Márcia Regina Neves Guimarães

Competitive Priorities and Innovation in SMEs: A Brazil Multi-case Study

This study uses the qualitative approach and the multi-case study method to analyze the influence that the competitive advantages exerts in the innovation given the specific context of the research. Among the main results are the mains factors that generate innovative practices in the researched companies are quality, flexibility, delivery and cost, in this order of importance, as generators of innovation practices in the surveyed companies. The quality and flexibility were related to technological product and process innovations. In the non-technological innovations, quality influenced the marketing and organizational innovations. Flexibility generated marketing innovations and cost and delivery generated organizational innovation. The results of this research can make it easy to redirect future public innovation policies in small businesses. We discovered that innovation does not occur only through the acquisitions and heavy investments in technology. The strategic reorganization of the decision-taking processes can contribute to innovation.

From Stores to Banks The Financialization of the Retail Trade in Brazil

The Brazilian retail sector has been experiencing a dynamic involving, on the one hand, a strong approximation toward the financial institutions and, on the other hand, an intense concentration process, foreign capital participation, initial public offers, and business operations internationalization, boosting the retail financialization environment. This paper explores this dynamic by focusing on the organizational impacts resulting from the diffusion of a financial logic on Brazilian financial retail field construction, gathering together different actors struggling to define the field’s rules. The paper uses secondary sources as well as 57 interviews with employees from the country’s 19 largest retail stores about their work transformation. Interesting insights ranging from embarrassment stemming from the failure to fulfill goals, retail workers’ rights (being legally considered banking workers), to the use of slave labor by multinational fashion supply chains are garnered. All of these elements connected underpin the Brazilian Financial Retail field. O setor varejista brasileiro passa por uma dinâmica envolvendo por um lado, uma forte aproximação com as instituições financeiras e, por outro, por um intenso processo de concentração, atuação de capital estrangeiro, aberturas de capital, internacionalização dos negócios, profissionalização da gestão, fomentando a financeirização do varejo nacional. Esta pesquisa visa contribuir explorando os impactos organizacionais resultantes da difusão dessa lógica de inspiração financeira sobre o varejo brasileiro que logra unir diferentes atores e suas respectivas fontes de (diferentes e divergentes) capitais na definição dos contornos e regras de um novo campo de atuação para as empresas varejistas. Os resultados desta pesquisa envolvem dados de fontes secundárias, além de informações colhidas junto a 57 entrevistas realizadas com funcionários das 19 maiores varejistas atuantes no país sobre mudanças na organização de seu trabalho. Os resultados apresentados envolvem desde situações embaraçosas relacionadas ao não cumprimento das metas, passando pela equiparação de funcionários do varejo a bancários, até o uso de mão-de-obra escrava por grandes cadeias de moda varejistas. Juntos, estes elementos corroboram a construção do campo do varejo financeiro brasileiro.

COMPETITIVE PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AS MEDIATORS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPANIES IN THE BRAZILIAN AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLY CHAIN

This study aimed to assess how the search for strategic alignment and competitive priorities influences the relationship between companies in the Brazilian automotive supply chain. To achieve this, qualitative research was conducted using an integrated case study in the automotive segment of companies that had business relationships with each other. The following elements were studied: an automaker, three automotive systems suppliers, and three second-tier suppliers. The results show that there is a strategic alignment in the chain, mainly driven by the automaker and the systems suppliers, and that competitive priorities shape the forms of the relationships between companies in the automotive supply chain.

The influence of the specifics of small businesses on innovation

Purpose Based on a multi-case analysis of small businesses in the metal-mechanical industry in the region of Sorocaba, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how small businesses (in terms of the owner, business, and influences exerted by the environment) influence innovation. Design/methodology/approach Six case studies are used to analyze the Brazilian metal-mechanical industry. The data are collected through semi-structured interviews and direct observations. In addition, innovations over the previous five years are evaluated in order to establish a comparative pattern between companies. Findings This study examines how facilitating factors are related to the owners of small businesses. These factors include owners’ personal ambitions, the centralization of decisions, and their confidence in their ability to make effective decisions. Factors related to the organization that favor innovation include a simple and streamlined structure and fewer levels of bureaucracy, whereas low capital intensity limit innovation. While some factors related to the environment favor innovation, others have a limiting effect (e.g. short-term horizons and a lack of formal strategic planning). Originality/value The main contribution of this research is to show that innovation is not synonymous with financial investment. Strategic reorganization and the rationalization of productive resources through competitive priorities may lead to innovation in different spheres, helping to increase the competitiveness and strength of the national economy.

As prioridades competitivas e a área de gerenciamento de recursos humanos em empresas de autopeças

Considering the importance of studies on operation strategies, this work has the goal of discussing aspects related to human resources and their coherence with competitive priorities at four auto part companies in the Sorocaba, SP, region. The results were obtained by means of semi-open interviews and direct observations conducted during visits to the companies. Even considering the need for further studies for a more in-depth discussion, we concluded that Unit A is the one with most coherence between the decision area related to human resource management and competitive priorities. In Units B and C factors like greater autonomy for production workers could offer better support to competitive priorities. Unit D is the only one that favors costs, which could justify why it is the organization closest to the vision of control and command. Keywords: operation strategies; human resources management, competitive priorities; auto parts industry.