A indústria de confecção do vestuário na região metropolitana de Belém-PA

Partindo do instrumental teórico neo-schumpeteriano e institucionalista, a presente pesquisa faz uma análise sobre a expansão do arranjo produtivo da indústria de confecção e da moda na Região Metropolitana de Belém (RMB) Pará, e do tecido institucional, de 1991 a 2008. Os objetivos da pesquisa são analisar o processo de formação e desenvolvimento do arranjo produtivo local, identificar a configuração e as características da estrutura produtiva e das atividades institucionais de apoio e as relações de sinergia entre agentes, analisar como estão constituídas as formas de governança e externalidades existentes e como essas podem dinamizar o processo de desenvolvimento desse arranjo produtivo. A proposta deste trabalho pretende responder a três questões: Por que o segmento da indústria do vestuário não se desenvolveu na RMB? Como a dinâmica do setor e das características dos fenômenos da inovação tecnológica no ramo é vivenciada pelos empresários das pequenas e médias empresas do setor de confecção na RMB? Como ocorre a coexistência de dois processos, a modernização e a precarização no setor de confecção na RMB? A pesquisa empírica realizada representa 55% do emprego formal na RMB. Nesse processo, observou-se a inexistência da ação institucional anterior ao período pesquisado e isso limitou a evolução científica e tecnológica do setor, assim como o desenvolvimento da cadeia produtiva. Essa condição levou os produtores atomizados a baixos níveis de sinergia e representatividade. Em função disso, as taxas de crescimento na indústria foram muito baixas, a dificuldade de se encontrar mão-de-obra qualificada é apontada como maior entrave ao desenvolvimento da indústria. A maioria das empresas instaladas é produtora de uniformes, mas constatou-se nos três últimos anos a abertura de empresas dedicadas à fabricação de produtos de moda. Apesar da dificuldade encontrada pelas indústrias em funcionamento, observou-se um movimento social na construção e ampliação do conhecimento técnico e da promoção de um arranjo produtivo impulsionado pela vontade de fazer moda, a atuação de designers e instituições promovem o desejo de transformar a moda em coisa nossa. O desenvolvimento da moda no Pará, como movimento espontâneo e meio de expressão da cultura local, representa, de certa forma, a vontade de inserir a cultura local no contexto do consumo contemporâneo. A moda é uma forma de estabelecimento de relação com o lugar que considera a ação na construção de uma mitologia local. A questão da especificidade do local é de grande importância para os mercados, portanto, deve-se levar em conta a importância e a potencialidade de um mercado povoado por um grande número de consumidores ávidos por inserção e diferenciação, emocionalmente atrelados ao local. Os atores pesquisados apontam que, para estimular o desenvolvimento da cadeia produtiva têxtil-vestuário, seriam necessários mais investimentos na formação de mão-de-obra que favoreça o desenvolvimento das atividades já em funcionamento, e que permitam ampliar a viabilidade de investimentos em um setor de fundamental importância na história da industrialização e na vida cotidiana dos seres humanos, no mundo capitalista contemporâneo que tem o consumo como mito fundamental. Esta pesquisa contribui para um melhor entendimento do setor.

Normal Forms for Codimension One Planar Piecewise Smooth Vector Fields

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

O Serviço Social e a avaliação de impacto na gestão de programas e projetos empresariais

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Pyrolysis, combustion and oxy-combustion studies of sugarcane industry wastes and its blends

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Inovação em design: planejamento e estratégias para um parque tecnológico na região de Bauru - SP

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Omaha Agri-Business Club Leadership Award Presentation

It is a real pleasure to present the 2006 Omaha Agri- Business Club Leadership Award this evening during National Agriculture Week. I commend the Omaha Agri-Business Club for establishing this fine award. We always need to celebrate the accomplishments of individuals whose leadership efforts contribute to our agricultural industry which is the backbone of Nebraska and our nation.

