The U.S. hardwood industry has traditionally depended on the domestic demand to sustain levels of production above 14 billion board feet per year. Because of the collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2009 and the economic recession that followed, the industry moved its sight to the international markets, as an opportunity to replace some lost demand, and pursue long term growth. Previous research on international marketing of hardwood products indicates that, there is a growing concern among U.S. companies to understand the main competitiveness factors in key markets such as Asia and Europe. Finding opportunities to add value to U.S. hardwood exports has been the goal of this research project. A case study and survey research were carried out among importers and exporters, whereby it was found that aspects related to price, quality and service, are critical in achieving competitive advantage. This motivated a study in demand and pricing management, which found that these tasks may be subject to innovation through optimization approaches. / Ph. D.

Final work of the University Undegraduate Studies, 60 pages, 9 figures, 11 tables, 52 references, 16 appendixes. Key words – total index of item competitiveness, total index of item group competitiveness, competition, competition limiting, competition conditions, competition strategy, competition market, competitiveness, competitiveness evaluation, competitiveness factors, competitive advantage, competitors, summary economical parameters index of competitiveness, summary qualitative parameters index of competitiveness, summary index of company’s goods competitiveness. Research object – agricultural equipment selling companies. Research subject – competitiveness in agricultural equipment selling companies. Research aim – to identify possibilities of creating competitiveness in agricultural equipment selling companies. Research tasks: - to dispute theoretical principals of competitiveness; - to prepare methodology of evaluation competitiveness of agricultural equipment; - to analyse market of agricultural equipment; - to estimate competitiveness of chosen agricultural equipment; - to identify conditioning to obtain the competitive advantage. Research methods: - comparative analysis of special literature sources; - comparative analysis of agricultural equipment competitiveness based on counting relative indexes; - interview with companies managers and other employees; - statistical analysis, graphic, data grouping other methods. Research period : year 2000 – 2004. In this final... [to full text]

Esta tese discute as duas novas regiões brasileiras de fronteira agrícola, Balsas no Maranhão e Barreiras na Bahia, onde se produz soja. A discussão se dá entorno da cultura da soja, agindo como vetor da formação sócio-espacial de novas regiões de produção agrícola. As particularidades desta tese e o novo, estão no fato que a formação dessas duas regiões ocorre no período técnico-científico e informacional, inserindo-as no processo de globalização de forma competitiva. As duas regiões são competitivas, do ponto de vista da produção agrícola, pois tem tido a possibilidade de manter e aumentar sua produção de soja, tanto domesticamente quanto internacionalmente, melhorando cada vez mais sua performance técnica e econômica. Essas hipóteses são provadas, além de se propor um sistema de comparação de competitividade inter-regional, baseado em critérios definidos, que possibilta graduar qual região é mais competitiva que a outra. / This thesis discusses two new Brazilian agricultural frontiers. These frontiers, where soy-bean is produced are: Balsas in Maranhão and Barreiras in Bahia. The discussion takes place around the soy-bean crop, that acts as a vector of the socio-spatial formation of new crop producing regions. The particularities of this thesis and the novelty relay on the fact that the formation of these two regions occurs in the technical-scientific period. These regions are inserted in the globalization process in a competitive way. Both regions are competitive from the point of view of the crop production, as they have had the possibility to keep up with the production and even enhance it. The markets in which the product are sold are domestic and international, with a growing performance in the technical and economical fields. These hypothesis are proved and besides that it is proposed a comparative inter-regional competitiveness system based on defined criteria, which permits define which region is more competitive.

