Tentar entender porque algumas empresas têm melhor desempenho que outras é uma questão que pode auxiliar na compreensão do potencial existente em determinado setor. Um importante arcabouço teórico da estratégia que subsidia condições para este tipo de análise é a Teoria Baseada em Recursos ou da Visão Baseada em Recursos - VBR. Ela propõe o entendimento dos fatores-chave de sucesso que levam as organizações a adquirir vantagens competitivas pelo conjunto de habilidades e rotinas essenciais e pela coerência entre habilidades e know-how de propriedade única. Nesse contexto o objetivo da pesquisa foi de levantar e analisar, a partir da teoria da Visão Baseada em Recursos, quais são os recursos estratégicos e a sua influência no desempenho das propriedades rurais no setor leiteiro. Para alcançar esse objetivo foi realizada uma etapa de entrevista com especialistas no setor leiteiro no Brasil e na França onde foram levantados os recursos considerados estratégicos pelos especialistas e discutidas informações importantes sobre medidas de desempenho em propriedades leiteiras. Posteriormente foram realizadas entrevistas com 199 produtores de leite na bacia leiteira do estado de Pernambuco. A partir desses dados foram realizadas as análises: Fatorial, de Cluster e Regressão Múltipla. Observou-se que no caso das propriedades produtoras de leite os recursos mais importantes foram os Recursos Organizacionais, Humanos e Físicos, respectivamente. Esse resultado difere das empresas urbano industriais ao invés do destaque nos recursos físicos é observado o recurso tecnológico. O destaque fica com os Recursos Organizacionais e Humanos que além de muito relacionados são destaque no sucesso dos empreendimentos agropecuários de produção leiteira. Os indicadores mais importantes foram os indicadores de gestão do rebanho, gestão de custos, produtividade dos animais, produtividade da terra, formação, abertura a novidades (via treinamentos e viagens), mostrando fazer a diferença entre os grupos com melhor rendimento e os com pior. Contudo, um elemento considerado essencial: a reserva alimentar se relacionou negativamente com a renda, provavelmente porque a reserva é mal planejada e insuficiente para dar conta dos períodos de estiagem, bem como pode gerar certa acomodação por parte dos produtores em não investir em outros aspectos alimentares que garantam os ganhos em todos os períodos, inclusive os de estiagem. Desta forma os resultados elucidam aspectos interessantes e emergem novas proposições de pesquisa com diferentes níveis de aprofundamento para o entendimento dessas questões mais qualitativas e possível investigação em diferentes cadeias produtivas. / In trying to understand why some companies have better performance than others is a question that can help understand the potential existing in a given sector. An important theoretical framework of the strategy subsidizing conditions for this kind of analysis is the Resource-Based Theory or Resource-Based View – RBV. It proposes the understanding of success key-factors that lead organizations to gain competitive advantages by the set of skills, essential routines and consistency between skills and individual know-how. The aim of this study was to search and analyze, from the Resource-Based View theory, the strategic resources and their influence on the performance of farms in the dairy sector. In order to reach this goal, were carried out interviews with experts of the dairy sector in Brazil and France in which the resources considered strategic by the experts were surveyed and important situations on performance evaluation in dairy properties were discussed. Then, interviews with 199 milk producers in the dairy region of Pernambuco state were conducted. From these data, the Factorial, Cluster and Multiple Regression Analyses were done. It was observed that, in the case of dairy properties, the organizational, human and physical resources, respectively, were the most important ones. This result differs from the urban industrial companies; instead of highlighting the physical resources, the technological are considered. The organizational and human resources are highlighted, which, besides being related, are important for the success of farming enterprises of milk production. The herd and cost management, animals and land productivity, training and opening to new aspects (via training and travel) were the most important indicators, showing that they make the difference between the groups with the best and the worst performance. However, an essential element, the food reserve, was negatively correlated with income, probably because the reserve is poorly planned and insufficient to account for the periods of droughts, as well as it can generate some accommodation of farmers in not investing in other food aspects which may ensure gains in all periods, including drought. Thus, the results elucidate interesting aspects, giving rise to new research proposals with different levels of depth for the understanding of those more qualitative questions and a possible investigation in different production chains.

