Employee engagement is becoming an increasingly essential factor in organizational competitiveness. Although employee engagement is an extensively researched topic, the roles of new ways of working and physical environment factors are still under exploited. As such, this study examines the relationship between physical environment factors, the dimensions that integrate new ways of working, and employee engagement. Survey data with 126 respondents are analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate a positive significant relationship between the physical environment factors and work engagement. Furthermore, this relation is mediated by four facets regarding new ways of working. The results also indicate that, for the group where facilities were not modified, the new ways of working are a stronger predictor of work engagement when compared with the group where facilities were modified. These findings extend existing knowledge on the antecedents of employee engagement, namely physical environment factors and new ways of working. Another important contribution is related to the mediating role of several facets of new ways of working in the relationship between physical environmental factors and employee engagement.

Decision-making is a multidisciplinary and ubiquitous phenomenon in organizations, and it can be observed at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Decision making plays, however, an increasingly important role for the manager, whose cognitive competence is reflected in his ability to identify potential opportunities, to immediately detect and solve the problems he faces, and to predict and prevent future threats. Nevertheless, to what extent do managers of the most diverse sectors and industries continue to rely on false knowledge when they have better strategies at their disposal? The present article proposes, through the application of bibliographically based instruments, the diagnosis of three prominent biases – overconfidence, optimism, and anchoring effect – in managers of the Portuguese port sector, as well as also seeking to establish a comparative analysis with the conclusions already documented in relation to the Brazilian civil construction sector. In addition, and in view of the results obtained, this paper also provides a set of measures capable of contributing to the mitigation of the effects of these and other biases, and, in this way, to the improvement of the decisions of said managers.

During the economic and financial crisis, private and public organizations were subject to a constant reduction in costs and resources. Public shared service models felt compelled to adopt the Lean methodology with the aim of reducing costs, reducing waste and increasing employee satisfaction with the provision of quality services. Against this background, this article aims to evaluate the impact of the implementation of Shared Services and the inherent benefits of lean management in the Military Store, Contact Center, Post Office and Internal Portal used by the Portuguese Air Force. Using a case study methodology, this study portrays the elimination of waste and the optimization of existing human and financial resources. After the implementation in 2015, it is still possible now to verify that there is some resistance to change, and the fact that we are dealing with a hierarchical organization justifies this disadvantage. The implementation and operation of all services in their entirety allowed the optimization of resources and the simplification of processes, resulting in the elimination of duplicate tasks.

Knowledge transfer in project-based organizations has been recognized as a productivity and economic growth promoter that is currently not properly managed. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the importance of knowledge regarding its acquisition, use, and transfer across all departments of an organization. The main objective of this work was to evaluate how modern organizations from different business sectors manage and share their knowledge by following the knowledge management and transfer life cycles when developing their projects. Organizational surveys were performed to project managers working in project management within in multiple Portuguese industries (or with representation in Portugal) from multiple business sectors and holding different hierarchical positions. The present study revealed that most companies can identify, capture, and retain the relevant knowledge, and apply it to the development of other projects. Thus, the importance of implementing the knowledge management transfer to other projects is crucial for successful project implementation and management.

The essence of this research is to shed light on use and importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in commercial activity. As such, the objective of the present study is to understand the impact of AI tools on the development of business functions and if they can be affirmed as a means of help or as a substitute for these functions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 commercial managers from technological SMEs. The results indicate that all the participants use AI systems frequently, that these tools assist in developing of their functions, allowing having more time and better preparing to solve the commercial problems. The findings also indicate that the tools used by commercials are still somewhat limited, and companies should focus on their training and development in AI, as well as the training of their commercials. Furthermore, the results show that firms intend to use the data collection and the analytical tool that enable real-time response and customization according to customer needs.