Manufacturing industries have adopted globalization as a strategy to improve the reach of their products/services, bringing them closer to the customer and utilizing the cost advantage in emerging economies, better availability of resources such as raw materials, and cheaper workforce. However, with globalization came a fair share of obstacles in effectively managing the operations of a complex supply chain network spread across the globe. Failure of manufacturing firms in controlling their operations has led to a generation of wastes such as underutilization of resources, inefficient by-product disposal systems, and increased emissions from poorly managed logistics networks. Research on understanding the environmental impact of ineffectively managed supply chain networks shows that industrial operations contribute up to 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions creating a serious impact on the environment.  Realizing these adverse effects, many countries across the globe have taken steps to regulate and monitor the operations and by-products produced by manufacturing firms. Multiple countries and local governments have come together to become environmentally more responsible through encouraging sustainability initiatives. They have laid more stringent regulations to pressure the manufacturing firms to transform into more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint. Moreover, the manufacturing firms are also experiencing pressure from local governments and private NGOs. With increasing awareness of sustainability, customers have also slowly started transforming towards sustainable products and boycotting products from firms that do not comply with sustainability standards. Consequently, manufacturing firms have realized the need to become more sustainable in order to adapt to the changing regulations and customer needs. To achieve the level of sustainability in their supply chain operations, manufacturing firms have adopted innovative strategies and made changes in their policies making sustainability one of their prime goals. To achieve the desired level of sustainability, firms need to transform their current ways by incorporating a sustainability perspective into their operations. However, integrating sustainability at the operations level is not as easy as said due to existing governance gaps which are a result of ineffective control and management in global supply chain networks.  This thesis aims at identifying, understanding, and analyzing the gaps in integrating sustainability into supply chains and providing suggestions on how to fulfill these gaps. Through this research three innovative sustainability strategies which can be applied at operational, organizational, and system levels are analyzed, and conclusions are drawn on how successful implementation of these strategies would help in fulfilling the governance gaps. Further, the research also analyses the plausible effects of implementing the strategies by understanding and comparing the firm performance before and after implementation. The firm performance is measured in three categories: environmental performance, operational performance, and financial performance.

No description available.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Historically, the cooperatives are configured as collective arrangements with direct action on the needs of their associates. The cooperative system is expressive in both economic and social aspects, however, it is noticeable that the sector is undergoing a restructuring, given the downward trend in the number of enterprises, and especially in Rio Grande do Sul, where it has decreased of 31% from 2010 to 2013. This reduction in agricultural sector accounted for 14% in the same time period, which reinforces a need for readjustment of the management and governance system in agricultural cooperatives. Whether in literature or in the cooperative sector, it is a recurring approach that the opportunism and the lack of loyalty of members are the central problems faced by cooperatives. These organizations, without the loyalty of members, while they lose the sense of their existence, they also lose the operational and scale efficiency which puts the enterprise in disadvantage in its operating segment. For this thesis context and according to Williamson s approach, the governance is shaped by means of norms, rules, contracts, monitoring and incentives, to guarantee the continuity of a transaction in which potential conflicts threaten the achievement of cooperation. The loyalty of associates to the cooperative is understood as being the main characteristic of the cooperation. Thus, this thesis debates the relationship between the governance adopted by the cooperatives and the loyalty of members. Therefore, it was aimed to analyze gaps in governance of agricultural cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul and their relationship