 65 years old or more, without professional occupation, with lower levels of income and schooling who were less compliant with medical indications. Conclusion: The socioeconomic variables are differentiated from the non-compliance by the medical indications. References (Vancouver Style): 1. World Health Organization. Adherence to long-term therapies: Evidence for action. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2003. [Access date may, 2017]. Available from:http://www.who.int/chp/knowledge/publications/adherence_report/en/ 2. Cabral, M., Silva, P. A adesão à terapêutica em Portugal: Atitudes e comportamentos da população portuguesa perante as prescrições médicas. APIFARMA, 2010. ; The authors thank FCT, Portugal and FEDER under the PT2020 program for the financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013). UDI/IPG ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Background: In developed countries chronic disease is currently the main reason why people betake to health care [1]. Negative effects of non-compliance with medical prescription reduce the clinical benefits of the medication, leading in most cases to the use of unnecessary treatments, hospitalization and death [2]. Factors associated with non-compliance with medical prescription may be related to: the doctor-patient relationship, the treatment, the health system, the heath condition and the socioeconomic situation. Aim: To assess the impact of the doctor-patient relationship on non-compliance with pharmacological medical prescription in chronic disease. Methods: A cross-sectional design was developed based on a random sample of 141 patients with pathologies covered by Portuguese Exceptional Legislation. To collect the data, it was applied a questionnaire by interview between July 2017 and April 2018. The questionnaire included socioeconomic variables and a list of non-compliance factors developed by Cabral & Silva (2010) [3]. The IBM SPSS 24.0 software was used to analyse the data. Besides descriptive statistics, the data analysis involved the estimation of a logistic regression model, at a confidence level of 95%. Results: Chronic patients were aged between 20 and 95 years old, with a mean age of 65.3 years (SD = 19.39). Most were female (51.8%), married or lived in marital cohabitation (62.4%), retired (55.3%), and had up to the 3rd cycle of schooling (61%) and an income up to € 1,000 (62.4%). These patients suffered from Chronic Renal Insufficiency (CRI) (63.1%), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Psoriatic Arthritis (PA) (20.6%), Multiple Sclerosis (MS) (10.6%), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (2.1%), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) (2.1%), Hepatic disease (HD) (0.7%) and Gaucher Syndrome (GS) (0.7%). The active substances most dispensed were: ferrous sulphate (76.6%), folic acid (73.8%), calcium polysterenonosulfonate (53.2%), alfacalcidol (48.9%), epoetin β (43.3%), complex B (26.2%) for CRI; adalimumab (8.5%), etarnecept (7.1%) and Ustecinumab (4.3%) for RA and PA; interferon B (8.5%) for MS. Modal treatment time was 24 months. The main reason for non-compliance with pharmacological prescription was "the doctor prescribes too many medications" (35%). The second most mentioned reason was "the fear to ask questions"(18.4%), followed by "not realize what doctors say" (17.5%) and the "lack of confidence in doctors" (6.8%). A patient who does not consider that "the doctor prescribes too many medications" has a lower risk of non-compliance with the pharmacological prescription [OR= 0,262; CI (95%): 0,112-0,617]. Conclusion: The doctor-patient relationship is fundamental for compliance with the prescribed therapy and consequently for the improvement of the clinical benefits of medication and well-being of the patient. References [1]. Dowrick, C., Dixon-Woods, M., Holman, H., & Weinman, J. What is chronic illness? Chronic Illness, 1, 2005, 1-6. [2]. Bugalho A & Carneiro A. (2004). Intervenções para aumentar a adesão terapêutica em patologias crónicas. Lisboa Centro de Estudos de Medicina Baseada na Evidência - Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa. [3]. Cabral, M., Silva, P. A adesão à terapêutica em Portugal: Atitudes e comportamentos da população portuguesa perante as prescrições médicas. APIFARMA, 2010. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
