This thesis provides a sociological exploration of the politics of new agricultural technologies in the United Kingdom. It addresses some of the key issues involved in these politics, as well as how they are discussed and fought over. Conceptually it addresses these questions by focussing on issues of risk, science and governance. In doing so, this thesis situates the politics of GM crops and foods in relation to wider normative concerns about the cultural values, relationships and institutions shaping agriculture, and British society more generally. Empirically, this thesis applies a qualitative methodology, primarily relying on data generated from a series of in-depth interviews. Through these interviews active participants in the debate were able to express a variety of opinions about the risks and benefits of agricultural biotechnology. The interview data is further supplemented by some documentary evidence, particularly as relates to several government led initiatives addressing agricultural debates in terms of contestations over risk and knowledge. Key chapters in this thesis look at the way in which the debate over GM crops and foods has been shaped by perceptions of the role and values of the life-industry, science and the Government in developing and regulating biotechnology. Finally, this thesis also addresses how society, and practices of governance in particular, are able to accommodate these political issues in managing risk and regulating technological change.

This dissertation is composed of three essays examining adoption of agricultural technologies in Ecuador and intergenerational mobility in the United States. The first essay entitled 'Does IPM Have Staying Power? Revisiting a Potato-producing Area Years After Formal Training Ended' examines (Integrated Pest Management) IPM spread and adoption several years after formal intensive IPM outreach efforts ceased in a potato-producing region in Ecuador. It describes adoption patterns and sources of IPM knowledge in 2012 and compares them with patterns that existed when outreach ceased in 2003. Results show that IPM adoption continues in the area but with a lower proportion of farmers adopting all practices and a higher proportion adopting low to moderate levels compared to 2003. Farmer-to-farmer spread has supplanted formal training and outreach mechanisms. IPM adoption significantly lowers pesticide use and saves production costs for adopters. The second essay entitled 'Can Text Messages Improve Agricultural Outreach in Ecuador?' seeks to understand how receipt of text messages complements training from a farmer field day. It measures the effect of text message receipt on adoption of (Integrated Crop Management) ICM technologies and knowledge about these technologies. In the first part of the paper, we present a theory of behavioral change and its application to adoption of agricultural technologies. In the second part, we use intention to treat (ITT) and an improved-ITT analyses to measure the impact of the intervention. The results of this essay suggest that as providers of information, text messages have some knowledge building effect leading to the adoption of IPM practices. As reminders, text messages effectively increase adoption of IPM practices, in particular recommended pesticides. The third essay entitled 'Determinants of Absolute Upward Income Mobility: The Hidden Cost of Commuting' focuses on commuting times as a determinant of upward income mobility in the United States. We provide an explanation of the channel through which the effect of commuting times on upward income mobility operates. Additionally, it evaluates empirically the effect of commuting on upward income mobility. The empirical results confirm the theoretical model predictions that commuting times affect negatively upward income mobility. / Ph. D.

Orientador: Renato Dias Baptista / Coorientador: Luis Roberto A. Gabriel Filho / Coorientador: Wagner Luiz Lourenzani / Banca: Giuliana Aparecida Santini Pigatto / Banca: Luciano Munck / Resumo: O principal objetivo desta pesquisa foi investigar como as empresas do setor sucroenergético gerenciam as relações entre capacitação de pessoas e operação de tecnologias agrícolas e apresentar contribuições que possam reduzir os gaps entre competências atuais e competências requeridas aos trabalhadores que atuam na operação das novas tecnologias. Para tanto, realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica do setor sucroenergético no Brasil; e revisões teóricas sobre o processo de inovação tecnológica; planejamento e desenvolvimento da gestão de recursos humanos; capacitação de pessoas e desenvolvimento de competências. A pesquisa possui caráter qualitativo, descritivo e exploratório, e adotou o método do estudo de caso. Duas usinas de grande porte do setor sucroenergético do Estado de São Paulo (maior produtor de cana-de-açúcar) foram selecionadas e nomeadas nesta pesquisa como Usina A e Usina B. A análise de redes sociais foi escolhida para verificar a quais agentes institucionais e organizacionais as usinas recorrem no que tange à capacitação. Verificou-se que a Usina A adota estratégia de treinamento e desenvolvimento contínuo e sua estrutura organizacional favorece a autonomia das unidades locais para criarem políticas e práticas específicas para uma demanda local. Já a Usina B atua com a estratégia de treinamento pontual no horizonte de curto prazo, sua estrutura organizacional é concentrada em uma unidade que estabelece e executa as políticas e práticas de gestão recursos humanos... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The research aim was to investigate how the companies in the sugarcane industry manage the relationship between training people and operation of agricultural technologies and to provide input that will reduce the gaps between current skills and competencies required of workers who work in the operation of new technologies. To this end, we carried out a literature review of the sugarcane industry in Brazil; and theory on the process of technological innovation; planning and development of human resource management; training people and developing skills. The research has a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory, and adopted the case study method. Two large plants the sugarcane industry in the State of São Paulo (the largest producer of sugarcane) were selected and nominated in this research as Usina A and Usina B. The social network analysis has been chosen to see which institutional and organizational agents plants turn when it comes to training. It was found that the plant takes training and continuous development strategy and its organizational structure favors the autonomy of local units to create specific policies and practices for local demand. Already Usina B acts with the timely training strategy in the short-term horizon, its organizational structure is concentrated in a unit that establishes and executes policy and human resources management practices. Both plants have resorted to institutional and organizational agents agricultural technologies to enable operators.... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