Arquitetura de software desempenha um importante papel no desenvolvimento de software, quando explicitamente documentada, ela melhora o entendimento sobre o sistema implementado e torna possível entender a forma com que requisitos não funcionais são tratados. Apesar da relevância da arquitetura de software, muitos sistemas não possuem uma arquitetura documentada, e nos casos em que a arquitetura existe, ela pode estar desatualizada por causa da evolução descontrolada do software. O processo de recuperação de arquitetura de um sistema depende principalmente do conhecimento que as pessoas envolvidas com o software tem. Isso acontece porque a recuperação de arquitetura é uma tarefa que demanda muita investigação manual do código fonte. Pesquisas sobre recuperação de arquitetura objetivam auxiliar esse processo. A maioria dos métodos de recuperação existentes são baseados em dependência entre elementos da arquitetura, padrões arquiteturais ou similaridade semântica do código fonte. Embora as abordagem atuais ajudem na identi cação de módulos arquiteturais, os resultados devem ser melhorados de forma signi cativa para serem considerados con áveis. Então, nesta dissertação, objetivamos melhorar o suporte a recuperação de arquitetura explorando diferentes fontes de informação e técnicas de aprendizado de máquina. Nosso trabalho consiste de uma análise, considerando cinco estudo de casos, da utilidade de usar um conjunto de características de código (features, no contexto de aprendizado de máquina) para agrupar elementos em módulos da arquitetura. Atualmente não são conhecidas as características que afetam a identificação de papéis na arquitetura de software. Por isso, nós avaliamos a relação entre diferentes conjuntos de características e a acurácia obtida por um algoritmo não supervisionado na identificação de módulos da arquitetura. Consequentemente, nós entendemos quais dessas características revelam informação sobre a organização de papéis do código fonte. Nossa abordagem usando características de elementos de software atingiu uma acurácia média significativa. Indicando a relevância das informações selecionadas para recuperar a arquitetura. Além disso, nós desenvolvemos uma ferramenta para auxílio ao processo de recuperação de arquitetura de software. Nossa ferramenta tem como principais funções a avaliação da recuperação de arquitetura e apresentação de diferentes visualizações arquiteturais. Para isso, apresentamos comparações entre a arquitetura concreta e a arquitetura sugerida. / Software architecture plays an important role in the software development, and when explicitly documented, it allows understanding an implemented system and reasoning about how non-functional requirements are addressed. In spite of that, many developed systems lack proper architecture documentation, and if it exists, it may be outdated due to software evolution. The process of recovering the architecture of a system depends mainly on developers' knowledge requiring a manual inspection of the source code. Research on architecture recovery provides support to this process. Most of the existing approaches are based on architectural elements dependency, architectural patterns or source code semantics, but even though they help identifying architectural modules, the obtained results must be signi cantly improved to be considered reliable. We thus aim to support this task by the exploitation of di erent code-oriented information and machine learning techniques. Our work consists of an analysis, involving ve case studies, of the usefulness of adopting a set of code-level characteristics (or features, in the machine learning terminology) to group elements into architectural modules. The characteristics mainly source code metrics that a ect the identi cation of what role software elements play in software architecture are unknown. Then, we evaluate the relationship between di erent sets of characteristics and the accuracy achieved by an unsupervised algorithm the Expectation Maximization in identifying architectural modules. Consequently, we are able to understand which of those characteristics reveal information about the source code structure. By the use of code-oriented information, our approach achieves a signi cant average accuracy, which indicates the importance of the selected information to recover software architecture. Additionally, we provide a tool to support research on architecture recovery providing software architecture measurements and visualizations. It presents comparisons between predicted architectures and concrete architectures.