Essa tese tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de métricas para a mensuração dos fatores determinantes da competitividade da economia de países. Parte-se de uma noção estrutural e sistêmica da competitividade, baseada nos estudos de autores relacionados à teoria evolucionária do desenvolvimento econômico, para conceituar competitividade nacional como uma capacidade de os países gerarem competências que darão suporte a seu processo competitivo dinâmico. O debate sobre a criação de métricas de competitividade nacional vem sendo travado nas ciências econômicas e de gestão, e indicam a necessidade de incorporar a mensuração de fatores relacionados à dinâmica da competição no mercado internacional e, principalmente, seus determinantes. Dessa forma, esse trabalho se insere no debate sobre a dinâmica da competitividade nacional baseada em competências para a emergência de vantagens competitivas nas economias nacionais e setores industriais. A proposta aqui desenvolvida consiste na construção de um painel de métricas de indicadores organizado em dimensões de fatores que afetam o desenvolvimento de competências nos países. Metodologias de análise estatística multivariada de dados serão utilizadas para a análise dos dados e, por fim, análises comparativas baseadas em correlações canônicas serão feitas para testar sua validade. / This thesis aims to develop metrics to measure the determinants of competitiveness of national economies. It is based on a structural and systemic notion of competitiveness, based on the studies of authors related to the evolutionary theory of economic development, to conceptualize national competitiveness as the capacity of countries to generate capabilities that will support its dynamic competitive process. The debate on the creation of national competitiveness metrics has been caught in fields of economics and management, and indicates the need to incorporate the measurement of factors related to the dynamics of competition in the international market and especially its determinants. Thus, this work is part of the debate on the dynamics of national competitiveness based on capabilities for the emergence of competitive advantages in the domestic and industrial sectors of economies. The proposal developed here involves the construction of a spreadsheet of indicators organized into dimensions of factors that affect the development of capabilities for competitiveness in countries. Multivariate statistical methods are used to analyze the data and finally comparative analysis based on canonical correlations are made to test their validity. s, multivariate statistical analysis.

A competição no mercado internacional com os produtores mundiais, pode ser uma fonte de excelentes oportunidades ou de perigosas armadilhas, como o desafio de difícil solução, representado pelos produtores mundiais de calçados com baixos custos de mão-de-obra, por exemplo, os chineses. A grande maioria dos produtores brasileiros de calçados está estabelecida em clusters, como na Europa os produtores italianos de calçados estão estabelecidos nos \"distretti\". Essas concentrações geográficas de fabricantes são normalmente formadas por empresas de pequeno e médio porte, todas enfrentando o mesmo problema, pois o custo da mão-de-obra é um dos principais custos relativos às atividades das empresas em geral, e principalmente das que operam com a produção baseada na utilização intensiva de mão-de-obra. E mesmo possuindo bom nível de qualidade em seus produtos, estão enfrentando sérias dificuldades financeiras e operacionais, e assim podem permanecer até o encerramento de suas atividades; como tem acontecido, a menos que possam encontrar uma solução organizacional; uma estratégia competitiva que permita concorrerem nas oportunidades dos mercados mundiais sem sofrer as constantes derrotas comerciais impostas pelos produtores chineses. O principal objetivo do presente trabalho, foi propor estratégia competitiva para a indústria calçadista brasileira, por meio da investigação dos principais fatores que estão influenciando a competitividade dos produtores brasileiros no mercado internacional de calçados, principalmente as estratégias adotadas no cluster de Franca. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma indústria de mão-de-obra intensiva, no cluster produtivo de calçados de Franca - SP, completada com informações de pesquisa realizada em tipo de cluster similar na Itália, o cluster calçadista de Verona. (Distretto Calzaturiero di Verona). A proposta final sugere as ações gerenciais e ferramentas para os melhoramentos estratégicos mais adequadas para possibilitar às empresas e outros participantes do cluster, aperfeiçoarem seu preparo para participar da competição de âmbito mundial com maiores chances de sucesso. Estas ações e ferramentas são a base para a proposta de estratégia competitiva, um assunto original na forma como é abordada, pois na literatura especializada não foi encontrado nenhuma tese específica sobre o assunto. / The international market footwear competition against worldwide producers can be for instance, a source of good opportunities as well as a source of threats like the very hard challenge to solve, represented by the low labor costs producers, like the Chinese footwear producers. Almost all footwear Brazilian producers are established in clusters like in Europe, the Italian footwear producers are established in the \"distretti\". These geographic footwear producers concentrations\' are normally composed by small and medium firms, all facing the same problem, as a labor cost is one of the main costs regarding all enterprises activities and mainly in those productive processes based on intensive use of labor. And these firms, despite of produce excellent quality level products, are in serious financial and operational difficulties, and in this situation they could remain up to the end of their operations, fact occurring too much times, unless can be found an organizational solution, one corporative, and business strategy allowing them to compete in all the world business market opportunities without suffer from being continuously overcame by the Chinese producers. The main purpose of this thesis, was to prepare a competitive strategic proposal for Brazilian footwear Industry, by means investigation of the main factors influencing the Brazilian producers\' competitiveness in the international footwear market, mainly the strategies adopted in the cluster of Franca. The research was performed in the intensive labor industry, the footwear industry, in the productive footwear cluster of Franca, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, completed with information from research in similar cluster\'s type in Italy, the footwear cluster of Verona (Distretto Calzaturiero di Verona). The final proposal, suggests the most suited managerial actions and tools, to strategic improvements, in order to make the firms and others actors in the clusters improve their skills to better play the game, and have much more chances to win. These actions and tools are the base for a strategic proposal , an original issue, since in the literature was not found any thesis specific about the subject.

