Eliana Andréa Severo

HOSPITAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND RESIDUES MANAGEMENT: BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCES

Since Brazilian healthcare institutions have the duty to care about public health service, they also have the social and financial responsibilities to bring environmentally friendly practices and strategies, including principally a responsible attitude towards hospital waste management. Negligent waste management contributes significantly to polluting the environment. Today, a specific regional context in the southern State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, shows an ambivalent situation in terms of hospital waste management. This study aims to analyze the environmental management practices and innovation strategies of the hospitals of the Serra Gaucha region, as well as conducting a comparison between the environmental management practices versus the current Brazilian laws. Based on data analysis, it was found that all hospitals employ the practice of waste segregation, preserving public health and environmental quality. However, in respect to hospital waste effluents, 75% of the hospitals of the Serra Gaucha region do not treat their hospital effluents, not complying with the current Brazilian legislation.

Innovation and production management through a just in sequence strategy in a multinational Brazilian Metal-mechanic Industry

This study aims to describe the implementation of a project supply strategy, based on the Just in Sequence concepts; highlighting its difficulties and benefits. The case is described as a Brazilian metal-mechanic company that operates in the assembly of road transport and freight vehicles, being one of the market leaders in Brazil and around the world. The results show clear evidence that the new method presented difficulties related to the discipline of the employees in effectively using the JIS tool, however, it presents concrete innovations related to communication processes between the areas of production and stocks scheduling, as well as the reduction in inventories components within the production process, increasing the efficiency of the assembly line.

Innovation and environmental sustainability: analysis in Brazilian metal-mechanic industry

Sustainable innovative organisations are able to introduce innovations that generate positive results for companies, the society and the environment. On the basis of such premise, the objective of this research is to propose a framework for analysing the product and process environmental sustainability innovations that are developed by automotive metal-mechanic companies. To test the framework of analysis, a survey was carried out in a leading metal-mechanic automotive cluster of South Brazil. The research protocol includes quantitative procedures through a survey on a sample of 438 companies. The results show that both product and process innovations decreased waste generation, raw materials, energy and water consumptions, and have a positive impact on the environment. The research findings enable the testing and the validation of metrics, as a framework, for the analysis of the relationship between product and process innovations and environmental sustainability.

Management in a Brazilian metal mechanic leading company: social and environmental perspectives

The practices of social responsibility and environmental management are strategies that have become fundamental in helping enable competitive advantage for organisations today, as society is constantly pressuring companies to become more socially responsible. Environmental issues, in Brazil, are in the spotlight and this dimension has thus come to assume ever-greater importance for companies. This study aims to analyse the strategies of social responsibility and environmental management as practiced and developed by a group of eleven companies in the Metal Mechanic Poleat Serra Gaucha. It presents a qualitative exploration in the form of a multiple case study whose results show that the external factor is perceived as extremely relevant to the group companies. Furthermore, the study shows that the strategies of social responsibility and environmental management encompass: peer pressure; the importance of government regulations, the adequacy of normative standards; heightened competition; and the achievement of competitive advantage.

Brazilian Entrepreneurship Reality: A Trilogy of Imitation, Invention and Innovation

There are a lot of discussions on the characteristics of the successful businessman, who contributes to development of the economy through wealth creation. There are many authors who talk about such businessman as someone innovative, creator of differences, creative in services or business, or else. For theses reasons it is intended to study the entrepreneurial and innovative dimensions, more precisely in a Brazilian context, discussing innovation from the inside in a business perspective. From this discussion, it is our objective to demonstrate that Brazilian people are either entrepreneurs or inventors but not so innovative. On one hand, there is a clear perception related to new business opportunities but most of them are in an imitation process of existing businesses. On the other hand, Brazil is offering an extensive network of incubators that create inventors instead of entrepreneurs.