The aim of this thesis was to better understand English as second language Nigerian children’s reading comprehension attainment, the first such study to be conducted in Nigeria. In the thesis three studies were conducted to investigate the influence of cognitive and decoding/reading skills on the children’s reading comprehension attainment, namely the preliminary study (Chapter-3) with one primary school in Nigeria, the main study (Chapter-4) with 13 state-run primary schools, and the control study (Chapter-5) including four primary schools in London, respectively. It was found that English as second language children’s reading comprehension performance is significantly influenced by cognitive, decoding and chronological age. The development of cognitive skills which is necessary for success in reading comprehension development is also dependent upon chronological age. That is, age-related increase in cognitive skills brings about increased engagement and more efficient reading comprehension attainment in the children. The normal cognitive development of the children had a positive role also on the children’s performance on language tests necessary for text comprehension. The study found that school socioeconomic background played a significant impact in the performance of Nigerian English as second language children – the better the socioeconomic background of the school the higher the reading comprehension attainment of the children. Furthermore gender was not a factor in the performance and development of reading comprehension by English as Second Language Nigerian children. This implies that parents, teachers and schools motivate and support children irrespective of being boys or girls to realise their full potentials without any discrimination. Having reviewed few theories of reading acquisition/development, the Simple view of reading (SVR) was found to be more appropriate for adoption in this study of Nigerian English as second language children’s reading comprehension attainment. The theory postulates that text comprehension is achieved when children have decoding skills and linguistic comprehension knowledge. The results obtained in Chapters 3 and 4 were in line with the Simple view of reading’s assertion – text comprehension depends on decoding and cognitive skills.

A internacionalização das empresas as coloca em frente a desafios e situações de adaptação e de intensa competitividade. As estratégias e os recursos organizacionais são afetados pelo processo de internacionalização, trazendo um efeito deste movimento internacional sobre a organização e seus recursos, promovendo uma desacomodação no dia a dia das empresas, exigindo uma readequação e consequente busca por retorno à estabilidade produtiva. A presente pesquisa propõe um framework para identificar e analisar as modificações nos recursos estratégicos resultantes do processo de internacionalização de uma empresa, ao longo do tempo, objetivando contribuir para o entendimento destes fatores que fundamentam a internacionalização a luz da teoria da Visão Baseada em Recursos. A análise dos diferentes modelos e teorias contemporâneos, juntamente com os resultados obtidos na pesquisa empírica, permite concluir que nas empresas estudadas, os recursos estratégicos sofreram modificações alterando suas características de valor, raridade, difícil imitação e difícil substituição durante o seu processo de internacionalização. Estas modificações foram promovidas por decisões históricas e pela entrada de novos conhecimentos, portanto, para que a empresa tenha êxito, seus recursos estratégicos devem ser trabalhados, por um lado o aprendizado, instrumentalizado pela capacidade absortiva e, por outro lado, os eventos históricos, que podem reforçar ou retirar o caráter estratégico dos recursos. Embora não seja possível generalizar as análises e considerações a partir do estudo de casos, estas poderão fornecer subsídios para empresas que estão ou pretendem entrar num processo de internacionalização. / The process of globalization and the internationalization of companies place them ahead of new challenges and of situations of adaptation of intense competitiveness. Organizational strategies and resources are affected by the internationalization process, affecting the organization path and its resources; creating a discomfort on daily basis for these companies and forcing a re-arrangement and a constant search for productive stability. The present research proposes a framework which identifies and analyzes the modifications in the strategic resources resulting from the process of internationalization of a company that, throughout time, look to contribute for the understanding of these factors which are studied through the Resourcebased View theory. The analysis of the different contemporary models and theories, together with the results obtained in the empirical research, allows concluding that in the studied companies, the strategic resources have suffered modifications, altering their value characteristics, rarity, difficult imitation and difficult substitution during their process of internationalization. These modifications had been promoted by historical decisions and by the entrance of new knowledge but, to enhance any success of the companies, their strategic resources they must be worked out, on one hand, through learning, instrumented by an out-in absorptive capacity and, on the other hand, by historical events, that can strengthen or weaken the strategic character of the resources. Although it is not possible to generalize the analysis and the considerations from the cases, they will be able to furnish insights for companies who are or intend to enter in an internationalization process.

