Desarrollo de un estado de la cuestión acerca de las interacciones entre el control de gestión y el aprendizaje organizacional.

Las organizaciones en la actualidad deben encontrar diferentes maneras de sobrevivir en un tiempo de rápida transformación. Uno de los mecanismos usados por las empresas para adaptarse a los cambios organizacionales son los sistemas de control de gestión, que a su vez permiten a las organizaciones hacer un seguimiento a sus procesos, para que la adaptabilidad sea efectiva. Otra variable importante para la adaptación es el aprendizaje organizacional siendo el proceso mediante el cual las organizaciones se adaptan a los cambios del entorno, tanto interno como externo de la compañía. Dado lo anterior, este proyecto se basa en la extracción de documentación soporte valido, que permita explorar las interacciones entre estos dos campos, los sistemas de control de gestión y el aprendizaje organizacional, además, analizar el impacto de estas interacciones en la perdurabilidad organizacional. ​

Drivers of fund performance: a panel data analysis

The principle aim of this research is to elucidate the factors driving the total rate of return of non-listed funds using a panel data analytical framework. In line with previous results, we find that core funds exhibit lower yet more stable returns than value-added and, in particular, opportunistic funds, both cross-sectionally and over time. After taking into account overall market exposure, as measured by weighted market returns, the excess returns of value-added and opportunity funds are likely to stem from: high leverage, high exposure to development, active asset management and investment in specialized property sectors. A random effects estimation of the panel data model largely confirms the findings obtained from the fixed effects model. Again, the country and sector property effect shows the strongest significance in explaining total returns. The stock market variable is negative which hints at switching effects between competing asset classes. For opportunity funds, on average, the returns attributable to gearing are three times higher than those for value added funds and over five times higher than for core funds. Overall, there is relatively strong evidence indicating that country and sector allocation, style, gearing and fund size combinations impact on the performance of unlisted real estate funds.

The market in freehold land, 1300-1509: the evidence of feet of fines

This article provides time series data on the medieval market in freehold land, including the changing social composition of freeholders, level of market activity, size and complexity of landholdings, and shifts in the market value of land. These are subjects hitherto largely ignored due, in part, to the disparate nature of the evidence. It argues that feet of fines, despite archival limitations, if employed with care and an understanding of the underlying changes in the common law of real property, are capable of providing quantifiable evidence spanning hundreds of years and comparable across large areas of England.

The case of tomato in Ghana: processing

Processing of highly perishable non-storable crops, such as tomato, is typically promoted for two reasons: as a way of absorbing excess supply, particularly during gluts that result from predominantly rainfed cultivation; and to enhance the value chain through a value-added process. For Ghana, improving domestic tomato processing would also reduce the country’s dependence on imported tomato paste and so improve foreign exchange reserves, as well as provide employment opportunities and development opportunities in what are poor rural areas of the country. Many reports simply repeat the mantra that processing offers a way of buying up the glut. Yet the reality is that the “tomato gluts,” an annual feature of the local press, occur only for a few weeks of the year, and are almost always a result of large volumes of rainfed local varieties unsuitable for processing entering the fresh market at the same time, not the improved varieties that could be used by the processors. For most of the year, the price of tomatoes suitable for processing is above the breakeven price for tomato processors, given the competition from imports. Improved varieties (such as Pectomech) that are suitable for processing are also preferred by consumers and achieve a premium price over the local varieties.

Aspects of in vitro and in vivo research approaches directed towards identifying probiotics and prebiotics for human use

The microbiota of the human gastrointestinal tract plays a key role in nutrition and health. Through the process of fermentation, gut bacteria metabolize various substrates (principally dietary components) to end products such as short-chain fatty acids and gases. This anaerobic metabolism is thought to contribute positively toward host daily energy requirements. However, under certain circumstances, the fermentative process may produce undesirable metabolites. This may cause the onset of gut disorders that can be manifest through both acute and chronic conditions. Moreover, the gut flora may become contaminated by transient pathogens that serve further to upset the normal community structure. There has been a recent increase in the use of dietary components that help to maintain, or even improve, the gut microflora "balance." Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements added to appropriate food vehicles (usually fermented milks), whereas prebiotics are dietary carbohydrates that have a selective metabolism in the colon and serve to increase numbers of bacteria seen as desirable. Because of their purported health-promoting properties, lactic acid-producing bacteria, including bifidobacteria, are the usual target organisms. The market value and biological potential of both approaches are enormous. This article will summarize how efficacious types can be identified.

A stated preference valuation of the non-market benefits of pollination services in the UK

Using a choice experiment survey this study examines the UK public's willingness to pay to conserve insect pollinators in relation to the levels of two pollination service benefits: maintaining local produce supplies and the aesthetic benefits of diverse wildflower assemblages. Willingness to pay was estimated using a Bayesian mixed logit with two contrasting controls for attribute non-attendance, exclusion and shrinkage. The results suggest that the UK public have an extremely strong preference to avoid a status quo scenario where pollinator populations and pollination services decline. Total willingness to pay was high and did not significantly vary between the two pollination service outputs, producing a conservative total of £379M over a sample of the tax-paying population of the UK, equivalent to £13.4 per UK taxpayer. Using a basic production function approach, the marginal value of pollination services to these attributes is also extrapolated. The study discusses the implications of these findings and directions for related future research into the non-market value of pollination and other ecosystem services.

