AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERATION OF Teresa K. Betts, for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Business Administration defended December 14, 2011, 10:00 a.m. 108 Rehn Hall at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE ROLE OF COMPETITIVE CAPABILITIES AND STAKEHOLDER PRESSURE IN THE ADOPTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES AND IMPACT ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Suresh Tadisina This paper examines the underlying effect of manufacturing plants' competitive capabilities and their adoption of environmental practices. A Natural Resource Based View (NRBV) theoretical approach was utilized to develop and test a set of hypotheses surrounding how manufacturing plants with specific competitive capabilities would have a greater likelihood of implementing sets of environmental practices with similar underlying resources and capabilities. Further analysis evaluated how the influence of stakeholder pressures moderated the relationship between competitive capabilities and the degree of adoption of environmental manufacturing practices. Multiple regression results indicate quality and cost competitive capabilities are positively significantly associated with the adoption of specific environmental practices. Further analysis indicates stakeholder pressures do not moderate the relationship between competitive capabilities and the degree of adoption of environmental practices. Unique sets of stakeholder pressures are independent predictors for each set of environmental practices. ANOVA analysis indicates competitive process flexibility capability and product design environmental practices and competitive product innovation capability and product design environmental practices positively significantly impact business performance. This study contributes to the literature by providing insights into competitive capabilities which link to the degree of adoption of specific environmental practices and insights into synergies which may exist between competitive capabilities and environmental practices and their effects on business performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to identify the critical competitive priorities and capabilities that enables competitive manufacturing in the high cost environment of Sweden and how these can be improved to increase manufacturing performance. Method – The purpose of this thesis was achieved through two main research methods. First a systematic literature review was conducted in order to condensate the existing literature on competitive priorities and capabilities. Secondly a case study was conducted in order to examine the identified competitive priorities and capabilities in the context of a high cost environment. Findings – Initially, a set of articles were identified and included in the literature review. Through an analysis of the included articles, a framework was created including competitive priorities and competitive capabilities. A comparison between the framework and the empirical data collected at the case company identified a number of priorities and capabilities considered critical for competitive manufacturing in a high cost environment. The literature review revealed a set of improvement actions and methods that could be used to improve the identified critical competitive priorities and capabilities in order to increase manufacturing performance. Implications – The thesis makes a theoretical contribution by condensing the existing literature on competitive priorities and capabilities in a high cost environment, and creates a starting point for future research. Further it makes a practical contribution by providing awareness for practitioners regarding priorities and capabilities, what may be important in the future, and how these could be improved. Limitations – This study identifies how critical priorities and capabilities can be improved, however, it does not specify how they can or should be applied and used. Additionally, the inclusion criteria in the systematic literature review did not include improvement actions and thus other suggestions for improvements may not be included. The case study was limited to one company, making the result difficult to generalize.

The thesis examines how resource-poor smallholder farmers in Mexico are integrated into a Global Value Chain. Most Global Value Chains depend on production located in developing countries. In agriculture, Global Value Chain tend to concentrate production in large enterprises and exclude smallholder farmers. The logic of Global Value Chains is to reduce the cost of production by allocating low value activities, such as production of commodities to developing countries to take advantage of cheap labour cost. High value activities such as branding, marketing and product development remain in high income countries. The thesis consists of the in-depth case study of San Francisco Produce/Peninsula Organics (SFP/PO) Global Value Chain. It is located throughout Southern Baja Peninsula in Mexico and San Francisco California, U.S.A. It sells organic certified produce to the American market, particularly California and east coast. SFP/PO was founded by a social entrepreneur and has been functioning for over 30 years. This Global Value Chain has an explicit social purpose. It focuses on integrating smallholder farmers into agricultural production. This value chain requires farmers to adopt organic production. The methods consisted of semi-structured interviews. In total, 50 interviews were conducted in Mexico to farmers that belong to the value chain in 9 co-operatives and 3 single farmers. The interviews focused on how farmers learned organic production to meet quality requirements of global buyers. The analysis uses three perspectives to explain the integration of smallholder farmers into SFP/PO and the development of organic production capabilities. First Global Value Chains are used to describe the network, connections and production activities smallholder farmers and global buyer carry out. The study sheds light on how the value chain achieves its social aims by using global markets and providing external inputs to improve farmers' livelihoods. Second, using