Maria Aparecida Gouvêa

Satisfaction and continuous use intention of e-learning service in Brazilian public organizations

We examined two public organizations that offer e-learning service for your employees.A structural model of satisfaction and continuous use intention was tested.Performance and technology readiness high influence each other.Performance exceeds expectancy and results in high satisfaction. The aim of this paper is to investigate the constructs of Technology Readiness Index (TRI) and the Decomposed Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory (DEDT) as determinants of satisfaction and continuous use intention in e-learning services applied in public organizations. The research was conducted by online survey in a sample of 343 employees of two public organizations in Brazil who have had e-learning experience. The results showed that quality, quality disconfirmation, value and value disconfirmation positively impact on satisfaction, as well as disconfirmation usability, innovativeness and optimism. Likewise, satisfaction proved to be decisive for the purpose of continuous use intention. In addition, technological readiness and performance are strongly related. The main contribution of this study is the delivery of an assessment tool for performance oriented to training courses at distance and applied in public organizations.

The prices of mailing services evaluated by companies

In the competitive business environment there is an inherent complexity in the price decisions. Although technical aspects and financial principles bring many contributions in clarifying those decisions, they are not enough to solve the pricing question. The typical business environment in the new millennium has driven the companies to adopt a competitive positioning according to new tendencies, events and demands in the marketplace. In this sense, the Brazilian State Postal Service Company, ECT, is intending to adjust its pricing policy and, in addition to these issues, decided to study the opinion of its customers in the business market segment. Although the perceived value for the companies that use the various services incorporates many attributes, this study focuses on the relation between price and delivery time according to a sample of 1,520 users. Many strategic actions might be adopted as a consequence of the findings of this study.

Avaliação da qualidade de serviços terceirizados de intervenção em mobiliário e no layout em uma organização pública

This study aimed to identify, within the framework of a public organization, indicators allowing an assessment of the quality of outsourced service maintenance of layout according to the perspectives of users, of contract fiscals and of the responsible for service providers. Through the statistical technique of structural equations modeling, the definition of constructs directly relevant to the measurement of quality of service of maintenance of layout has been obtained. On the basis of the results of four surveys (a quantitative one with service users and three qualitative, each of them with each segment: users, fiscals and service providers) it was possible to compare the rankings of the aspects that lead to perceived quality of the services in accordance with the three segments of interest in this work. The main indicators and their assessments may be considered by the company focused in this study as items in the drawing up of contracts between suppliers and contracting part and as references in monitoring the provision of maintenance of layout .

LEALDADE EM COMPRAS ONLINE VERSUS OFFLINE: REFLEXÕES SOBRE OS FATORES RELEVANTES

O objetivo deste estudo foi identifi car aspectos relevantes para a lealdade dos clientes ao fornecedor e ao canal de comercializacao, especifi camente nas possiveis diferencas entre os que compram e os que nao compram por meio da Internet. Para tanto, alem da revisao da literatura pertinente, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa com 30 compradores de livros, CDs e DVDs. Os resultados indicam que os maiores atrativos do canal online sao a praticidade e a comodidade e, como fatores desestimulantes, a confi abilidade e os aspectos fi nanceiros relativos. Em relacao a lealdade ao fornecedor, no canal fisico, foram citados o atendimento dos vendedores, a localizacao da loja/facilidade de acesso, a satisfacao com experiencia anterior de compra e a competitividade de precos. No canal online, os aspectos mais importantes foram a satisfacao com a experiencia anterior de compra, a disponibilidade das informacoes sobre produtos e a competitividade de precos.

A importância das ações sociais empresariais nas decisões de compra dos consumidores

Currently, many companies have been developing social actions considering that society assigns them a role that goes beyond ethical and legal behavior, which may be valued by their target audiences and may even help them regain lost preference for their products. This work aimed to verify the importance of those actions in purchasing decisions of consumers. Therefore, in addition to the literature review of issues relevant to the topic, we conducted a descriptive conclusive research, with probability sampling, with 60 graduate students of a university located in Sao Paulo state, between the months of June and July 2009. The results show that social actions are less important than other factors considered in the investigation of purchasing decision factors. The findings also indicate that only a small portion of the population was aware of the social actions to which the companies and their products were linked. These results deserve further reflection on the return that companies actually have from those actions, as well as the dissemination of corporate social action projects.