Cost Management Practices and Strategic Perspectives: a study in the construction industry of the State of Parana

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost management practices of building industry companies of Parana that follow the typology of Porter's strategies. The sample comprises member companies of the Association of Construction Industries of the State of Parana (PR-SINDUSCON) operating in the segment of residential buildings. The data were collected by means of questionnaires sent to 317 SINDUSCON members. 69 were returned and 54 used for our research. Exploratory Factorial Analysis of the data allowed us to identify two groups of cost management practices. Analyses suggest equality between the adopted cost management practices and the Cost Control Planning (CCP) practices among the companies of the Group 1, regardless of the generic strategy adopted. The companies of the Group 2 that adopted the differentiation strategy seem to use mainly the ACR cost management practice. Our findings differ from those obtained by Chenhall insofar as companies that adopt low cost strategies tend to use managerial controls focused on cost control and rigid budgetary controls.

Delivery Levels of Support Competencies to Organizational Eco-efficiency: a case study in an electro-electronics sector industry

This article aims to develop and implement a search tool which, through the perception of its respondents, allows assessing how eco-efficient an organization is based on the identification of delivery levels of support competencies to organizational eco-efficiency. A mixed (qualitative and quantitative) exploratory-descriptive research was conducted, from a case study in an 'ISE Company'. A semi-structured interview and pictures of verification were used as data collection instruments. The data were analyzed via documentary analysis and triangulation of information collected. It was inferred that at the 'ISE Company' professionals at the high-level of the organizational hierarchy recognize, in part, the growth of organizational actions that contribute to sustainability, which is not fully consistent with national publications on the subject. The result of the research showed that organizational strategies addressing eco-efficiency are partially aligned with the professional performance of the organization.

The role of empirical research in the study of complex forms of governance in agroindustrial systems

The growing complexity of supply chains poses new challenges for Agricultural Research Centers and statistical agencies. The aim of this perspective paper is to discuss the role of empirical research in understanding the complex forms of governance in agribusiness. The authors argue that there are three fundamental levels of analysis: (i) the basic structure of the market, (ii) the formal contractual arrangements that govern relations within the agroindustrial system and (iii) the transactional dimensions governed by non-contractual means. The case of the agrochemical industry in Brazil illustrates how traditional analyses that only address market structure are insufficient to fully explain the agricultural sector and its supply chain. The article concludes by suggesting some indicators which could be collected by statistical agencies to improve understanding of the complex relationships among agribusiness segments. In doing so, the paper seeks to minimize costs and to enable a better formulation of public and private policies.

Development of quantitative methods for sustainability assessment in process industry

The increasing aversion to technological risks of the society requires the development of inherently safer and environmentally friendlier processes, besides assuring the economic competitiveness of the industrial activities. The different forms of impact (e.g. environmental, economic and societal) are frequently characterized by conflicting reduction strategies and must be holistically taken into account in order to identify the optimal solutions in process design. Though the literature reports an extensive discussion of strategies and specific principles, quantitative assessment tools are required to identify the marginal improvements in alternative design options, to allow the trade-off among contradictory aspects and to prevent the “risk shift”. In the present work a set of integrated quantitative tools for design assessment (i.e. design support system) was developed. The tools were specifically dedicated to the implementation of sustainability and inherent safety in process and plant design activities, with respect to chemical and industrial processes in which substances dangerous for humans and environment are used or stored. The tools were mainly devoted to the application in the stages of “conceptual” and “basic design”, when the project is still open to changes (due to the large number of degrees of freedom) which may comprise of strategies to improve sustainability and inherent safety. The set of developed tools includes different phases of the design activities, all through the lifecycle of a project (inventories, process flow diagrams, preliminary plant lay-out plans). The development of such tools gives a substantial contribution to fill the present gap in the availability of sound supports for implementing safety and sustainability in early phases of process design. The proposed decision support system was based on the development of a set of leading key performance indicators (KPIs), which ensure the assessment of economic, societal and environmental impacts of a process (i.e. sustainability profile). The KPIs were based on impact models (also complex), but are easy and swift in the practical application. Their full evaluation is possible also starting from the limited data available during early process design. Innovative reference criteria were developed to compare and aggregate the KPIs on the basis of the actual sitespecific impact burden and the sustainability policy. Particular attention was devoted to the development of reliable criteria and tools for the assessment of inherent safety in different stages of the project lifecycle. The assessment follows an innovative approach in the analysis of inherent safety, based on both the calculation of the expected consequences of potential accidents and the evaluation of the hazards related to equipment. The methodology overrides several problems present in the previous methods proposed for quantitative inherent safety assessment (use of arbitrary indexes, subjective judgement, build-in assumptions, etc.). A specific procedure was defined for the assessment of the hazards related to the formations of undesired substances in chemical systems undergoing “out of control” conditions. In the assessment of layout plans, “ad hoc” tools were developed to account for the hazard of domino escalations and the safety economics. The effectiveness and value of the tools were demonstrated by the application to a large number of case studies concerning different kinds of design activities (choice of materials, design of the process, of the plant, of the layout) and different types of processes/plants (chemical industry, storage facilities, waste disposal). An experimental survey (analysis of the thermal stability of isomers of nitrobenzaldehyde) provided the input data necessary to demonstrate the method for inherent safety assessment of materials.

