Social businesses in large companies: a case study in Brazil

O ambiente econômico global tem registrado um conjunto de mutações poderosos durante a última década. A liderança dos países ocidentais tem sido contestada pelo crescimento de novos atores no interior da arena global, determinando uma mudança dos interesses das nações bem estabelecidas, para realidades que antes eram considerados subdesenvolvidos ou incapaz de desempenhar um papel de liderança dentro do contexto da economia global. Assim, os países emergentes ganharam a atenção dos teóricos e gerentes internacionais, que começaram a olhar para estes assuntos, não só pelo seu potencial econômico, mas também para a identificação de novas soluções para a criação de um mundo mais sustentável. A tese em questão, estruturada como um case study, precisamente tenta compreender e retratar os dois temas mencionados acima. Por um lado, a pesquisa irá investigar as dimensões do mercado da BoP, com um foco no mercado brasileiro, pelo outro lado, o trabalho irá descrever uma soluções possíveis para explorar os mercados em desenvolvimento por grandes empresas privadas: o modelo de negócio social. Este novo paradigma, que combina o desempenho financeiro com a realização de impactos sociais entre a comunidade selecionada, será aprofundar através de um caso concreto implementado pela Coca-Cola Company no Brasil, o Projeto Coletivo. De acordo com as observações preliminares, o estudo de caso terá como objetivo compreender os desafios, as oportunidades, os obstáculos organizacionais e os métodos que podem subir a partir da implementação de um negócio social em um país em desenvolvimento seguindo a perspectiva anteriormente. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que, embora o paradigma pode representam uma solução viável, muitas questões organizacionais e culturais precisam ser levados em consideração para a sua implementação bem sucedida.

Operations strategy in perspective: the means for achieving superior performance

Manufacturing strategy has been widely studied and it is increasingly gaining attention. It has a fundamental role that is to translate the business strategy to the operations by developing the capabilities that are needed by the company in order to accomplish the desired performance. More precisely, manufacturing strategy comprises the decisions that managers take during a certain period of time in order to achieve a desire result. These decisions are related to which operational practices and resources are implemented. Our goal was to identify the relationship between these two decisions with operational performance. We based our arguments on the resource-based view for identifying sources of competitive advantage. Hence, we argued that operational practices and resources affect positively the operational performances. Additionally, we proposed that in the presence of some resources the implementation of operational practices would lead to a greater performance. We used previous scales for measuring operational practices and performance, and developed new constructs for resources. The data used is part of the High Performance Manufacturing project and the sample is composed by 291 plants. Through confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regressions we found that operational practices to a certain extant are positively related to operational performance. More specifically, the results show that JIT and customer orientation practices have a positive relationship with quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost performances. Moreover, we found that resources like technology and people explain a great variance of operational performance.

Qualidade de vida e transporte público urbano: estratégias para melhorar a qualidade do serviço de transporte público urbano por ônibus

If urban planning is to support the equitable distribution of public goods and services, it must recognize and address the dismal condition of millions of poor people who are living in a city. The primary focus of contemporary planners and planning students should be on finding and advocating solutions that help eliminate the problems of today¿s cities. Any meaningful solution will need to be grounded in a thorough understanding of the social class inequities of citizens. With the rapid development of national economy and urbanization process in Brazil over the last two decades, the number of vehicles and their travels are dramatically increased. This is particularly evident in all large cities. Traffic congestion becomes more and more severe. Inadequate parking facilities often result in difficulty to find a parking space in large cities and many illegally parked vehicles can be seen on the crowed streets. These illegally parked vehicles further intensify traffic congestion and also pose a traffic safety hazard. The process of urbanization and motorization in Brazil is likely to continue in a rapid pace. The urban public passengers transport modes problems in large cities are likely to get even worse. There is an urgent need for the development of policy and criteria for public service of urban public passenger transport by bus in large cities. The purpose of survey is to develop policy guidelines for public transport services planning, design, construction and mobility management, that meet community needs for accessibility in large cities. So this thesis will present major comparative characteristics of urban mobility management, urban public passengers transport by bus services planning and the quality of social life in two towns of Brazil: Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba. The study case has been focused on Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba because of the major different results of the survey presented by the two cities. The objectives of this thesis are: a) to analyze and discus existing urban mobility related accessibility and economic development problems in large cities; b) to provide an overview of the relationship within city ¿ quality of social life ¿ urban mobility in Rio and Curitiba; c) to analyze and discuss existing urban mobility management related public transport services in Rio and Curitiba; d) to analyze and discuss existing quality of bus public transport services problems in Rio. Some preliminary recommendations for mobility management policies will also be presented.