Innovation in services: Cases of Brazilian manufacturing industries

The service sector is currently being transformed in the face of economic, technological and social change and is expanding its markets and increasing the complexity of its activities. Innovation process in services is new in academic literature and is still largely debated. The goal of this study is to analyze the service innovation process in two large manufacturing industries, associating the service innovation models found in the literature to the organizational practices adopted by the case study under consideration, so that a set of inferences can be made in regards to a model for understanding the process of service innovation within the realm of industrial organizations. For this purpose, a literature review pertaining to the subject was done and in-depth interviews were conducted with managers from these large manufacturing industries. The findings indicated that innovations in services present challenges that need to be clarified as innovation process, related to properly understanding the unique nature of services by structures originally designed for manufacturing, as well as the assumption of a new paradigm related to creating and developing relationships with clients on a long-term perspective.

A INFLUÊNCIA DA QUALIDADE DE VIDA NO TRABALHO SOBRE O COMPROMETIMENTO ORGANIZACIONAL

This study aims to analyze the influence of Quality of Life at Work (QLW) on Organizational Commitment (OC) at a Higher Education Institution (HEI). The methodology used was a descriptive quantitative survey applied to 119 employees through a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression. The results confirm the positive influence of QLW actions in the OC, therefore, the study indicates that the more satisfied employees are with the QLW actions, the greater the commitment of them. In this scenario, we highlight the affiliative commitment, which occurs when employees are compromised because they feel they are part of the IES team or group, being more intense than the normative commitment, which aims at achieving the objectives and results for the organization.

Inovação de processo e vantagem competitiva: uma revisão sistemática

The process innovation aims at improving the competitiveness and maintenance of organizations in the globalized market. The organizational field is vast, complex and dynamic, representing, therefore, for professionals and researchers a context of diversity, also, of problems. Among the many, some of theoretical background, others, practical, identifies itself to the specificities of the relationship between innovation and competitive advantage. In this context, this study aims to analyze process innovation and competitive advantage through a systematic search in the Scopus database. The methodology used was a qualitative and exploratory research. The results highlight that process innovation is directed, in particular, to productive processes and management processes, as well as the competitive advantage is the ability to use internal resources of the company, which can originate from the learning processes, knowledge, dynamic capabilities and human resources. These points may be represented, however, in different biases, for example, in the performance gain by the company, represented by the increase of the marketing, increase of the client portfolio, prospection of new relationships or adoption of original communication channels, among other intangible assets.

A INOVAÇÃO COMO FONTE PARA VANTAGEM COMPETITIVA NAS ORGANIZAÇÕES: UMA REVISÃO SISTEMÁTICA DA LITERATURA

A abrangencia de estudos que evidenciam a inovacao como uma das principais forcas direcionadoras do desenvolvimento economico e da competitividade empresarial, tanto na area academica, quanto organizacional cresceu significativamente. Pelo contexto exposto, a presente pesquisa buscou destacar os principais conceitos de inovacao como fonte de vantagem competitiva, para isso foi realizada uma revisao sistematica da literatura na base dados EBSCO. Os resultados destacam que a inovacao deve ser uma das estrategias das organizacoes para gerar vantagem competitiva, possibilitando a sua diferenciacao ou aproximacao de seus concorrentes, auxiliando na sua sustentabilidade ao longo do tempo.

Dimensões da inovação e capacidades organizacionais: a percepção dos colaboradores das empresas no norte do Rio Grande do Sul

A inovacao tem sido considerada fundamental para as organizacoes inseridas em economias dinâmicas. Para empresas e um desafio, visto que o mercado competitivo e globalizado exige mais eficiencia para inovar, seja ela por qualquer dimensao, capaz de manter e gerar crescimento economico, o que pode ser impulsionado por meio do desenvolvimento de capacidades organizacionais. Neste contexto, o artigo, realizado junto aos trabalhadores das organizacoes da regiao norte do Rio Grande do Sul (RS), tem como objetivo identificar como as empresas do norte do RS inovam, e tambem quais as capacidades organizacionais estao presentes frente as suas dificuldades em inovar. Quanto a metodologia utilizada, trata-se de uma pesquisa quantitativa e descritiva, por meio de questionarios, com uma amostra de 55 respondentes. Como resultados, tem-se que as empresas da regiao inovam de forma incremental, primando para inovacoes comportamentais, bem como possuem alto grau de dificuldade para inovar, pela baixa capacidade de recursos financeiros disponiveis.