Farm tourism: a cross-country empirical study in Germany and Italy

PROBLEM In the last few years farm tourism or agritourism as it is also referred to has enjoyed increasing success because of its generally acknowledged role as a promoter of economic and social development of rural areas. As a consequence, a plethora of studies have been dedicated to this tourist sector, focusing on a variety of issues. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties of many farmers to orient their business towards potential customers, the contribution of the marketing literature has been moderate. PURPOSE This dissertation builds upon studies which advocate the necessity of farm tourism to innovate itself according to the increasingly demanding needs of customers. Henceforth, the purpose of this dissertation is to critically evaluate the level of professionalism reached in the farm tourism market within a marketing approach. METHODOLOGY This dissertation is a cross-country perspective incorporating the marketing of farm tourism studied in Germany and Italy. Hence, the marketing channels of this tourist sector are examined both from the supply and the demand side by means of five exploratory studies. The data collection has been conducted in the timeframe of 2006 to 2009 in manifold ways (online survey, catalogues of industry associations, face-to-face interviews, etc.) according to the purpose of the research of each study project. The data have been analyzed using multivariate statistical analysis. FINDINGS A comprehensive literature review provides the state of the art of the main differences and similarities of farm tourism in the two countries of study. The main findings contained in the empirical chapters provide insights on many aspects of agritourism including how the expectations of farm operators and customers differ, which development scenarios of farm tourism are more likely to meet individuals’ needs, how new technologies can impact the demand for farm tourism, etc. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The value of this study is in the investigation of the process by which farmers’ participation in the development of this sector intersects with consumer consumption patterns. Focusing on this process should allow farm operators and others including related businesses to more efficiently allocate resources.

Ownership, Multiple Blockholders and Performance: A study of the Indonesian Banking Industry

The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence on how ownership structure and owner’s identity affect performance, in the banking industry by using a panel of Indonesia banks over the period 2000–2009. Firstly, we analysed the impact of the presence of multiple blockholders on bank ownership structure and performance. Building on multiple agency and principal-principal theories, we investigated whether the presence and shares dispersion across blockholders with different identities (i.e. central and regional government; families; foreign banks and financial institutions) affected bank performance, in terms of profitability and efficiency. We found that the number of blockholders has a negative effect on banks’ performance, while blockholders’ concentration has a positive effect. Moreover, we observed that the dispersion of ownership across different types of blockholders has a negative effect on banks’ performance. We interpret such results as evidence that, when heterogeneous blockholders are present, the disadvantage from conflicts of interests between blockholders seems to outweigh the advantage of the increase in additional monitoring by additional blockholder. Secondly, we conducted a joint analysis of the static, selection, and dynamic effects of different types of ownership on banks’ performance. We found that regional banks and foreign banks have a higher profitability and efficiency as compared to domestic private banks. In the short-run, foreign acquisitions and domestic M&As reduce the level of overhead costs, while in the long-run they increase the Net Interest Margin (NIM). Further, we analysed NIM determinants, to asses the impact of ownership on bank business orientation. Our findings lend support to our prediction that the NIM determinants differs accordingly to the type of bank ownership. We also observed that banks that experienced changes in ownership, such as foreign-acquired banks, manifest different interest margin determinants with respect to domestic or foreign banks that did not experience ownership rearrangements.