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Submitted by Danilo Alexandre Francisco Vieira null (daniloafvieira@gmail.com) on 2016-03-23T21:08:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Vieira, Danilo Alexandre Francisco (Dissertação Mestrado).pdf: 2443990 bytes, checksum: 4c7e57d89f834d852454c7311826d572 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-03-24T18:42:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 vieira_daf_me_tupa.pdf: 2443990 bytes, checksum: 4c7e57d89f834d852454c7311826d572 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-24T18:42:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 vieira_daf_me_tupa.pdf: 2443990 bytes, checksum: 4c7e57d89f834d852454c7311826d572 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-05 / O principal objetivo desta pesquisa foi investigar como as empresas do setor sucroenergético gerenciam as relações entre capacitação de pessoas e operação de tecnologias agrícolas e apresentar contribuições que possam reduzir os gaps entre competências atuais e competências requeridas aos trabalhadores que atuam na operação das novas tecnologias. Para tanto, realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica do setor sucroenergético no Brasil; e revisões teóricas sobre o processo de inovação tecnológica; planejamento e desenvolvimento da gestão de recursos humanos; capacitação de pessoas e desenvolvimento de competências. A pesquisa possui caráter qualitativo, descritivo e exploratório, e adotou o método do estudo de caso. Duas usinas de grande porte do setor sucroenergético do Estado de São Paulo (maior produtor de cana-de-açúcar) foram selecionadas e nomeadas nesta pesquisa como Usina A e Usina B. A análise de redes sociais foi escolhida para verificar a quais agentes institucionais e organizacionais as usinas recorrem no que tange à capacitação. Verificou-se que a Usina A adota estratégia de treinamento e desenvolvimento contínuo e sua estrutura organizacional favorece a autonomia das unidades locais para criarem políticas e práticas específicas para uma demanda local. Já a Usina B atua com a estratégia de treinamento pontual no horizonte de curto prazo, sua estrutura organizacional é concentrada em uma unidade que estabelece e executa as políticas e práticas de gestão recursos humanos. Ambas as usinas têm recorrido aos agentes institucionais e organizacionais para capacitar os operadores de tecnologias agrícolas. Contudo, observou-se que os ganhos com a recorrência aos agentes não estão relacionados à quantidade de agentes aos quais uma empresa recorre, mas sim, na intensidade desses relacionamentos. A Usina A possui uma forte recorrência com o fornecedor A de tecnologia e com o SENAI. Esse laço permite que a Usina A obtenha vantagens na aquisição e implementação tecnológica, e no planejamento e execução de treinamento e desenvolvimento dos operadores. Entre as etapas levantamento das necessidades, planejamento, execução e avaliação dos treinamentos realizados, a etapa avaliação se mostrou um tanto falha, ambas as usinas têm dificuldades para acompanhar a fase de pós-treinamento. Com o objetivo de apresentar contribuições que possam melhorar esse acompanhamento e reduzir os gaps entre competências atuais e competências requeridas, realizou-se junto ao fornecedor de tecnologia um mapeamento das competências requeridas na operação de tecnologias agrícolas e, posteriormente, criou-se um formulário de acompanhamento dos resultados do treinamento, o que pode levar as empresas a identificarem onde as ações de treinamento e desenvolvimento devem ser concentradas. Em meio à transição tecnológica vivenciada pelo setor, rever as políticas e práticas de gestão de recursos humanos pode representar um grande desenvolvimento e maior valorização do capital humano. Para tal, o processo de inovação tecnológica e a gestão de recursos humanos representam uma aliança necessária a essas organizações. / The research aim was to investigate how the companies in the sugarcane industry manage the relationship between training people and operation of agricultural technologies and to provide input that will reduce the gaps between current skills and competencies required of workers who work in the operation of new technologies. To this end, we carried out a literature review of the sugarcane industry in Brazil; and theory on the process of technological innovation; planning and development of human resource management; training people and developing skills. The research has a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory, and adopted the case study method. Two large plants the sugarcane industry in the State of São Paulo (the largest producer of sugarcane) were selected and nominated in this research as Usina A and Usina B. The social network analysis has been chosen to see which institutional and organizational agents plants turn when it comes to training. It was found that the plant takes training and continuous development strategy and its organizational structure favors the autonomy of local units to create specific policies and practices for local demand. Already Usina B acts with the timely training strategy in the short-term horizon, its organizational structure is concentrated in a unit that establishes and executes policy and human resources management practices. Both plants have resorted to institutional and organizational agents agricultural technologies to enable operators. However, it was observed that the gains from recurrence agents are not related to amount of agents to which a company uses, but the intensity of these relationships. The Usina A has a strong recurrence with the supplier of the technology and the SENAI. This link allows the plant get the advantages in technology acquisition and implementation, and planning and training implementation and development of the operators. Among the planning stages, implementation and evaluation of training conducted, the evaluation stage proved somewhat failure, both Usinas have difficulties to follow the phase of post-training. In order to submit contributions that can improve this monitoring and reduce the gaps between current skills and competencies required, was held by the technology provider a mapping of the skills needed in agricultural technologies of operation and subsequently created a follow-up form of training results, which can lead companies to identify where training and development actions should be concentrated. Amid the technological transition experienced by the sector, reviewing policies and human resource management practices can pose a great development and greater development of human capital. To this end, the process of technological innovation and human resource management represent a necessary alliance with these organizations.

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