Technological Capabilities the study explains the skills farmers need to develop to participate in the value chain. Third, a Communities of Practice perspective is used to explain how social learning is involved in developing production capabilities. The research explains how farmers collectively define competence and how they display three different levels of participation in the value chain, periphery, medium and full participation. And fourth, using the theory of Knowing in Action, the research explores co-learning between novice and expert farmers and the interactions among farmers that results in co-innovation to develop new technical solutions and crop varieties. The thesis presents a case of a value chain which is motivated by social purpose to improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The study demonstrates that there is a change of ethos, where global value chain integrates farmers into agricultural production. These data highlight the importance of social structures which allow farmer-to-farmer connections which enhance novice farmer skills enabling interactions where there is respect, and negotiation of knowledge. These interactions take indigenous farmers' knowledge into account in ways that can be acknowledged and harnessed in the form of practices and techniques to produce globally marketable products.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2017-02-09T15:05:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Elisandro J. de Vargas_.pdf: 2133593 bytes, checksum: d88e4cf367950643d13827d22a1c4888 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-09T15:05:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elisandro J. de Vargas_.pdf: 2133593 bytes, checksum: d88e4cf367950643d13827d22a1c4888 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-22 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Sistemas de informação têm sido introduzidos progressivamente nos ambientes de manufatura. Isso advém da necessidade de captar dados, otimizar processos e gerar informações de maneira eficiente, inclusive em tempo real das operações produtivas, visando facilitar a tomada de decisão de gerentes e analistas. O Manufacturing Execution System (MES), denominado Sistema de Controle da Manufatura, pode auxiliar as empresas a captar dados e gerar informações, identificar e melhorar seus resultados. Entretanto, o simples acesso a um sistema de informação não garante vantagem. Portanto, para obter resultados consistentes é necessário alinhamento a jusante e a montante entre estratégias e táticas às práticas de produção com os sistemas de informação disponíveis no chão-de-fábrica. Neste sentido, esta pesquisa buscou responder ao problema de pesquisa como determinar o foco das funcionalidades que compõem os pilares de um MES para à satisfação dos objetivos estratégicos da manufatura?; sendo o MES representado pelos pilares e suas funcionalidades e estratégia da manufatura representada pelas prioridades de competência da manufatura. O objetivo geral consistiu em elaborar uma modelagem que possa distribuir importâncias entre as funcionalidades que compõem os pilares de um MES para aplicações industrias. O método de pesquisa utilizado foi a modelagem qualiquantitativa e as técnicas de coleta de dados foram entrevistas, aplicação da Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) e escala Likert, e grupo focal. A modelagem desenvolvida possibilita identificar um vetor de importância entre funcionalidades e um quadrante entre aplicação e melhoria destes vetores. Com isso, permite que as empresas que possuem ou buscam implantar sistemas MES e aplicadores de sistemas MES possam identificar quais elementos de medição e controle da manufatura mais representam os objetivos estratégicos da manufatura; além de contribuir ao avanço em pesquisas acerca de MES e estratégia da manufatura. Esta modelagem foi aplicada em duas empresas que datam o uso do MES de onze e oito anos, com produto e processos diferentes. Os resultados obtidos foram considerados consistentes e representativos à realidade das empresas. / Information systems have been progressively introduced in manufacturing environments. This is due to the need to capture data, optimize processes and generate information efficiently, including real-time production operations, to facilitate decision-making by managers and analysts. The Manufacturing Execution System (MES), called the Manufacturing Control System, can help companies capture data and generate information, identify and improve their results. However, simple access to an information system does not assure advantage. Therefore, to achieve consistent results, downstream and upstream alignment between strategies and tactics is required for production practices with the information systems available on the factory floor. In this sense, this research sought to answer the research problem how to determine the focus of the features that make up the core functions of a MES for the satisfaction of the strategic objectives of the manufacture; being the MES represented by the core functions and its features and manufacturing strategy represented by the competitive capabilities. The overall objective was to elaborate a model that can distribute importance between the features that make up the core functions of a MES for industrial applications. The research method used was qualitativequantitative modeling and the techniques of data collection were interviews, application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Likert scale, and focus group. The developed model allows identifying a vector of importance between features and a quadrant between application and improvement of these vectors. Thereby, it allows companies that have or are look up to deploy MES systems and MES system applicators to identify which elements of manufacturing measurement and control most represent the strategic objectives of manufacturing; besides contributing to the advancement in research on MES and manufacturing strategy. This model was applied in two companies that date the use of the MES of eleven and eight years, with diferente product and processes. The results obtained were considered consistent and representative to the reality of the companies.