Pedro Videira

• PhD
• Researcher at Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon

In the dynamic landscape of knowledge production, a new era has emerged, characterised by increasing complexity, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration with a diverse range of stakeholders. This aims to foster relevant and impactful knowledge to address socially relevant challenges. These developments have significant implications for doctoral educ...

Graduates’ employability has emerged as a measure of institutions’ success since recent higher education (HE) reforms and massification. A variety of strategies have been designed and implemented to ensure the smooth transition of graduates into the labour market. Our research compares the actions taken by two local higher education institutions (H...

The geopolitics of the third mission – Dominant discourses in a Southern European Country

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a crucial role in knowledge society by providing and disseminating knowledge. In this regard, academics have been encouraged to collaborate with society, leading to the emergence of new modes of knowledge production. Several institutional and individual factors have been identified as determinants of the ac...

This research examines regional skill problems and the strategies adopted to reduce skill shortages by a set of employers (n = 16). The data collected in 2019 in a northern region in Portugal indicate considerable and persistent shortages of engineering and IT graduates and non-graduates for operational jobs. The employers implement anticipative st...

The European Union’s (EU) decision to become ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world’ by 2000 included key policies such as the creation of a European Research Area (ERA) and a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) capable of attracting academics from other countries. Recruiting the best academics, and especially the...

This research examines the barriers and facilitators to employers’ engagement with higher education institutions. The data were collected through interviews with a set of employers (n = 19) in the Northern region of Portugal, V.N.de Famalicão, in 2019. We begin by exploring employers’ engagement activities as a potential solution to address local-l...

In many countries, quality assurance systems rely on study programme accreditation. As with all quality assurance mechanisms, accreditation should also be continuously improved in order to maintain its relevance as a promoter of study programme quality. A way to move accreditation forward is by taking into account academics’ views, interests and ne...

In Europe and beyond, managerialism triggered the rise of boardism as a distinctive governance praxis in higher education, involving both normative assumptions and technical and practical elements. In this paper, we examine to what extent strategizing processes in Portuguese higher education institutions reflect the reconfiguration of power relatio...

This paper analyses academics’ perceptions about their current working and employment conditions, academic profession’s social prestige and their willingness to change profession. The aim is to discuss the extent to which academics are being affected by changes in higher education institutions and the academic profession as framed by managerialism,...

This paper aims to analyse the shift in the internal power balance between managerial and academic self-governance as reflected in the perceptions of teaching and non-teaching staff on the tendencies, decision-making processes and actor’s roles in these processes. The empirical data used in this paper were gathered on the basis of an on-line survey...

This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (QA) practices at their higher education institutions. The aim is to understand how far different perspectives on quality – as culture, as compliance or as consistency – are reflected in the views of these two groups on such practices...

Portugal has traditionally lagged other European countries regarding formal educational qualifications, though over the last 40 years, the higher education system has been profoundly transformed, undergoing a period of rapid growth and massification. One of the major developments in this respect is the relevance of doctoral education. In this chapt...

Academics’ support for quality assurance (QA) depends on several factors, including their sense of ownership, which seems to be influenced by academics’ participation in QA’s implementation. This paper aims to understand whether this participation is indeed contributing to academics’ ownership of QA. Findings from a survey of Portuguese academics’...

Higher education institutions in Portugal, as in many developed countries, have undergone deep transformations affecting their organisational structures and professionals. These reforms framed by new public management are said to induce changes in the traditional jurisdictional field of the academic profession with the administrative power being tr...

Purpose The paper looks at the characteristics of internal quality assurance (IQA) systems of higher education institutions to understand whether these systems tend to reproduce a given model, externally defined and suggested to institutions, or rather to be shaped by institutions’ features and interests. Design/methodology/approach The study is...

Student participation currently constitutes a relatively consensual and well-defined dimension in most European Quality Assurance (QA) systems. Two main arguments, aligned with two distinct conceptions of students, seem to frame this participation: that of students as key-institutional actors or partners, and that of students as consumers of higher...

Since the early 1990s the concept of governance has replaced the modern governing perspectives on policy-making and implementation and has assumed a central position in the public sector of political decision-making. This had impact on the relationship between governance and management, within which the latter has assumed a preponderance over the f...

Internal quality assurance systems are expected to improve the institutions’ core mission of teaching and learning. Using data gathered through an online survey, distributed in 2014/2015, to the teaching staff of all Portuguese private and public higher education institutions, this paper examines the impact of internal quality assurance systems on...