Distribution strategies for the base of the pyramid: an exploratory study in Brazil

Access has been one of the main difficulties companies have faced in emerging markets (PRAHALAD, 2005). The capillarity of the market, the existence of small, not professionalized and sometimes informal retailers, the lack of infrastructure and high transportation costs are some of the distribution challenges companies face in poorer regions. The literature concerning the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) is still recent and only after the seminal article by Prahalad and Hart (2002), it evolved into many different management perspectives. However, there is a lack of researches concerning distribution strategies to the BoP. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to identify, in the perception of executives working in the market, the conditions associated to a satisfactory distribution for the BoP market in Brazil and to build a substantive theory that helps to shed light to the understanding of the distribution phenomenon adopted by consumer goods companies to reach the BoP market in Brazil. In order to accomplish the objectives of this thesis, a grounded theory methodology (Glaser; Strauss, 1967; Corbin; Strauss, 2008) was used. This approach helped to identify the channel strategies used by local and global companies in the market. Many techniques for data collection were applied. The most important one was in-depth interviews with 26 executives from 24 different consumer goods companies in Brazil. Among the companies there were small, medium and large enterprises; which were also grouped as manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Furthermore, secondary data were examined to identify business strategies to reach BoP and map global distribution initiatives. A database from a consumer panel was also used to analyze what and where BoP consumers purchase non-durable goods. It was verified that small and traditional retailing is a very strong format in BoP markets and in the Northern/Northeastern regions. Cash & Carry is a format that is growing a lot. On the other hand, hypermarkets are not very used by low income population. The results suggest that three major categories are associated to a satisfactory distribution: (a) willingness, which means the effort, knowledge and enthusiasm a firm has to operate at BoP markets; (b) well-done execution, which is related to designing correctly the marketing channel and operating efficiently in an environment full of obstacles, such as lack of infrastructure, capillarity, lack of safety, regional differences and informality, and (c) relationship, which was perceived to be friendlier and essential at BoP markets, since it is very difficult for manufacturers to reach the entire market alone. It is more likely to have a satisfactory distribution when manufacturers establish strong relationships in the marketing channel. Besides, small retailers have a perception of isolation and expect a higher level of relationship. These major categories explain also the competitive advantage that local companies have in relation to MNCs and large companies. Despite of the limitations of an exploratory study, it is expected that this thesis will contribute to the BoP knowledge as well as to the identification of the peculiarities of distribution in BoP markets.

Yet another reason to tax goods

The optimal taxation of goods, labor and capital income is considered in a two period model where: i) private information changes through time; ii) savings are not observed, and; iii) savings a§ect preferences conditional on the realization of types. The simultaneous appearance of these three elements cause optimal commodity taxes to depend on o§-equilibrium savings. As a consequence, separability no longer su¢ ces for the uniform taxation prescription of Atkinson and Stiglitz (AS) to obtain. If preferences are homothetic AS is partially restored: taxes are uniform within periods, however, future consumption is taxed at a higher rate than current consumption.

O gerenciamento de projetos e o planejamento de operações de guerra do Exército brasileiro

A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo verificar como a metodologia de gerenciamento de projetos, preconizada pelo Project Management Institute – PMI poderia contribuir para a modernização da metodologia de planejamento das operações de guerra do Exército Brasileiro. Para tanto, desenvolveu-se um estudo comparativo entre os processos dos grupos de iniciação e de planejamento definidos pelo PMI no seu Guia do Conhecimento em Gerenciamento de Projetos – PMBOK e o processo de planejamento de operações de guerra do Exército Brasileiro denominado Estudo de Situação. O trabalho foi desenvolvido com base em pesquisa bibliográfica e documental que contemplou renomados autores como Kerzner, Cleland, Vargas, Lima, Maximiano, Valeriano, Prado e Xavier, além dos manuais doutrinários do Exército Brasileiro pertinentes ao tema abordado e o próprio PMBOK. Contextualizando o trabalho foi feita a equiparação de uma operação militar de guerra a um projeto civil, e a caracterização do Estudo de Situação como um processo de planejamento e tomada de decisão equivalente ao conjunto de processos dos grupos de iniciação e de planejamento do gerenciamento de projetos. No estudo realizado verificou-se que as áreas de Custos, de Recursos Humanos e de Aquisições, em função das peculiaridades que envolvem uma operação de guerra são tratadas de forma tão diferenciadas do gerenciamento de projetos que não poderiam ser incluídas no estudo. Além disso, pôde-se constatar que o processo de planejamento militar é executado com uma grande parcela de intuição decorrente da aplicação de conhecimento tácito por parte dos seus executantes, o que não ocorre no gerenciamento de projetos onde o uso de um grande número de ferramentas de base lógica e matemática dá ao processo de planejamento dos projetos um maior grau de imparcialidade e precisão. Verificou-se também que o processo de planejamento militar produz um grande número de documentos gráficos que permitem uma “visão gráfica” de várias áreas ou aspectos do problema que, por sua vez, facilitam o uso da intuição na tomada de decisão. Enfim, depois de identificados os processos de gerenciamento de projetos que interessavam ao estudo e as peculiaridades da metodologia de planejamento em uso no Exército Brasileiro, chegou-se a conclusão, como se havia suposto, que a metodologia de gerenciamento de projetos efetivamente possui recursos que podem contribuir para a modernização do processo de planejamento de operações de guerra do Exército Brasileiro denominado Estudo de Situação. Esses recursos estão relacionados na conclusão do trabalho.