Lucas Maia dos Santos

Performance evaluation of expenditure in primary care: the case of Brazil's southeastern cities

Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar o desempenho dos municipios da regiao sudeste do Brasil na alocacao de recursos em atencao basica, de 2007 a 2010. A fim de fazer a analise de desempenho foram usados escores de eficiencia tecnica da Analise Envoltoria de Dados (DEA) e indice de Malmquist de Ray e Desli. Mas, antes da analise de eficiencia, a analise de cluster foi aplicada para agrupar os municipios semelhantes. Assim, este estudo propoe constituir um modelo de analise do desempenho de 1097 cidades, com base na Politica Nacional de Atencao Basica. Os escores de eficiencia obtidos destacam as disparidades na alocacao de recursos e o baixo desempenho dos municipios. Este fato pode ser justificado devido ausencia de procedimentos de comparacao relativa entre os municipios e a descentralizacao dos gastos publicos na area de saude publica. Os resultados lancam luz sobre a possibilidade de aumento da oferta de servicos em atencao basica, dado o nivel atual de recursos alocados.

Grupos estratégicos e desempenho no setor confeccionista brasileiro

Determinants of enterprise performance have long been of core interest to strategic management researchers. Therefore, this study was carried out to identify and analyze the performance of strategic groups in the Brazilian clothing industry describing their characteristics to compare with defined variables in the study. Data of 510 enterprises from 2006 were used. The efficiency scores were calculated using Data Envelopment Analysis, cluster analysis was used to identify groups, and Discriminant Analysis was used to validate the clusters. The results showed high degree of inefficiency, and the average deficiency of efficiency results showed the possibility to increasing of 98.17% in outputs keeping the same level of inputs. It was possible to identify three strategic groups significantly validated by the discriminant analysis, and the group composed basically of large enterprises showed better performance than the one composed basically by micro and small enterprises. The presence of different strategic groups, especially with regards to size, shows that the domestic industry has internal barriers inherent in the peculiarities of the higher resource availability of large companies than that of small companies. Therefore, these results agree with those reported in the literature concerning the suggestion that micro and small businesses should focus on other strategies to avoid competition with the economies of scale of large enterprises. In terms of strategic groups, this allows the building of internal barriers of mobility strengthening the competitiveness of the national industry.

MODES OF GOVERNANCE AND THE USE OF COST INFORMATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN BRAZILIAN AND BRITISH HOSPITALS

Cost information can be considered an important tool to benchmarking, planning and control, improving the management of expenditures, mainly in a public institution that are known by having scarce resources. This study was carried out to investigate different modes of governance within Brazilian and British hospitals and the usefulness of cost information in terms of managerial plannig and control. The research was conducted by cross cultural analysis, using several statistical methods for measuring organisation characteristics, seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the profile of both hospitals and respondents. This study showed the dominance of hierarchy and clan as being the most relevant modes of governance in Brazilian and British hospitals. This discussion is relevant considering the congruence level of goals and the ambiguity level of performance measurement. Also, it defines which form of governance is more predominant. The exploratory and quantitative survey methods were used to test the research questions. After conducting a survey using a structured questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with middle managers at chosen case study hospitals were undertaken. In the cases analyzed, it was possible to identify a significant difference between the use of cost information in hospitals, allowing inferences between different modes of governance. The lack of studies about the use of cost information in planning and control regarding public hospitals impedes any other comparison or assessment considering empirical data. One of the objectives of this paper was to generate initial material for future researchers. Besides, the knowledge about the current scenario of the usefulness of cost information mainly in planning and control is relevant when associated with modes of governance.