O emprego da noção de competência seja na perspectiva do individuo ou na perspectiva organizacional, ainda é marcado por uma grande heterogeneidade no que se refere às definições, conceitos e classificações de competência, especialmente quando se trata de pensar competência na perspectiva organizacional. Uma das questões que parece estar no centro deste debate é que, apesar da aparente simplicidade do conceito de competência organizacional, sua utilização nas organizações tem sido considerada relativamente complexa, já que a aplicação deste conceito não aceitaria um tratamento homogêneo e unidimensional, condição que em geral acompanha a apropriação das práticas gerenciais mais difundidas entre as organizações. Visando contribuir com novas referências para este debate, este trabalho teve como objetivo identificar e analisar as evidências relacionadas à aplicação do conceito de competência organizacional em uma empresa industrial do setor automotivo. Para tanto, após a revisão teórica, foi estruturado um framework na tentativa de sistematizar diferentes percepções acerca do conceito de competência organizacional e sua relação com a lógica estratégia das empresas, uma vez que este conceito se desenvolve na dimensão estratégica das organizações. Utilizando este framework como direcionador da pesquisa realizou-se um estudo de caso na empresa Marcopolo S.A. Participaram da coleta de dados, através de entrevistas semi-estruturadas, dois diretores e dois gerentes, além de três fornecedores parceiros da empresa. Foram analisados, além das entrevistas, documentos da empresa disponíveis no site e outros fornecidos pela mesma, assim como informações obtidas em entidades do setor automobilístico e trabalhos acadêmicos realizados anteriormente na empresa. Como resultado encontrou-se evidencias de que o conceito de competência, na dimensão estratégica da organização, não está sendo aplicado na sua totalidade como descrito na literatura. Contudo, foram constatados vários pontos em comum entre o framework aqui proposto e a aplicação do conceito de competência na elaboração da lógica estratégica da Marcopolo S.A. / The use of the competence concept either on the individual perspective or on the organizational perspective is still characterized by great heterogeneity in regards to the definitions, concepts, and classifications of competence, especially when referring to thinking competence on the organizational perspective. One of the topics that seem to be the core of this discussion is that despite the apparent simplicity of the organizational competence concept, its use in the organizations has been considered relatively complex, since the application of this concept would not accept an homogeneous and unidimentional approach, condition that usually is associated with the appropriation of the most used management practices among organizations. Aiming at bringing new references to this discussion, this work was developed in order to identify and analyze the evidence related to the application of the organizational competence concept in one industrial company of the automotive sector. In order to do that, after the theoretical review, a framework was created to attempt to classify different views concerning the organizational competence concept and its relation to the company’s strategic logic, as this concept occurs at the strategic dimension of the organization. A case study was carried out at Marcopolo S.A company using this framework as the basis. Two directors, two managers, as well as three suppliers of the company have participated of the data collection through semi-structured interviews. The interviews, the documents provided by the company as well as documents available on their website, the information collected from the automotive sector, and some academic projects previously carried out in the company were analyzed. As a result, the evidence demonstrated that the concept of competence at the strategic dimension of the organization is not being applied in its totality as described in the literature. However, several similarities were verified between the proposed framework and the application of the concept of competence on the preparation of the Marcopolo S.A.’s strategic logic.

