Interativo
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Theses and dissertations from the Graduate Program in Business Administration at Mackenzie Presbyterian University, turned into interactive presentations anyone can follow.
This is a science communication project of the Mackenzie AI + Strategy Lab.
How to tell whether a country innovates as a system, not just as a sum of isolated players.
In three studies, reviewing 71 articles on small businesses and 231 on family businesses, the thesis shows that strategy tends to run through the owner, proposes a definition of strategic decision-making that includes the family's ties, goals and well-being, and treats the family business as a matter of degree in ownership, on the board and in management, with six reference configurations.
With daily data from 64 stock exchanges, the thesis shows that each country's culture changes the size of overconfidence, the disposition effect and herding, and that the pandemic reversed the direction of some of them.
Using data on thousands of companies rated by S&P, the thesis compared machine learning models to anticipate downgrades and defaults. Those made of many trees made almost no mistakes, and SHAP showed what mattered in each risk band.
With 16 entrepreneurship teachers and 11 program plans from Business Administration degrees, the thesis shows that the curriculum helps, but it is the teacher, with more or less institutional support, who turns paper into experience.
With 108 professionals who wrote down the words that came to mind and 260 who answered a questionnaire, the thesis shows that perceived prejudice against women leaders goes along with the expectation that women care, more than with what is expected of a leader.
With 305 professionals who answered as followers, the thesis shows that people who engage and think for themselves at work report learning more and having more energy. Openness to change matters more than the boss's style in getting there.
With 308 professionals who work in teams, the thesis shows that people who say they practise nonviolent communication report more safety to speak up and more learning from errors. Safety weighs more, and part of the effect runs through it.
With 126 professionals who use generative AI at work, the thesis shows that those who find it easy trust themselves more and also reflect more. Lack of reflection and confusing feedback weighed on performance, confidence did not.
In Theatre of the Oppressed workshops with 37 women managers at a public financial institution, meant to develop sales competencies, sexism, harassment and racism came to the surface, along with collective proposals. For the thesis, the technique only transforms when those who use it side with the people who suffer oppression.
In 26 interviews and three discussion circles with 121 young people, the thesis finds eight symbols of dignity that Generation Z brings to work. Staying or leaving depends less on how many of them the company delivers and more on whether it gets right what is central to each person.
With two questionnaires answered by higher education professionals, the dissertation shows that the teams handling diplomas, records and regulation depend heavily on Ministry of Education rules and mostly learn on their own, and it designs a platform to train them: GENESIS360.
Through ten interviews with the management team of a private school in São Paulo, the dissertation shows how artificial intelligence already speeds up administrative and teaching routines and supports decisions, and what still holds it back: resistance, lack of training and care with data.
Using the daily returns of 40 FIAGROs from 2021 to 2025, the dissertation shows that these agribusiness funds barely follow the prices of what farms sell: of the eight products studied, only wheat, beef cattle and, in the opposite direction, sugar showed up, with small effects that came days later.
Across 880 stock market debuts in 25 countries from 2015 to 2024, the first-day discount was larger where climate disasters affected more people. Environmental disclosure rules and carbon scores showed no effect.
In eight clubs followed from 2020 to 2024, judicial reorganization bought time, but the gains did not last. For the author, becoming a football corporation (SAF) mattered more to financial health than the court process.
How and why do business professors use generative AI? What 13 interviews revealed about time, trust and the professor’s new role.
How 22 farms in western Paraná create, organize and capture value, and the four business models that emerge.
Managers and 513 students at a state university in Paraná point to what weighs in the value of a degree; teachers get the best scores and labs the worst.
Fifteen health students at a private university center describe what drives them: all value internships and labs, 9 find the fees fair for what they learn and 12 gave something up in order to study.
How Brazil's largest law firms try to turn their partners' networks of trust into an asset of the firm.
What makes a university seen as good, and what makes it seen as right.
In interviews with 11 leaders and managers from 5 agribusiness cooperatives in western Paraná, Brazil, the thesis shows a cycle: what people learn together feeds innovation, and innovation put into practice comes back as wisdom.
Across 126 road freight carriers, using smart contracts did not change the link between being integrated into the logistics ecosystem and performance; it was integration that went with better performance.
Listening to 12 people from 9 software companies, the thesis built a theory in which digital service innovation grows from learning together with the client, and trust grows even from showing what is still imperfect.
Teams learn with the head, the heart and the hands. With 257 professionals, the research shows that all three need a minimum for collective intelligence to emerge.