Differential forms on Carnot groups

The main goal of this thesis is to understand and link together some of the early works by Michel Rumin and Pierre Julg. The work is centered around the so-called Rumin complex, which is a construction in subRiemannian geometry. A Carnot manifold is a manifold endowed with a horizontal distribution. If further a metric is given, one gets a subRiemannian manifold. Such data arise in different contexts, such as: - formulation of the second principle of thermodynamics; - optimal control; - propagation of singularities for sums of squares of vector fields; - real hypersurfaces in complex manifolds; - ideal boundaries of rank one symmetric spaces; - asymptotic geometry of nilpotent groups; - modelization of human vision. Differential forms on a Carnot manifold have weights, which produces a filtered complex. In view of applications to nilpotent groups, Rumin has defined a substitute for the de Rham complex, adapted to this filtration. The presence of a filtered complex also suggests the use of the formal machinery of spectral sequences in the study of cohomology. The goal was indeed to understand the link between Rumin's operator and the differentials which appear in the various spectral sequences we have worked with: - the weight spectral sequence; - a special spectral sequence introduced by Julg and called by him Forman's spectral sequence; - Forman's spectral sequence (which turns out to be unrelated to the previous one). We will see that in general Rumin's operator depends on choices. However, in some special cases, it does not because it has an alternative interpretation as a differential in a natural spectral sequence. After defining Carnot groups and analysing their main properties, we will introduce the concept of weights of forms which will produce a splitting on the exterior differential operator d. We shall see how the Rumin complex arises from this splitting and proceed to carry out the complete computations in some key examples. From the third chapter onwards we will focus on Julg's paper, describing his new filtration and its relationship with the weight spectral sequence. We will study the connection between the spectral sequences and Rumin's complex in the n-dimensional Heisenberg group and the 7-dimensional quaternionic Heisenberg group and then generalize the result to Carnot groups using the weight filtration. Finally, we shall explain why Julg required the independence of choices in some special Rumin operators, introducing the Szego map and describing its main properties.

Nature and relevance of inherited blueprints on business models choices and innovation: an assessment

One important metaphor, referred to biological theories, used to investigate on organizational and business strategy issues is the metaphor about heredity; an area requiring further investigation is the extent to which the characteristics of blueprints inherited from the parent, helps in explaining subsequent development of the spawned ventures. In order to shed a light on the tension between inherited patterns and the new trajectory that may characterize spawned ventures’ development we propose a model aimed at investigating which blueprints elements might exert an effect on business model design choices and to which extent their persistence (or abandonment) determines subsequent business model innovation. Under the assumption that academic and corporate institutions transmit different genes to their spin-offs, we hence expect to have heterogeneity in elements that affect business model design choices and its subsequent evolution. This is the reason why we carry on a twofold analysis in the biotech (meta)industry: under a multiple-case research design, business model and especially its fundamental design elements and themes scholars individuated to decompose the construct, have been thoroughly analysed. Our purpose is to isolate the dimensions of business model that may have been the object of legacy and the ones along which an experimentation and learning process is more likely to happen, bearing in mind that differences between academic and corporate might not be that evident as expected, especially considering that business model innovation may occur.

Analysis of the introduction of a business process mapping system in Rosetti Marino spa

After a first theoric introduction about Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), are considered in particular the possible options found in literature regarding the following three macro-elements: the methodologies, the modelling notations and the tools employed for process mapping. The theoric section is the base for the analysis of the same elements into the specific case of Rosetti Marino S.p.A., an EPC contractor, operating in the Oil&Gas industry. Rosetti Marino implemented a tool developped internally in order to satisfy its needs in the most suitable way possible and buit a Map of all business processes,navigable on the Company Intranet. Moreover it adopted a methodology based upon participation, interfunctional communication and sharing. The GIGA introduction is analysed from a structural, human resources, political and symbolic point of view.