In Portuguese public administration, the absenteeism rates were 6.8% in 2017, 4.8% in 2016 and 4.5% in 2015 (INE, 2018). Towards such high absenteeism rates, the Portuguese government has set as priorities, in the 2021 State budget (Ministério das Finanças, 2020), the investment in good working conditions and the control of absenteeism in the Public Administration. So, this research aimed to analyze the association between absenteeism and job satisfaction and to verify if the municipality size is a differentiator factor of both absenteeism and job satisfaction. A cross-sectional and quantitate study was carried out based on a sample of 245 workers from 6 municipalities located in the Bragança district located in the Northeast Portugal. The data were collected using a questionnaire that was administered from April 2018 to July 2019. The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0. In this context, descriptive statistics was used to perform the univariate analysis and Chi-square and R-Pearson tests were used in the bivariate analysis. On average, the number of absences from work was 15.4 days at the medium-sized municipality and 13.2 days at the small-sized municipalities. The level of job satisfaction was a high among municipalities workers. However, the municipality size revealed not to be a differentiator factor of both absenteeism and job satisfaction. Also, no correlation was found between job satisfaction and absenteeism. The main reasons associated with the absence were the need to support the family, natural disease, prolonged illness, demotivation and/or job dissatisfaction, among others. ; The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
A identificação de linhas de orientação estratégica para a DOP (Denominação de Origem Protegida) da Carne Mirandesa é o tema central deste artigo. Para o fazer, realizou-se uma análise SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) na qual o crescimento concentrado, a diferenciação do produto e a qualidade, emergiram como estratégias que, na actualidade, constituem o pilar lucrativo da fileira. A estratégia de desenvolvimento do produto, de que é exemplo o chouriço mirandês, encontra-se numa fase inicial de implementação. Por seu lado, a diversificação concêntrica surge como uma estratégia capaz de valorizar partes da carcaça até agora pouco ou nada aproveitadas. Num cenário optimista, no qual se consiga aproveitar todo o potencial da actividade, as estratégias de penetração e desenvolvimento de mercado poderão vir a revelar-se interessantes. Num cenário mais pessimista, cujos estrangulamentos não possam ser debelados, resta prosseguir uma estratégia de redução de custos e, em última instância, a liquidação da actividade.
Produtos gourmet são produtos de alta qualidade com origem e características específicas, produzidos em pequenas quantidades com matérias-primas de qualidade, utilizando processos de produção diferenciados. Este estudo visa analisar a percepção, o conhecimento e os hábitos de compra de produtos gourmet de marca branca na cidade de Bragança, Portugal. Para o efeito, desenvolveu-se um estudo quantitativo, transversal, observacional e descritivo baseado numa amostra acidental constituída por 1.101 indivíduos que foram inquiridos através de um questionário de autopreenchimento. A recolha de dados decorreu durante o mês de junho de 2014 em lojas do sector da distribuição localizadas na cidade de Bragança. Os dados foram editados e tratados com o SPSS 22.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Calcularam-se estatísticas descritivas, nomeadamente, frequências absolutas e relativas. Segundo os consumidores, os produtos gourmet são produtos de qualidade feitos com bons ingredientes e, por conseguinte, são produtos caros e requintados. A maioria dos inquiridos (60,0%) tinha comprado um produto gourmet no ano anterior à pesquisa, num hipermercado (93,1%). No entanto, os consumidores compraram produtos gourmet com pouca frequência, menos de uma vez por mês (28,7%). Os produtos gourmet adquiridos eram, maioritariamente, da marca do distribuidor (86,8%). A marca Gourmet Continente (84,8%) revelou ser a marca mais conhecida. Apesar disso, apenas 60,9% tinha comprado produtos dessa marca. Os resultados sugerem que a cultura gourmet está presente no quotidiano dos consumidores brigantinos. No entanto, estes consumidores compram produtos gourmet com a marca do distribuidor o que lhes permite adquirir produtos de alta qualidade ao menor preço possível.