abstract: Grounded in the relational view of leadership, this dissertation explores the dynamics of the leader/follower relationship in the context of a collective using a social networks approach. Specifically, I build on DeRue and Ashford’s (2010) work that focuses on dynamic, socially constructed leadership relationships within a dyad to focus on such relationships within a collective. In doing so, I conceptualize collective leader endorsement – receiving a grant of leader identity from a collective of followers – and examine the implications of collective leader endorsement. As a dynamic relationship, collective leader endorsement can change as individuals give and receive grants of leader identity. I draw on relational models of leadership theory and appraisal theory to examine how contextual situations (i.e., identity jolts) prompt change in collective leader endorsement at the network level and how such change can influence individual functioning at the individual level. As a socially constructed relationship, collective leader endorsement creates the potential for disagreement among members of the collective regarding grants of leader identity. I draw on social comparison theory and appraisal theory to suggest that agreement (or lack thereof) can influence the individual’s perceived demands and overall functioning within the collective. Using data from 106 individuals on a collegiate football team in the United States over 12 consecutive weeks, I find significant changes in collective leader endorsement and the associated leadership network over the course of the season. Specifically, I find that challenging situations prompted a reevaluation of leader identities and shifted the patterns within the leadership network. In addition, change in an individual’s level of collective leader endorsement prompted additional perceived demands and lowered well-being. This relationship was attenuated if the individual had a supportive coach to help him cope with additional leadership demands. Finally, (lack of) agreement regarding the individual’s leader identity also influenced the individual’s well-being. Specifically, the individual experienced enhanced perceived demands (and associated lower well-being) if the individual’s perception of who should receive grants of leader identity was incongruent with the collective’s perception of collective leader endorsement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2018

abstract: For the last 10 years, the American Southwest has been experiencing the most persistent drought conditions on record. Based on future climactic predictions, there is a dire need to reduce water usage within Phoenix. An environmentally responsible behavior such as low water use landscaping (xeriscaping), has been shown to reduce household water consumption by 40%-70%. While much is known regarding the relationship between socio-demographics and xeriscaping choices, the influence of other variables remains to be explored. Using data from the 2017 Phoenix Area Social Survey, this study investigates the influence of two additional variables - ecological worldview and place identity on xeriscaping choice. Data was analyzed using two models - Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Linear Probability Model (LPM). Ecological worldview and place identity, along with income, ethnicity, and gender, were all found to be positively related to xeriscape preference. Additionally, when compared to the LPM, the traditional OLS was found to still be the most robust and appropriate model when measuring landscape preference. Finally, results suggested that programs to foster identity with the local desert mountain parks may help to increase xeriscaping in the Valley and thus lower residential water use. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Community Resources and Development 2018

Corporate acquisitions can provide an effective mechanism for maintaining growth in conditions of technological uncertainty, but typically suffer very high failure rates. This thesis presents a resource-based framework for analysing corporate acquisitions in times of rapid technological change. The thesis discusses how such acquisitions can be used to access resources that are of immediate use, but also enhance the acquirer's ability to access resources in the future.

Orientador: Maria Clara Bonetti Paro / Banca: Carlos Daghlian / Banca: Márcia Valéria Zamboni Gobbi / Banca: Alcides Cardoso dos Santos / Resumo: Esta tese discute o caráter feminista da obra de Kate Chopin (1851-1904) ao abordar determinados aspectos da condição da mulher do final do século XIX, principalmente no que diz respeito a temas como casamento, família, liberdade, trabalho, submissão e emancipação. A escritora americana levanta questões polêmicas sobre a identidade da mulher, por meio da caracterização das personagens femininas na narrativa, quer em situações ligadas à identidade social, quer em relacionamentos amorosos. Embora, muitas vezes, utilize-se de recursos que, aparentemente, negam uma discussão direta a respeito dessas questões, Kate Chopin acaba revelando seu descontentamento com as opressões sofridas pela mulher, quase sempre associadas às diferenças sexuais e às tradições e cria, para isso, uma estrutura narrativa em que a luta pela identidade feminina se faz presente, seja de forma explícita ou indireta. Além de um estudo