O RELACIONAMENTO ENTRE O VALOR, A PREFERÊNCIA E A INTENÇÃO DE COMPRA NO VAREJO ONLINE

Dado o crescimento do e-commerce no Brasil, este trabalho fez a aplicacao do modelo de Overby e Lee (2006) para relacionar fatores antecedentes a intencao de compra em loja online , testar a sua aderencia a subgrupos (ou segmentos) de consumidores e avaliar os segmentos segundo sua atratividade. Foram pesquisados 748 individuos por meio da Internet. As relacoes entre os construtos do modelo foram confirmadas por meio da tecnica de modelagem de equacoes estruturais. O modelo gerado foi aplicado a 20 segmentos de mercado, os quais revelaram algumas diferencas e semelhancas em relacao a amostra total nas associacoes entre valor hedonico versus preferencia, valor utilitario versus preferencia e preferencia versus intencao de compra. Os 20 segmentos tambem foram avaliados em funcao dos criterios “identificabilidade”, “substancialidade”, “acessibilidade” e “grau de resposta”.

Indicadores de desenvolvimento tecnológico de empresas no setor industrial

O principal objetivo deste artigo foi captar, por meio de uma pesquisa qualitativa e uma pesquisa quantitativa exploratoria, os recursos dentro de uma plataforma tecnologica que sao atualmente mais utilizados por algumas empresas do setor industrial. Alem disso, pretendeu-se criar um indicador de desenvolvimento tecnologico para tais empresas. A tecnica de analise fatorial foi aplicada a aspectos que refletem as declaracoes dos entrevistados a respeito da intensidade de utilizacao de mecanismos no contexto tecnologico em suas empresas. Foram, entao, criados escores fatoriais por empresa, a partir dos quais se obteve uma medida sintetica referente ao seu desenvolvimento tecnologico. Assim, foi possivel obter um ranking com a posicao relativa de cada empresa atuante no setor industrial.

Avaliação de serviços bancários no segmento de alta renda na cidade de São Paulo

This study presents an evaluation of expectations and perceptions of individual bank clients with high income in the municipality of Sao Paulo. A quantitative survey with 190 interviewees was carried through drawing on attributes of bank services as well as models and scales provided by the relevant literature. The scales of quality and satisfaction were analyzed in terms of reliability and validity. The scale recommended by the SERVPERF model proved to be the most appropriate to the results collected from high-income banking clients. Additionally, it was found that, in general, clients’ expectations are high and there are some attributes with great gaps, considering its perceptions and expectations. These results can provide relevant directions to the banks that intend to improve the quality of their services.

Fórum de discussão como ferramenta no ensino de administração: um estudo em uma disciplina de estatística aplicada

This article aims to assess the use of forum tool on the teaching of Statistics Applied to Administration. For this purpose, a case study has been done, with descriptive treatment of data, which focused on an interaction through a forum, occurred on a blended discipline. The forum intended to bring the Statistic´s theoretical concepts and the real use of them on business field. That interaction consisted of discussion of scientific paper which had used the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) on its data analysis. Most of the messages posted by the students were considered correct and relevant, defining a deep discussion. However, there was a high level of repetition, many messages were posted on the last day of the activity and the forum was lowly accessed after its conclusion as a research source. We´ve observed that daytime students participated more adequately than nocturnal students, posting a higher quantity of new and deep messages. Forum discussion tool can be used in education, but it needs a previous planning and anticipation of possible problems, developing actions to correct them.

BOLSA DE PREVISÕES (BPREV): THE FIRST POLITICAL PREDICTION MARKET IN BRAZIL

Prediction Market (PM) uses the market price mechanism to aggregate information scattered in a group of people, aiming at generating forecasts. Among various applications, its use for electoral forecasting is highlighted. The purpose of this study was to analyze a political PM in Brazil, comparing PM ́s performance versus opinion polls. To that end, it was created an online PM for the 2014 Brazilian general elections named BPrev. The 147participants made 760 transactions. The results suggest that political PMs are feasible in the Brazilian context. The mean absolute error (MAE) of PM predictions on the eve of elections was of 3.33 percentual points whereas the one of the polls was of 3.31. Considering the whole period in which BPrev was running, the performance was also similar (PM ́s MAE of 4.20 and Polls ́ of 4.09). Contract prices were found as not being a reflection of poll results, indicating that PM is capable to aggregate information from different sources. There is scope for PMs in Brazilian elections, mainly as a complement to other forecasting methods. Nevertheless, legal restrictions may hinder their adoption.