Entry, re-location and growth in the Swedish wholesale trade industry

Wholesale trade has an intermediate position between manufacturing and retail in the distributional channel. In modern economies, consumers buy few, if any, products directly from manufacture or producer. Instead, it is a wholesaler, who is in direct contact with producers, buying goods in larger quantities and selling them in smaller quantities to retailers. Traditionally, the main function of a wholesaler has been to push goods along the distributional channel from producer to retailer, or other nonend user. However, the function of wholesalers usually goes beyond the process of the physical distribution of goods. Wholesalers also arrange storage, perform market analyses, promote trade or provide technical support to consumers (Riemers 1998). The existence of wholesalers (and other intermediaries) in the distributional channel is based on the effective and efficient performance of distribution services, that are needed by producers and other members of the supply chain. Producers usually do not enjoy the economies of scale that they have in production, when it comes to providing distributional services (Rosenbloom 2007) and this creates a space for wholesalers or other intermediaries. Even though recent developments in the distributional channel indicate that traditional wholesaling activities now also compete with other supply chain organizations, wholesaling still remains an important activity in many economies (Quinn and Sparks, 2007). In 2010, the Swedish wholesale trade sector consisted of approximately 46.000 firms and generated an annual turnover of 1 300 billion SEK (Företagsstatistiken, Statistics Sweden). In terms of turnover, wholesaling accounts for 20% of the gross domestic product and is thereby the third largest industry. This is behind manufacturing and a composite group of firms in other sectors of the service industry but ahead of retailing. This indicates that the wholesale trade sector is an important part of the Swedish economy. The position of wholesaling is further reinforced when measuring productivity growth. Measured in terms of value added per employee, wholesaling experienced the largest productivity growth of all industries in the Swedish economy during the years 2000 through 2010. The fact that wholesale trade is one of the important parts of a modern economy, and the positive development of the Swedish wholesale trade sector in recent decades, leads to several questions related to industry dynamics. The three topics that will be examined in this thesis are firm entry, firm relocation and firm growth. The main question to be answered by this thesis is what factors influence new firm formation, firm relocation and firm growth in the Swedish wholesale trade sector?

Análise da segurança no trabalho no setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo: proposição de ação para reunião do índice de acidentes no trabalho

O setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo constitui-se no maior pala industrial brasileiro do setor, sendo líder na comercialização dos produtos dele derivados, tanto no mercado interno como externo. Apesar do crescimento significativo observado nas exportações nos últimos anos, em peso e valor, bem como de estar comercializando a cada ano, produtos com maior valor agregado, convive com problemas de naturezas diversas, os quais se solucionados, proporcionarão maior participação nos mercados em que atua. Em termos sociais o reflexo será imediato, pois com os investimentos decorrentes, haverá geração de quantidade considerável de novos postos de trabalho, visto que trata-se de atividade altamente geradora de empregos. Por outro lado, os benefícios decorrentes do aumento de produção, proporcionarão a geração de renda e divisas para o país. Entre os problemas a serem solucionados encontra-se o alto índice de acidentes ocorridos no setor, conforme mostram as estatísticas apresentadas na presente dissertação. O estabelecimento de ações que visem a redução desses índices constitui o objetivo deste trabalho, tendo como meta principal, proporcionar a preservação da saú- de e segurança do trabalhador, e a implementação das mesmas, trarão como conseqüência natural, ganhos de produtividade e redução de custos, na medida que os acidentes implicam no surgimento de custos adicionais. A globalização da economia e a política econômica vigente no país, impuseram aos setores econô- micos uma competição cada vez mais acirrada, obrigando-os a buscarem alternativas que os viabilizem. A redução de custos por meio da prevenção de acidentes Vll no trabalho se constitui numa das alternativas. Esta dissertação, apresenta a partir de diagnóstico realizado nas diversas atividades do setor, ou seja, extração, serragem e beneficiamento, as tendências das ocorrências dos acidentes, caso não haja no futuro, nenhum tipo de intervenção. É estabelecida uma comparação com os demais setores da economia capixaba, através das respectivas curvas de tendências, na qual fica caracterizada a gravidade da situação e a importância da redução dos acidentes no setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo. Em fun- ção da dimensão com que o problema se apresenta, surge a necessidade de intervenções, as quais são classificadas como imediatas e de médio prazo. A observância à legislação vigente, representada pelas Normas Regulamentadoras, proporcionará maior segurança aos trabalhadores, possibilitando a esses, exercer suas atividades em ambiente onde os riscos referentes a lesões, com ou sem afastamentos, e morte, sejam minimizados, na medida que eles são inerentes ao setor e sempre existirão. Como metodologia é utilizado pesquisa de campo, através de entrevistas com empresários, trabalhadores, sindicatos patronal e dos trabalhadores, representantes da DRT e INSS, com as quais é possível o levantamento estatístico, consultas a revistas especializadas, jornais, Internet, disserta- ções e Normas Regulamentadoras. É ainda utilizado referencial teórico de diversos autores, na busca de dar sustentação conceitual ao tema abordado. Como resultado, é apresentado proposta que se constitui em uma série de ações a serem implementadas, para o atingimento do objetivo procurado.

