2021
Authors
Sierra Perez, J; Teixeira, JG; Romero Piqueras, C; Patricio, L;
Publication
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
Abstract
Eco-design is focused on incorporating environmental criteria early in the design process to reduce the environmental impacts of new products. However, while services now represent the largest share of the world & rsquo;s economy, the incorporation of environmental sustainability in the design of new services is very limited. This research proposes the ECO-Service Design (ECO-SD) method that integrates eco-design and service design to conceptualize new environmentally sustainable services. The ECO-SD method bridges environmental criteria from eco-design with the human-centred approach of service design, to foster the environmental sustainability of new services, while offering a desirable user experience. To this end, this method encompasses four stages: service exploration, to understand the service context and how users interact with it; service visualization, to visually identify the barriers to environmental performance and user experience during service provision; service ideation, to conceptualize a new service that overcomes the identified barriers; and service assessment, to understand the changes in environmental sustainability and user experience of the newly designed service. The application of the ECO-SD method to two in-dividual shared transport services shows how it enables integrated identification of opportunities to overcome environmental and user experience barriers in the existing services.
2021
Authors
Oliveira, G; Teixeira, JG; Torres, A; Morais, C;
Publication
BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic situation has pushed many higher education institutions into a fast-paced, and mostly unstructured, emergency remote education process. In such an unprecedented context, it is important to understand how technology is mediating the educational process and how teachers and students are experiencing the change brought by the pandemic. This research aims to understand how the learning was mediated by technology during the early stages of the pandemic and how students and teachers experienced this sudden change. Data were collected following a qualitative research design. Thirty in-depth and semi-structured interviews (20 students and 10 teachers) were obtained and analysed following a thematic analysis approach. Results provide evidence on the adoption of remote education technologies due to the pandemic with impacts on the education process, ICT platforms usage and personal adaptation. The emergency remote education context led to mixed outcomes regarding the education process. Simultaneously, ICT platforms usage was mostly a positive experience and personal adaptation was mostly a negative experience. These results bring new insights for higher education organizations on actions they could take, such as curating the learning experience with standard, institutional-wide platforms, appropriate training for students and teachers, and suitable remote evaluation practices.
2021
Authors
Silva, JHO; Mendes, GHS; Miguel, PCA; Amorim, M; Teixeira, JG;
Publication
JOURNAL OF SERVICE THEORY AND PRACTICE
Abstract
Purpose This article aims to synthesize and integrate current research on customer experience (CX), identifying the intellectual structure of the field, systematizing a conceptual framework and identifying future research opportunities. Design/methodology/approach To analyze 629 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in almost four decades, this study employs both bibliometric co-keyword and thematic literature analysis in a complementary way. Findings This article maps the CX literature by describing its intellectual structure in terms of three research domains (customer, organizational and technological), their corresponding most relevant research themes and topics. Moreover, this study develops a conceptual framework and research propositions to summarize and integrate the CX literature. This work recognizes technology as an important driver for the development of CX research. Lastly, this article provides future research opportunities for moving the field forward, considering an integrative view among domains. Originality/value This paper complements other reviews on CX by using a novel methodological approach (co-keyword and thematic analysis) that enables the identification and visualization of the CX intellectual structure. In addition, the study explores the increasing connection between technology and CX research, by raising evidence that technology, by continuously modifying services and consequently CX, has become a transversal component in the research field. These outcomes may be useful for academics and practitioners.
2021
Authors
Simões, AC; Rodrigues, JC; Soares, AL;
Publication
Contributions to Management Science
Abstract
Project management is a critical success factor for any kind of project. When projects involve complex multi-organisational structures, requiring demanding collaborative processes, project management is a complex system in itself. Although this topic has been studied for decades, the ever-changing morphology of projects induced by the increasingly intricate financing schemes, call for a frequent and updated understanding of how the projects initiate, run, and close. Large-scale integrated collaborative projects are a recent example of complex collaborative projects that were not studied yet but can provide important insights for the project and innovation management fields. These projects are carried out typically by a large consortium including research organisations, sectorial technological centres, technology providers and end-user companies, having a significant impact on the technological innovation produced for a specific sector. This chapter reports a multiple case study of four large-scale integrated projects, in Portugal, following an inductive research design. The results showed that collaboration creation and collaboration management are crucial processes for such projects, with challenges intensified by the differences in goals and expectations of researchers and practitioners. The chapter will hopefully contribute to the future development of new models, tools and techniques that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this type of projects, by providing a systematisation of the challenges faced and how they were overcome during the cases analysed. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
2021
Authors
Simoes, AC; Rodrigues, JC; Ribeiro, S;
Publication
2021 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation, ICE/ITMC 2021 - Proceedings
Abstract
The development of the Internet created new technologies that are changing the way of doing business, particularly Industry 4.0 in current days. One challenge of the implementation of new technologies is the change required from companies' business models. However, the literature concerning Industry 4.0 is mainly focused on technological innovations and less in their impact on business models. This paper aims to understand the impacts of the digitalization process inherent to Industry 4.0 on business models. To achieve this purpose, an exploratory multiple-case study based on semi-structured interviews was conducted in two Portuguese medium companies from two different sectors. Findings show that besides companies being able to change to a customer-oriented approach, individualized mass production may not be the only purpose of this transformation. Networking is particularly appealing for small and medium enterprises, once they usually have fewer resources to dedicate to innovation projects. Additionally, in the era of globalization, logistic costs are still an obstacle for serving international markets. Finally, social media are seen as an internal tool of communication for business-to-business companies. Being one of the first empirical studies of the Portuguese context, it aims to diminish the lack of literature concerning this particular topic and enable future researches on the use of business models as a management tool. Secondly, it intends to help managers develop or redesign business models adjusted to a more dynamic and competitive environment. © 2021 IEEE.
2021
Authors
Joa, M; Martins, S; Amorim, P; Almada Lobo, B;
Publication
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
Abstract
Collaboration between companies in transportation problems seeks to reduce empty running of vehicles and to increase the use of vehicles' capacity. Motivated by a case study in the food supply chain, this paper examines a lateral collaboration between a leading retailer (LR), a third party logistics provider (3 PL) and different producers. Three collaborative strategies may be implemented simultaneously, namely pickup-delivery, collection and cross-docking. The collaborative pickup-delivery allows an entity to serve customers of another in the backhaul trips of the vehicles. The collaborative collection allows loads to be picked up at the producers in the backhauling routes of the LR and the 3 PL, instead of the traditional outsourcing. The collaborative cross-docking allows the producers to cross-dock their cargo at the depot of another entity, which is then consolidated and shipped with other loads, either in linehaul or backhaul routes. The collaborative problem is formulated with three different objective functions: minimizing total operational costs, minimizing total fuel consumption and minimizing operational and CO2 emissions costs. The synergy value of collaborative solutions is assessed in terms of costs and environmental impact. Three proportional allocation methods from the literature are used to distribute the collaborative gains among the entities, and their limitations and capabilities to attend fairness criteria are analyzed. Collaboration is able to reduce the global fuel consumption in 26% and the global operational costs in 28%, independently of the objective function used to model the problem. The collaborative pickup-delivery strategy outperforms the other two in the majority of instances under different objectives and parameter settings. The collaborative collection is favoured when the ordering loads from producers increase. The collaborative cross-docking tends to be implemented when the producers are located close to the depot of the 3 PL.
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