Resumo em Inglês:

Persuasive messages are central to interpersonal influence in online communities, where consumers interact mainly through text. We employed a combination of netnography and computer-mediated discourse analysis to investigate how consumers exchange information related to products and brands in an online community. We identified a set of rhetorical strategies used by community members, including setting expectations, claiming expertise, prescribing, and celebrating acquiescence. Consumers employ these rhetorical strategies to influence each other's consumption decisions, report consumption decisions back to the community, and to gauge their influence on each other's choices. We compare this process to traditional types of interpersonal influence and discuss how our findings contribute to advancing the burgeoning literature on interpersonal influence in online contexts.

Resumo em Inglês:

Studies about individuals commitment to organizations acquire renewed interest in light of the changes imposed by new organizational structures and 'boundary-less' careers. The need to identify and retain individuals who add value to the organization constitutes an increasing challenge facing human resource professionals. In this context it is necessary to establish stronger links between the individuals and the organization they work for. In this paper the effects of the perceived equity and justice on the employees' affective commitment to the organization is evaluated, using a structural equation model. The main stream of the literature treats equity as part of distributive justice. The main contribution of this study was to treat both concepts separately. Based on data gathered from a teaching and research institute, this study confirmed the theoretical assumptions that the perception of justice is indeed antecedent to and determinant of affective organizational commitment. However, the same was not observed in relation to the perception of equity. This result justifies the new approach of removing the concept of equity from justice when measuring organizational commitment.

Resumo em Inglês:

In this paper we present a multilevel and pluralistic conceptual framework that is particularly useful for Brazilian researchers investigating information and communication technology (ICT) based social changes from a community/societal level of analysis. The framework is influenced by three theoretical perspectives: social shaping of technology, structurationist view of technology and contextualism. It integrates four main concepts - relevant social groups, interpretive frames, negotiation and technology-in-practice - organized in terms of three dimensions - context, process and content. The framework, already applied to 12 different research projects led by Brazilian scholars during the last four years, is seen as a work in permanent transformation and open to reuse, revision, remix and constant revalidation.

Resumo em Inglês:

To date, we have only partially begun to develop an understanding of the channels through which innovation is facilitated within organizations. Although talented individuals are pivotal to supporting knowledge accumulation and renewal, they may be more willing to contribute new ideas if they expect to reap some of the gains that these ideas generate for the firm. In considering this perspective, this paper addresses whether organizational incentives affect innovation, and considers the conduits through which this link is established. In particular, this paper uses agency theory to address whether performance-based pay and performance-based promotion foster firm innovation. Our analysis relies upon a survey of 370 Brazilian manufacturing and services firms. Based on estimations of two-stage models, our results indicate that promotion is a more useful tool for encouraging innovation than pay. In addition, there seems to be a threshold above which the use of performance-based promotion is marginal.

Resumo em Inglês:

For companies that are internationalizing through foreign acquisitions, a major consideration is likely to be access to the technical and social knowledge of the local environment that executives of the acquired companies possess. Despite the importance of this consideration, the literature has not sufficiently addressed the issues it raises. Investigations of the factors that affect the departure of executives of acquired companies have until recently tended to overlook the question of the knowledge that leaves with them. The present paper discusses executive retention in cross-border acquisitions from a knowledge-based perspective. It analyzes three cases of such acquisitions in Brazil. The results show how knowledge can play a critical role in the acquirer's decision to retain or release owners and/or executives after the acquisition. In addition to conventional variables, the characteristics of the knowledge of the acquired companies' owners and/or executives emerge as essential to explain their retention. This paper argues that evaluating the knowledge the acquired company's owners and/or executives possess, especially regarding its degree of tacitness, is one basis for decisions on their retention.

Resumo em Inglês:

College students frequently show they have little skill when it comes to using a credit card in a responsible manner. This article deals with this issue in an emerging market and in a pioneering manner. University students (n = 769) in São Paulo, Brazil's main financial center, replied to a questionnaire about their credit card use habits. Using Logit models, associations were discovered between personal characteristics and credit card use habits that involve financially risky behavior. The main results were: (a) a larger number of credit cards increases the probability of risky behavior; (b) students who alleged they knew what interest rates the card administrators were charging were less inclined to engage in risky behavior. The results are of interest to the financial industry, to university managers and to policy makers. This article points to the advisability, indeed necessity, of providing students with information about the use of financial products (notably credit cards) bearing in mind the high interest rates which their users are charged. The findings regarding student behavior in the use of credit cards in emerging economies are both significant and relevant. Furthermore, financial literature, while recognizing the importance of the topic, has not significantly examined the phenomenon in emerging economies.