aprofundado da temática dos contos, são observados e analisados, entre outras coisas, elementos textuais importantes como o foco narrativo, a caracterização e representação das personagens (principalmente as femininas), bem como as relações de tempo e espaço e o uso da ironia. A crítica literária feminista, mais especificamente a Ginocrítica, que tem Elaine Showalter como principal representante, também faz parte do referencial teórico da tese. / Abstract: The present study aims to discuss Kate Chopin's (1851-1904) feminist view about some aspects related to the condition of women at the end of the nineteenth century, especially concerning themes such as marriage, family, freedom, work, submission and emancipation. The American writer raises these polemic issues about feminine identity through the character's representation in the narrative, as in situations related to social identity, as when they are involved in love relationships. Although she has often used narrative devices that apparently deny a direct discussion of these questions, Kate Chopin reveals her dissatisfaction with the oppression suffered by women, due to sexual differences and traditional values, creating a narrative structure in which the struggle for a feminine identity is presented, explicitly or implicitly. Thus, besides an analysis of the themes in Chopin's short stories, some important devices are observed, such as point of view, character portrayal (mainly the feminine ones), as well as time and space relations and the use of irony. Feminist criticism, especially Elaine Showalter's Ginocritics, is also used as part of theoretical framework. / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-16T14:49:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArquivoTotal.pdf: 2469347 bytes, checksum: 0f09cd68d7b187cb3b07a7239749c940 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research aims to analyze the characteristics of innovation strategies adopted by Embrapa, from the perspective of resource-based view. Therefore, as the methodological procedures, were adopted the interpretive paradigm, the qualitative approach, the descriptive study and the method used was the case study. The company studied was Embrapa and between their units were selected six. For the procedure of data collection were used primary and secondary data, direct observation and a set of interviews applied to twelve subjects. The analysis was based on the interpretation of interview transcripts and institutional documents and divided into categories. The categories were previously selected and based on the three specific objectives: to identify the innovation strategies adopted by Embrapa; investigate what resources and capabilities are exploited by Embrapa that enable the development of innovation strategies identified, and; evaluate resources and capabilities that have potential to generate sustainable competitive advantages. As a result, it was possible to identify thirteen different types of innovation strategy, but the offensive strategies of innovation and partnership were considered preponderant at Embrapa. The human, physical and technological resources were indicated as the most used to support the strategies identified. Finally, in the last specific goal, eight features could be considered strategic because they have gone through VRIO model, considered thus as valuable, rare, hard to imitate and explored by the organization: bank assets, genetic resources, the 47 units, geographical dispersion, qualification of employees, release technologies, reputation and positive image of Embrapa. It was concluded that it is possible to implement satisfactorily, into a single enterprise, different types of innovation strategies, even with conflicting characteristics. Furthermore, it became clear in the analysis the lack of knowledge and the difficulty of identifying the resources and capabilities of the company, by employees interviewed. / A Organização das Nações Unidas (UNU) afirma que a população mundial deve chegar a 9 bilhões em 38 anos, de forma que a necessidade de aumento da produção de alimentos será de aproximadamente 60%. O Brasil, devido ao seu desempenho no agronegócio, é apontado como um país capaz de oferecer 50% dessa nova demanda (BORTOLIN, 2012). O crescente sucesso e aumento do prestígio do agronegócio brasileiro se devem a algumas características conquistadas, como uma alta produtividade, alto grau de competitividade e o uso de tecnologia (STEFANO, 2001). Mas, por se inserir em um mercado cujo ambiente é incerto, devido à competitividade internacional, políticas econômicas de negócios e assimetria de informação (PADILHA, et al. 2010), a criação e adoção de estratégias de inovação assumem papéis de destaque na busca por vantagem competitiva. Ao estudar as estratégias de inovação e os recursos e capacidades que as sustentam, os resultados da pesquisa poderão trazer benefícios tanto para as empresas de agronegócio que já as utilizam quanto para aquelas que pretendem utilizar. Estes benefícios se justificam a partir do momento que os resultados buscarão explicitar quais são as estratégias de inovação encontradas, bem como quais são os recursos e capacidades que a empresa possui e que suportam as respectivas estratégias. Portanto, o objetivo de estudo é analisar as características das estratégias de inovação adotadas pela EMBRAPA, sob a perspectiva da RBV.