Tecnologia de informação e colaboração interorganizacional: um estudo no varejo de grande porte no setor de confecção

A colaboração interorganizacional, é uma realidade que atinge muitas empresas, de todos os portes e setores. A TI aumenta a capacidade de gerenciamento e coordenação através de fronteiras organizacionais, permitindo redução de custos, otimização de recursos e melhor coordenação e o controle gerencial. Este projeto identificou o papel da TI nos relacionamentos colaborativos entre empresas. Para isso, analisou-se o emprego da TI no relacionamento colaborativo entre varejistas e fornecedores, no Setor de Confecção. Como resultado da pesquisa, os conceitos estabelecidos foram organizados em um modelo teórico e resumidos em um constructo sobre a colaboração interorganizacional apoiada pela TI.

Interorganizational Collaboration, as result of strategic planning, is a reality for most of the modern enterprises of all sizes and industries. Strategic Management – which provides the drive and directions – and the behavior and structural characteristics – which enable the collaborative relationship – are basic and fundamental issues for the formation and growth of partnerships, alliances and enterprise networks. The increasingly important role of information and knowledge for sustaining competitivity has transformed Information Technology (IT) in the most important single component for attaining strategic objectives. These elements hold a biunivocal relationship, where emerging technologies lead to new business opportunities and enable new organization structures, which, in their turn, will raise new applications and requirements for technology. IT promotes the efficiency and effectiveness of management capabilities in coordinating complex processes across enterprise borders. By doing this, it allows cost reduction and both internal and external resource optimization, whilst increasing management coordination and control. Open standards and the Internet are changing the paradigm on how to organize and manage the business between organizations. However, there have been few researches on the relevance of IT for interorganization collaboration and, none was found that simultaneously addresses strategic management, organizational structure and IT. This project has identified the IT role in the collaborative relationship between enterprises. In order to accomplish this, a qualitative approach, based on a multiple case study, was employed to determine the use of IT in the relationship between large retailers and its suppliers, in the garment industry, which is known for its long supply chains and complex business dynamics that changes continuously, triggered by global trends and somewhat unpredictable consumer reaction. As a result from the research, concepts were established and organized in a theoretical model, presented in a construct aimed at helping the evaluation and resource application orientation in the IT enabled interorganizational collaboration.