Abstract
More than ever, the economic globalization is creating the need to increase business competitiveness. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy oriented to the elimination of activities that do not create any type of value and are thus considered a waste. One of the main differences from other management philosophies is the shop-floor focus and the operators' involvement. Therefore, the training of all organization levels is crucial for the success of lean manufacturing. Universities should also participate actively in this process by developing students' lean management skills and promoting a better and faster integration of students into their future organizations. This paper proposes a single realistic manufacturing platform, involving production and assembly operations, to learn by playing many of the lean tools such as VSM, 5S, SMED, poke-yoke, line balance, TPM, Mizusumashi, plant layout, and JIT/kanban. This simulation game was built in tight cooperation with experienced lean companies under the international program "Lean Learning Academy,"1 and its main aim is to make bachelor and master courses in applied sciences more attractive by integrating classic lectures with a simulated production environment that could result in more motivated students and higher study yields. The simulation game results show that our approach is efficient in providing a realistic platform for the effective learning of lean principles, tools, and mindset, which can be easily included in course classes of less than two hours. © 2013 IEEE.

Abstract
Engineering education practices have evolved not only due to the natural changes in the contents of the curricula and skills but also, and more recently, due to the requirements imposed by the Bologna revision process. In addition, industry is becoming more demanding, as society is becoming more and more aware of the global needs and consequences of industrial practices. Under this scope, higher education needs not only to follow but also to lead these trends. Therefore, the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP), a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) training partner in Portugal, prepared and presented its Sustainability Action Plan (PASUS), with the main objective of creating a new kind of engineers, with Sustainable Development at the core of their graduation and MsC degrees. In this paper, the main strategies and activities of the referred plan along with the strategic approach, which guided its development and implementation, will be presented in detail. Additionally, a reflection about the above mentioned bridge between concept and application will be established and justified, in the framework of the action plan. Although in most of the situations, there was no prior discussion or specific request, many of the graduation and post-graduation programmes offered by ISEP already include courses that attend to PASUS philosophy. As a consequence, the number of Master thesis, Graduation projects and R&D projects that address sustainability problems has grown substantially, a proof that for ISEP community, sustainability really matters!

Abstract
The main purpose of this article is to study the antecedents (internal market orientation) and the consequences (innovation, organizational commitment and performance) of market orientation in industrial SMEs. This article follows a new approach: instead of analyzing the responses of CEOs to a questionnaire, commercial and marketing functional managers were addressed. Consequently, this is the first study of its kind involving industrial SMEs addressing those who implement the marketing strategy instead of those who define it. Based on 154 valid answers, the conclusions are that, at a signifi cant level of 1%, the internal market orientation infl uences positively the external market orientation, the external market orientation infl uences innovation and innovation, in its turn, infl uences business performance. Moreover, market orientation and organizational commitment only infl uence performance at a 5% signifi cance level.

Abstract
This study analyses the relationship between ownership concentration and firm value. Our findings, based on a dynamic panel data analysis, show that there is a quadratic relationship between the company's value and its ownership concentration. Additionally, our evidence suggests that for countries where investor protection is low, the relationship follows an inverted 'U' shape, while for countries where investor protection is high, the relationship is positive and nearly linear. Moreover, the influence of blockholders depends on their identity. This paper highlights the superior performance of family firms in controlling agency problems, a situation which contrasts vis-'-vis institutional shareholders. Finally, we report that the family effect is nonlinear. Indeed the positive effect starts to taper off at around 30% of ownership being somewhat smaller and less statistically significant between 30% and 50% of ownership. Moreover, in contrast to recent studies, the family effect is more pronounced in majority-controlled firms. © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Abstract
The rapid and all-encompassing changes in regional and world wine markets have stimulated us to carry out this study. Accordingly, based on the competitiveness of an important Port wine producer in Portugal, this article analyzes a strategic alliance between this company and another important multinational one that is present in many different worldwide distribution markets. Basically, the article seeks to understand, on the one side, the impact of a strategic alliance on a small Port wine producer when becoming involved with a multinational company, and, on the other hand, to identify differences, before and after the alliance, to the markets where the small company was made present. This work is centered on a case study and involves the use of econometrics methodologies that analyze panel data, in order to grasp differences of strategic pre- and post-alliance actions. The conclusions are important, since they allow one to compare, on one hand, difference between the company's performance over two different time horizons. On the other hand, econometrics methods are robust, since they allow one to come to relational conclusions, keeping the case study in mind.

Abstract
This study analyses the distribution of power among the several blockholders of a firm and the identity of those blockholders as a determinant of firm leverage. Using a sample of 694 firms from 12 Western European countries, our results support a negative relationship between ownership concentration in the hands of the main blockholder and firm leverage. Moreover, we detect that the presence of a second and third large shareholder (beyond the first blockholder) has a significant positive effect on the leverage ratio. In addition, the results show that contestability in family firms plays a more relevant role. Finally, we show that family firms do have significant impact on firm leverage level, and this impact varies depending on the legal framework and institutional environment. In our main sample the results show family firms negatively affect market leverage, supporting the theory that family firms are more averse to an increase in the debt level due to the risk of bankruptcy and financial distress as a result of having an under-diversified portfolio. In contrast, the opposite effect is found in the sample that excludes the United Kingdom. This last result cannot be explained by agency theory, given that family businesses are those that suffer less from Type I agency problems. This result suggests either some difficulty in financing their investments by issuing new equity or the need to use debt as a signal of the quality of its investments. Our results prove to be stable against a battery of robustness tests. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.