Over the past decades managerialism has been considered as inducing important changes in higher education institutions and on the academic profession. Such changes have been envisaged to affect academics professionalization and professionalism reflected in the deterioration of working conditions. Aiming to contribute to this discussion, academics'...

In Europe, the relationships between governance and management assume different configurations as NPM is being counterbalanced by other governance narratives and practices. By tracing a continuum between hard and soft managerialism, this paper discusses the NPM hegemony in the managerial revolution addressing the question-How do Portuguese governan...

The aim of this paper is to identify the main patterns and trends in performance management across the Portuguese higher education system, by comparing the perceptions of different professional groups: academics and non-academics, working in different subsystems (public/private, university/polytechnic). Based on the results of a questionnaire to th...

Structured Abstract: Purpose: This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff's perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (IQA) practices at higher education institutions in order to find out which perspective(s) on quality – as culture, as compliance and as consistency (Cardoso, Rosa and Stensaker, 2015) – is(are) prevale...

Higher Education Institutions in Portugal, as in many other developed countries, are facing several challenges. Important transformations are noticeable in their mission (main roles, namely on teaching, research and services to community) and in the professional roles in the academia. Along with these transformations the organizational structure of...

The literature on higher education tends to assume that changes in higher education institutions promoted a redefinition of boundaries between academic and administrative staff. Academics perceive a decrease in the control over their own work due to the increasing presence of non-academic managers. The presence of new public management and manageri...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the main patterns and trends in performance management across the Portuguese higher education system, by comparing the perceptions of different professional groups: academics and non-academics, working in different subsystems (public/private, university/polytechnic). Based on the results of a questionnaire to the...

Portuguese speaking countries represent one of the largest linguistic communities in the world, though this tends to be less visible in the case of higher education than for other widely spoken languages. Moreover, the existing literature on higher education systems in Lusophone countries is scarce and very unevenly distributed. Thus, in this artic...

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of long-term international scientific mobility – associated with advanced training or research positions – on knowledge network formation and network persistence In particular, it investigates whether and in which conditions relationships established during extended periods of co-location in one organisat...

This paper addresses the influence of entrepreneurs' social networks on early access and mobilisation of resources in a science‐based field. Combining contributions from the technological entrepreneurship and the social network literature, it is proposed that different network configurations – in terms of origin, composition and structure – are ass...

The paper investigates the influence of technological regimes on the composition and structure of firms’ knowledge networks. We combine insights from two hitherto unconnected bodies of research: the one relating technological regimes and the nature of knowledge; and the one relating knowledge and types of innovation with network configuration. Draw...

Empirical research has repeatedly confirmed that social networks are important for the creation, survival and growth of new companies. In this article, the leading research questions are: 1) how do networks contribute to the creation of software firms and further development of a competitive IT sector; 2) what is the structure and features of those...

Social networks and entrepreneurship in biotechnology.the clustering of firms around regional centers of knowledge production. Social networks and entrepreneurship in biotechnology.the clustering of firms around regional centers of knowledge production. This paper4 addresses the clustering of new biotechnology firms around centres of knowledge prod...

The paper addresses innovation networks in a science-based sector, focusing on networks for scientific and technological knowledge access. It investigates the strategic choices made by new biotechnology firms regarding the type of actors and relations that prevail in accessing those networks. The results contribute to on-going debates in the area o...

The software industry is a high technology, knowledge intensive, highly mutable industry – with weak entry-barriers and short innovation cycles – which demands continuous adaption, learning and access to knowledge. The Portuguese software industry is made of three segments: multinational affiliates (Microsoft, and others); medium and large domesti...

This paper addresses the role played by entrepreneurs' social networks on the emergence and development of knowledge intensive firms. A central aspect of the research is the (re)construction of the firm social networks, encompassing the entrepreneurial personal networks built along their academic and professional trajectories, and the intentional n...

This paper addresses the spatial dimension of knowledge sourcing strategies, investigating the role played by social networks on the access to scientific and technological knowledge by new biotechnology firms. Our approach takes into consideration the impact of various forms of proximity - geographical, social, cognitive and organisational - on the...

This paper addresses the way entrepreneurs' social networks affect the opportunity identification and the access and mobilization of resources in a science-based field – biotechnology-facilitating the founding of new firms. Adopting an analytical framework that combines contributions from the technological entrepreneurship and the social network li...