The diploma thesis examines the development of the competitiveness of Czech Republic since 2000 by means of measurable and comprehensive indicators. The first two chapters generate the theoretical basis for following analysis. In the first chapter is defined the concept of competitiveness at the macroeconomic level. The second chapter deals with methods and principles of measuring competitiveness, which are applied to economy of Czech Republic. First is examined the export performance and its development in the new millennium. Following is analyzed the indicators of cost competitiveness compared with EU member states. Eventually are described evaluation results of the World Economic Forum and the International Institute for Management Development.

Au cours de ces dernières décennies, le concept de la compétitivité s'est établi comme un mot-clé important dans la vie sociale, à l’échelle micro-économique et surtout macro-économique. Au regard d’une mondialisation grandissante et de l'expansion des marchés mondiaux, la compétitivité peut quelque fois se limiter à l’aspect purement économique et commercial. Alors que l’examen des différents défis économiques, sociaux et environnementaux qui préoccupent de nos jours l’humanité conduit à reconsidérer les modèles d’évaluation de la croissance économique adoptée, à reconnaitre leurs limites et à apporter un jugement critique sur l’évaluation de la compétitivité. Ce travail se propose donc d’explorer quelques possibilités de l’intégration contemporaine de principes « éthiques » dans le concept de la compétitivité macroéconomique. Prenant en compte la dynamique du concept de la compétitivité, la thèse analyse l’histoire et l’évolution de cette notion. L’analyse engage alors une approche théorique, ensuite une étude comparée des différents indices d’évaluation de la compétitivité. L’objectif est d’examiner comment des principes éthiques peuvent être intégrés pour la mesure et l’évaluation de la compétitivité des pays, c’est-à-dire comment elle pourrait être évaluée au-delà du PIB et des résultats commerciaux et comment elle rejoint également la préoccupation pour les inégalités, la pauvreté, le changement climatique dans des domaines aussi différents que la santé, l’éducation, l’eau et l’agriculture …Les objectifs de la Charia (Maqasid Charia) constituent une assise convenable pour construire un nouvel indice de compétitivité éthique, permettant ainsi la contribution de différents pays, même non musulmans, à chacun des objectifs de la Charia. / Throughout the past decades, competitiveness was established as an important concept in social life, at micro and especially macro levels. With globalization and the expansion of global markets, competitiveness can sometimes be limited to purely economic and commercial dimensions. While examining various current economic, social and environmental challenges that affect today’s economy and humanity, the thesis reconsiders the economic growth assessment models adopted, to recognize their limits and put forward critical judgment on the assessment of competitiveness. This study develops, therefore, an exploration of some possibilities of contemporary integration of "ethical" principles into the concept of macroeconomic competitiveness.Taking into account the dynamics of the concept of competitiveness, the thesis analyzes the history and evolution of this concept. The analysis puts forward a theoretical approach, followed by a comparative study of different indices for assessing competitiveness. The aim is to examine how ethical principles are integrated to measure countries' competitiveness. That is, how competitiveness could be evaluated beyond the GDP and trade outcomes and that it also incorporates the measures of inequality, poverty, climate change, health, education, water, agriculture etc. The objectives of Shariah (Maqasid al Shariah) present a suitable foundation to build a new ethical competitiveness index that measures countries’ contribution to the objectives of the Shariah.

