Marcos Roberto Kuhl

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE

Economic activities, and more intensely the business environment, are being pressured to direct their actions towards sustainable performance, more specifically in its social and environmental facets. One of the alternatives to deal with these pressures is innovation. In this paper, we present results of a study conducted on the electrical and electronics industry operating in Brazil in order to examine the relationship between innovation and sustainable performance. The methodology adopted was the strategy of cross-sectional survey, conducted in 112 electrical and electronic manufacturing companies of all sizes and from all regions of Brazil. Data analysis was carried out mainly through Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis of scales, descriptive analysis of measures, and especially cluster analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The main results categorise the companies into more sustainable, less sustainable and relatively sustainable, according to their performance profiles. The study shows that the companies in the sample categorised as more sustainable are more prone to innovation and to be collaborative to innovation than the others. These results indicate the importance of the relationship between innovation and sustainable performance, as highlighted by Barbieri (2007), Barbieri et al. (2010), Carvalho and Barbieri (2010), Scandelari (2011) and Scandelari and Cunha (2011). But of greater relevance is the relationship between collaboration and sustainable performance. This fact has not yet been demonstrated empirically, but has been highlighted by Hartman, Hofman and Stafford (1999), Fadeeva (2004), Petzel, Archer and Fei (2010), Bos-Brouwers (2010), Murray, Haynes and Hudson (2010) and especially by Sarkis, Lamb and Brust (2010). The study contributes to the advancement of knowledge of the relationship between innovation and sustainable performance from empirical evidences, providing information on this relationship in Brazilian companies.

Certificação ISO 14001: análise dos fatores relacionados à conscientização ambiental de colaboradores de uma indústria de papel da região centro-sul do Paraná

Environmental management systems certified by NBR ISO 14001:2004 emerge as alternatives for organizations to structure their environmental activities. The certification requires a primordial factor, which is environmental awareness. Given this, this research aims to identify and analyze the factors related to the environmental awareness of employees included in the ISO 14001 certification process, on a paper industry of the Center-South region of Parana. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, we applied a quantitative approach by the application of questionnaires to the employees of the industry researched. The treatment of the data occurred by means of descriptive statistics, being used the parameters of average, standard deviation and coefficient of variation, as well as the factor analysis for grouping and analysis of factors that showed more awareness and testing validation of the scale. As a result, they identified the factors related to environmental awareness, which were passed on to the employees by training, internal disclosures and other mechanisms that helped the company to achieve a satisfactory level of awareness. However, there was an opportunity for the paper industry to enhance awareness to waste management, wastewater and chemicals, since not all employees know the destination and the treatment of waste at the end of process.

Profile the Performance of the Largest Companies in Brazil

The aim of the study is to identify the performance profile of the largest corporations in Brazil. The people are the largest 500 companies in cluded in the special edition Exame - āāāāāāāāāāāāāāāāāāāā āāāāāāāāā �