on the loyalty of associates. This thesis was based upon the New Institutional Economics (NIE) approach: Property Rights, Agency Theory and Transaction Cost Economics. To perform this research, qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The qualitative phase consisted of in-depth interviews with experts in cooperatives. The information was categorized and examined through the technique of content analysis. The quantitative phase was characterized by a questionnaire sent to the agricultural cooperatives of Rio Grande do Sul. Descriptive and multivariate statistics were used. In the multivariate statistics case a factor analysis was performed, so that the sets of factors that influence the loyalty of members could be identified. Afterwards, regression analysis allowed to verify the direction and the intensity of the impact of these factors on loyalty. The main results pointed out that the governance adopted by the cooperatives is not the most efficient, i.e., governance and the offered incentives do not minimize transaction costs in order to maintain (and increase) the loyalty of members with the cooperative. Thus, a conceptual model was proposed for the gaps in governance. The model embraces six dimensions: Contractual Gaps; Operational Gaps; Communication Gaps; Management Gaps; Audit Gaps and Immediate Benefits Offer Gaps. The quantitative analysis indicated that the higher the Audit Committee Effectiveness it tends to be higher the loyalty of members, with about 17% of loyalty explained by the effectiveness of the audit board. / Historicamente, as cooperativas se configuraram como arranjos coletivos com atuação direta nas necessidades de seus associados. O sistema cooperativo é expressivo tanto nos aspectos econômicos como sociais, no entanto, percebe-se que o setor vem passando por uma reestruturação, haja vista a tendência de redução no número de empreendimentos, especialmente no Rio Grande do Sul, onde se teve um decréscimo de 31% de 2010 para 2013. No ramo agropecuário essa redução representou 14% no mesmo período, o que reforça uma necessidade de readequação do sistema de gestão e da governança nas cooperativas agropecuárias. Recorrente é a abordagem, seja na literatura ou no setor cooperativista, de que as ações oportunísticas e a falta de fidelidade dos associados são problemas centrais que as cooperativas enfrentam. Sem a fidelidade do cooperado, estas organizações, ao mesmo tempo em que perdem o sentido da sua existência, perdem em eficiência operacional e de escala, o que coloca o empreendimento em desvantagem no segmento de atuação. Para o contexto dessa tese, e a partir da abordagem de Williamson, a governança é a forma de, por meio de normas, regras, contratos, monitoramentos e incentivos, se garantir a continuidade de uma transação, na qual conflitos potenciais ameaçam a realização da cooperação. A fidelidade dos associados para com a cooperativa é entendida como sendo a principal característica da cooperação. Assim, esta tese versa sobre a relação da governança adotada pelas cooperativas com a fidelização dos cooperados. Dessa forma, objetivou-se analisar as falhas de governança de cooperativas agropecuárias do Rio Grande do Sul e suas relações com a fidelidade dos cooperados. Como fundamentação, foram utilizadas as abordagens teóricas da Nova Economia Institucional (NEI): Direitos de Propriedade, Teoria da Agência e Economia dos Custos de Transação. Para a operacionalização da pesquisa, foram utilizados métodos quantitativos e qualitativos. A fase qualitativa consistiu na realização de entrevistas em profundidade com experts em cooperativismo. As informações foram categorizadas e trabalhadas por meio da técnica de análise de conteúdo. A fase quantitativa caracterizou-se pelo envio de questionário para as cooperativas agropecuárias do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram utilizadas estatísticas descritivas e multivariadas. No caso das multivariadas, realizou-se a análise fatorial, para que se pudesse identificar os conjuntos de fatores que influenciam na fidelidade dos cooperados. Posteriormente, a análise de regressão permitiu verificar o sentido e a intensidade do impacto dos fatores na fidelidade. Os principais resultados apontaram que a governança adotada pelas cooperativas não é a mais eficiente, ou seja, a governança e os incentivos oferecidos não minimizam os custos de transação, de forma a se manter (e aumentar) a fidelidade dos sócios com a cooperativa. Assim, propôs-se um modelo conceitual para as falhas de governança. O modelo abrange seis dimensões: Falhas Contratuais; Falhas Operacionais; Falhas de Comunicação; Falhas de Gestão; Falhas de Fiscalização e Falhas na Oferta de Benefícios Imediatos. A análise quantitativa indicou que quanto maior a Efetividade do Conselho Fiscal , maior tende a ser a fidelidade dos cooperados, sendo que cerca de 17% da fidelidade é explicada pela efetividade do conselho fiscal.