Essa tese tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de métricas para a mensuração dos fatores determinantes da competitividade da economia de países. Parte-se de uma noção estrutural e sistêmica da competitividade, baseada nos estudos de autores relacionados à teoria evolucionária do desenvolvimento econômico, para conceituar competitividade nacional como uma capacidade de os países gerarem competências que darão suporte a seu processo competitivo dinâmico. O debate sobre a criação de métricas de competitividade nacional vem sendo travado nas ciências econômicas e de gestão, e indicam a necessidade de incorporar a mensuração de fatores relacionados à dinâmica da competição no mercado internacional e, principalmente, seus determinantes. Dessa forma, esse trabalho se insere no debate sobre a dinâmica da competitividade nacional baseada em competências para a emergência de vantagens competitivas nas economias nacionais e setores industriais. A proposta aqui desenvolvida consiste na construção de um painel de métricas de indicadores organizado em dimensões de fatores que afetam o desenvolvimento de competências nos países. Metodologias de análise estatística multivariada de dados serão utilizadas para a análise dos dados e, por fim, análises comparativas baseadas em correlações canônicas serão feitas para testar sua validade. / This thesis aims to develop metrics to measure the determinants of competitiveness of national economies. It is based on a structural and systemic notion of competitiveness, based on the studies of authors related to the evolutionary theory of economic development, to conceptualize national competitiveness as the capacity of countries to generate capabilities that will support its dynamic competitive process. The debate on the creation of national competitiveness metrics has been caught in fields of economics and management, and indicates the need to incorporate the measurement of factors related to the dynamics of competition in the international market and especially its determinants. Thus, this work is part of the debate on the dynamics of national competitiveness based on capabilities for the emergence of competitive advantages in the domestic and industrial sectors of economies. The proposal developed here involves the construction of a spreadsheet of indicators organized into dimensions of factors that affect the development of capabilities for competitiveness in countries. Multivariate statistical methods are used to analyze the data and finally comparative analysis based on canonical correlations are made to test their validity. s, multivariate statistical analysis.

Esta tese discute as duas novas regiões brasileiras de fronteira agrícola, Balsas no Maranhão e Barreiras na Bahia, onde se produz soja. A discussão se dá entorno da cultura da soja, agindo como vetor da formação sócio-espacial de novas regiões de produção agrícola. As particularidades desta tese e o novo, estão no fato que a formação dessas duas regiões ocorre no período técnico-científico e informacional, inserindo-as no processo de globalização de forma competitiva. As duas regiões são competitivas, do ponto de vista da produção agrícola, pois tem tido a possibilidade de manter e aumentar sua produção de soja, tanto domesticamente quanto internacionalmente, melhorando cada vez mais sua performance técnica e econômica. Essas hipóteses são provadas, além de se propor um sistema de comparação de competitividade inter-regional, baseado em critérios definidos, que possibilta graduar qual região é mais competitiva que a outra. / This thesis discusses two new Brazilian agricultural frontiers. These frontiers, where soy-bean is produced are: Balsas in Maranhão and Barreiras in Bahia. The discussion takes place around the soy-bean crop, that acts as a vector of the socio-spatial formation of new crop producing regions. The particularities of this thesis and the novelty relay on the fact that the formation of these two regions occurs in the technical-scientific period. These regions are inserted in the globalization process in a competitive way. Both regions are competitive from the point of view of the crop production, as they have had the possibility to keep up with the production and even enhance it. The markets in which the product are sold are domestic and international, with a growing performance in the technical and economical fields. These hypothesis are proved and besides that it is proposed a comparative inter-regional competitiveness system based on defined criteria, which permits define which region is more competitive.

L’industrie européenne demeure la base du dynamisme économique del’Union. Cependant, on peut difficilement considérer qu’à ce jour l’UE mène unevéritable politique de compétitivité internationale permettant de soutenir son industrie.L’objet de cette thèse est d’évaluer le « manque à gagner » dont souffre l’Union enraison de sa passivité. Le premier chapitre introduit les principes de la politiqueindustrielle et examine les facteurs de blocage et les échecs de l’Union, dans le butd’expliquer l’absence d’une politique industrielle active. Le second chapitre étudie lapolitique de la concurrence ainsi que la politique commerciale, qui semblent avoirconsidérablement limité la mise en place d’une telle politique industrielle au sein del’UE. Le troisième chapitre revient sur le rôle de la politique des clusters sur lacompétitivité des entreprises européennes. Enfin, le dernier chapitre de cette thèses’intéresse au renouveau de la politique industrielle. Après avoir remis en questionl’idée d’un patriotisme industriel européen, l’objectif de ce chapitre est d’étudier lesperspectives d’une stratégie industrielle en soutien à la croissance de long terme, etcelles d’une politique industrielle verte. / While the economic dynamism of the European Union relies on itsindustry, one can hardly consider that the EU is currently pursuing a real internationalcompetitiveness policy to support it. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the shortfallafflicting the EU because of its passive approach. The first chapter of this thesisintroduces the principles of industrial policy and examines a number of factors andfailures impeding its application, to explain the absence of an active industrial policy.The second chapter examines the EU competition policy, as well as its trade policy,which have considerably limited the implementation of such an industrial policywithin the EU. The third chapter describes the role of cluster policy oncompetitiveness of European firms. Finally, the fourth chapter discusses the renewalof industrial policy. After reviewing the hypothesis of a European industrialpatriotism, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the prospects of an industrialstrategy to support long-term growth, and those of a green industrial policy.