With 155 officers at the Paraná traffic department (DETRAN-PR), the thesis shows that those who better absorb new knowledge report less difficulty interpreting traffic rules, but what weighs most is the text itself: vague terms and badly worded sentences.
With 131 civil servants from city halls in inland Paraná, the thesis shows that technology (infrastructure and the capability to use it) is what goes most with better service; the defender posture reaches performance through it, and the reactor is the only one with a direct link.
With 108 studies reviewed and 2,987 yearly records of companies from Brazil, China, India and South Africa, the thesis shows that investors reward firms that disclose their ESG practices well more than those with the best scores, and that stopping halfway is the worst place to be.
Using 102 funds of the IFIX index from 2012 to 2023, the thesis shows that the efficiency of real estate funds (return for the risk they take) barely changed from year to year and depended more on the fund itself than on interest rates and inflation. Picking funds by the change in dividend yield brought no clear gain.
Across hundreds of listed banks from more than 50 countries, from 2014 to 2023, higher sustainability scores came with more profit and more market value, especially where banks are at the center of credit and when they join the UN's finance initiative.
Using the financial statements that about 200 health plan operators filed with Brazil's regulator from 2018 to 2023, the thesis shows that the more profitable ones owe less and those with more fixed assets owe more, under every measure of debt; factors specific to the sector, such as the claims ratio and technical reserves, change with the measure.
With 168 scientific articles and the quarterly financial statements of about a hundred companies listed on B3, from 2015 to 2024, the thesis shows that shorter cash cycles came with slightly higher profits, before and after the pandemic, which changed the strength of these relationships, not their direction.
Across 594 firms in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa from 2015 to 2022, a higher ESG score came neither with cheaper money nor with a more highly valued firm.
With 137 U.S. investor-owned electric utilities from 2012 to 2023, the thesis shows that the state’s regulatory risk score did not move leverage, not even in states that opened their markets; what mattered was the utilities’ own profit and investment.
Ten HR leaders in the pharmaceutical industry show that data and algorithms act as actors in people management and open a new crisis in organizations: hybridization.
Nine managers in Campo Grande, Brazil, describe difficult decisions: laying people off, hiring, losing their temper in a meeting. Emotion showed up even in those they called rational, and what shakes them most is family. The thesis proposes emotional education for decision-makers.
Sixteen HR and technology professionals who build gamified training explain what weighs in the choice: interactivity, measuring progress and engaging learners. It works when it is part of the course design, and inner motivation counts for more than the prize.
Why do so many people retire and keep on working? With 422 workers aged 40 and over, the research shows what matters: health, the place of work in one's life, freedom of choice and the ability to adapt.
Ten people who live in one country and work in another, on the triple border around Foz do Iguaçu, describe relationships of trust and welcome with their bosses. The same closeness that makes them feel dignified helps to hide unpaid hours and unregistered work.
Do teams whose members think differently make better decisions? What 257 professionals in cross-functional projects revealed.
When a digital bank creates value, do customers perceive it, and does the bank capture it? What 117 customers revealed, and why inviting them to co-create made no difference.
At a large school, maintenance requests came in six different ways and the system showed more late work orders than orders issued. The fix was a single channel where the customer follows every step.
With 70 professionals from private companies in Maputo, the dissertation shows that ties of trust between colleagues are linked to better results by way of innovation: with it in the model, the direct link no longer has a clear effect.
Across 3,175 firms in 11 emerging countries from 2014 to 2023, market value rose more in the seven countries that began to require sustainability (ESG) reports than in the four that did not.
Across 6,126 firms in 11 emerging countries from 2014 to 2023, signs of bankruptcy risk worsened in the six countries that began to require disclosure of sustainable practices (ESG), compared with the five that did not.
Across 1,153 banks in 65 countries, from 2016 to 2023, lending slowed more in countries with more Covid cases and in emerging ones; overall, the model did not show the expected decline.
Among 356 employees of a Brazilian public financial institution, those who rate themselves as more digitally competent also report higher performance; a small part of this effect runs through finding technology useful and easy.
Among 176 people who work in organisations, those who report more agentic capabilities (reflecting, self-regulating, planning, learning by watching others) say they learn more from mistakes; a good environment helps most those with fewer of these resources.
With 156 rules from 12 countries scored by five experts and maize seed patents from 2005 to 2023, the thesis shows that no rule works the same everywhere: in each country, a different theme moved with patents, sometimes in opposite directions.
Using the prices of ten of the most traded stocks on B3, minute by minute, in 2022, the thesis compared eight ways of forecasting the next price. ARIMA, a classic statistical model, was among the best for all of them; neural networks, almost never.