Rent-sharing in Brazil: using trade liberalization as a natural experiment

This paper examines the extent of rent-sharing in Brazil, between 1988 and 1995, combining two different data sets: annual industrial surveys (pIA) and annual household surveys (PNADs). The aim is to use the trade liberalization policies that took place in Brazil in the early 1990s as a "natural experiment" to examine the impact ofproduct market rents on wages. We first estimate inter-industry wage differentials in Brazil, using the household surveys, afier controlling for various observable workers' characteristics. In a reduced form fixed effects equation, these controlled inter-industry differentials are seen to depend on the industries' rate of effective tariff. We also find that LSDV estimates of the effect of value-added per worker (computed using the industrial surveys) on the wage differentials are positive, but somewhat small. However, we find that instrumenting the valued-added with the effective tariffs more than doubles the estimated rent-sharing coefficient. The paper concludes that rent-sharing is prevalent in the Brazilian manufacturing sector, and this mechanism transferred part of the productivity gains due to trade liberalization to manufacturing workers in the form ofhigher (controlled) wage premium.

The manufacturing industry in Brazil in the era of global value chains

This article presents a comprehensive and detailed overview of the international trade performance of the manufacturing industry in Brazil over the last decades, emphasizing its participation in Global Value Chains. It uses information from recent available global inputoutput tables such as WIOD (World Input-output database) and TIVA (Trade in Value Added, OECD) as well as complementary information from the GTAP 8 (Global Trade Analysis Project) database. The calculation of a broad set of value added type indicators allows a precise contextualization of the ongoing structural changes in the Brazilian industry, highlighting the relative isolation of its manufacturing sector from the most relevant international supply chains. This article also proposes a public policy discussion, presenting two case studies: the first one related to trade facilitation and the second one to preferential trade agreements. The main conclusions are twofold: first, the reduction of time delays at customs in Brazil may significantly improve the trade performance of its manufacturing industry, specially for the more capital intensive sectors which are generally the ones with greater potential to connection to global value chains; second, the extension of the concept of a “preferential trade partner” to the context of the global unbundling of production may pave the way to future trade policy in Brazil, particularly in the mapping of those partners whose bilateral trade relations with Brazil should receive greater priority by policy makers.

The manufacturing industry in Brazil in the era of global value chains

This article presents a comprehensive and detailed overview of the international trade performance of the manufacturing industry in Brazil over the last decades, emphasizing its participation in Global Value Chains. It uses information from recent available global inputoutput tables such as WIOD (World Input-output database) and TIVA (Trade in Value Added, OECD) as well as complementary information from the GTAP 8 (Global Trade Analysis Project) database. The calculation of a broad set of value added type indicators allows a precise contextualization of the ongoing structural changes in the Brazilian industry, highlighting the relative isolation of its manufacturing sector from the most relevant international supply chains. This article also proposes a public policy discussion, presenting two case studies: the first one related to trade facilitation and the second one to preferential trade agreements. The main conclusions are twofold: first, the reduction of time delays at customs in Brazil may significantly improve the trade performance of its manufacturing industry, specially for the more capital intensive sectors which are generally the ones with greater potential to connection to global value chains; second, the extension of the concept of a “preferential trade partner” to the context of the global unbundling of production may pave the way to future trade policy in Brazil, particularly in the mapping of those partners whose bilateral trade relations with Brazil should receive greater priority by policy makers

A prospective study on the dimensions of global brands, brand equity and brand value

This doctoral thesis is about global brands under several perspectives, starting this study with and overview on the matter, followed by a "step ahead" in the conceptualization of brand equity and brand value. As the global marketplace dynamically increases, there are theoretical and empirical challenges concerning the global brands that ask for more branding researches, trying to tune and to contextualize meanings and attributes. Thereafter, the thesis intends to provide a discussion about the industry and country-of-origin effects (and their interactions) on the brand value and the firm market value. Finally, the thesis offers an interesting comparison about the practitioners’ perspectives on the dimensions of global brands, the brand equity and the brand value, branding and marketing, including highlights on the brand internationalization process. The thesis offers a general approach on the extant literature in the first chapter, and a specific literature review for each other chapter.

The Latin American Pacific Basin initiative and the Asia-Pacific region

Includes bibliography

Opportunities for trade and investment between Latin America and Asia-Pacific: the link with APEC

Includes bibliography