The thesis applies expected shortfall, the measure of how much one loses on average on the worst days, to four currencies against the dollar. Across nine ways of computing this limit, only the Brazilian real crossed it between 2021 and 2023, and the historical methods were the ones that raised the alarm most often.
In three studies of listed Latin American companies from 2018 to 2023, the thesis shows that a higher ESG score came with more market value, more profit, lower interest and executive pay more closely tied to performance; in the pandemic, ESG mattered even more for value and profit, but did not widen the interest advantage.
Listening to 20 clubs, almost the whole Série A, the thesis found that club-companies have similar management practices, while associations range from precarious to excellent. Becoming an SAF is not the only way for a club to be well run.
In a tech startup founded by young people, at 30 you already count as older. The thesis shows how age norms grew out of the founders’ beliefs and weigh on hiring, on the labels people give colleagues, on conflict and on the wish to leave.
In universities that stand out in sustainability, the topic is in the strategy but barely reaches the Teaching and Learning Centers that train faculty.
Listening to 93 workers and 12 managers in accounting, finance and auditing, the thesis shows that managers tend to promote the dignity of those who resemble what they learned to be, and may hurt those who are different.
Uber and 99 promise freedom and earnings. Listening to 8 drivers in São Paulo and to comments on a Chamber of Deputies poll, the thesis shows that the platforms promote and violate drivers’ dignity at the same time: freedom exists while the app is off, and control begins when it is switched on.
With 115 professionals who coordinate clinical trials, the dissertation shows that sharing knowledge about the rules is linked to a better alliance only through the capability to work with the partner: with it in the model, the direct link almost vanishes.
Using daily data on Brazil's 50 largest multimarket funds from 2017 to mid-2023, the dissertation shows that unit values moved mainly with interest rates: 1% more in the accumulated Selic rate came with about 1% more on the units, and the ranking of the best funds changes depending on the risk-and-return yardstick.
Across 4,090 open pension funds, from 2010 to 2022, those run by the managers of Brazil's five big banks charged a little more and earned about 1.4 percentage points less per year than similar funds from independent managers.
Six artificial intelligence techniques tried to forecast five currencies' exchange rates, day by day, from 2010 to 2023. None erred less than the simplest guess: tomorrow's value is today's.
Six years of sustainability reports from a large Brazilian meat company: the reports became more complete, but social practices did not always follow, and what moves the company most is the law.
The dissertation heard 19 autistic professionals, 6 HR professionals and 4 from training organizations. Barriers to employment show up in late diagnosis, in myths and at every stage of people management, and they lie in the environment, not in the person.
With 110 workers in São Paulo, the research shows that people who feel treated with dignity by their boss and colleagues also see more dignified practices in their company. But only half feel treated that way.
A global glass packaging maker runs the same engagement survey in 18 countries. Answers change with the country on all 12 questions and follow local culture: more assertiveness goes with less engagement; more collectivism, with more.
With 630 people, the thesis shows that the profile questions banks ask are what links most to financial habits. Of ten personal values, only power and pleasure mattered, and in the negative direction; financial knowledge made no difference in this group.
Two neural networks, MLP and LSTM, tried to forecast the price of stocks on B3. With the daily closing prices of 31 companies, only LSTM stayed among the best models; minute by minute, it made smaller errors than the guess “same as last” in two of three series.
Using five currencies against the dollar from 1995 to 2020, the thesis pitted economic models and a neural network against the guess of repeating the last value. No model won every time, but from two quarters ahead onward the simple guess dropped out of the best group.
With 233 hotels and inns in Brazil, the thesis shows that those who adopt more green practices also say they run at lower cost and are more competitive, but it found no clear link with sales and results in 2020 and 2021, pandemic years.
Fifteen leaders at a services company took part in three conversation circles with a listening protocol. All of them changed what they understand by listening, but only those who came to rethink their own beliefs changed behaviour that their teams noticed.
A 40-hour programme had management teachers in Maranhão, Brazil, study the circular economy through critical reflection. Four of the six who completed it showed signs of rethinking premises, and each left with a project tied to their town's economy.
Using prices of seven B3 stocks every 30 seconds in 2022, the dissertation measured extreme losses with VaR and Expected Shortfall: beyond the VaR line, the average fall was at least twice the line. An LSTM neural network, tested on PETR3, could not forecast the losses.
Thirty micro-entrepreneurs in Brazil's Northeast describe what microcredit is worth to them. For ten, it keeps the business going and pays for part of life; for twenty, it makes the business grow. Neither way reflects the mission of the company that lends.