Em um contexto de demandas sociais tendencialmente crescentes, uma das alternativas para o aumento da arrecadação de receitas pelo Estado reside no manejo de aplicações financeiras. Os investimentos financeiros estatais, a rigor, já acontecem, mas nem sempre o objetivo claro e explícito de obtenção de resultados financeiramente interessantes e, eventualmente ou mesmo por isso , sob gestão economicamente ineficiente. Às vezes, até se enxerga o foco na obtenção de rendimentos relevantes na ação estatal, mas sem uma disciplina específica, o que pode abrir espaço a uma gestão de ativos desqualificada ou mesmo fraudulenta, com sérios prejuízos aos cofres públicos e, em situações extremas, ampliação ainda maior das despesas públicas. O objetivo desta tese, portanto, é reconhecer que nem sempre o Estado atua na economia com propósito interventivo e que, na qualidade de investidor institucional vale dizer, de ente que tem o dever de proceder aos investimentos e às aplicações financeiras que digam com as melhores práticas de administração dos ativos públicos , precisa atuar sob o jugo de normas jurídicas claras, que permitam ao Estado ampliar suas receitas dentro de limites razoáveis de exposição a risco financeiro e disponibilizem aos órgãos de fiscalização e controle da Administração Pública as ferramentas necessárias para, também quanto a esse aspecto, aferir a eficiência da ação estatal. Para tanto, têm-se como pressupostos o anacronismo da resistência cultural às aplicações financeiras dos entes da Administração Pública e a noção de que quaisquer ferramentas de obtenção de receitas pelo Estado estão sujeitas a algum grau de risco. Com base nas bem-sucedidas experiências nacionais e internacionais, será possível concluir, ao final, que é admissível, do ponto de vista constitucional e legal, a ação do Estado como investidor nos mercados financeiro e de capitais e que é viável a formulação de parâmetros gerais para a disciplina jurídica do Estado investidor. / In a context of growing social demands, financial investments become one of the alternatives for the State to increase its revenues. State investments, as a matter of fact, already do happen, but not always with the clear and explicit objective of obtaining financially interesting earnings, often due economically inefficient management. Sometimes it is possible to see in government investments some focus on obtaining relevant income, but not under a specific regulation, which can lead to an unqualified or even fraudulent management that may cause serious damage to the exchequer and, in extreme situations, expansion of the government spending. Hence the intent of this thesis is to acknowledge that the State does not always act in the economy with regulatory purposes and that, as an institutional investor i.e., an organization which has the duty of making financial investments in accordance to the best practices in public asset management , it must be framed by clear legal rules, which should allow the State to maximize its revenues within reasonable limits of financial risk exposure and the oversight and control agencies to assess the State efficiency and compliance. It is assumed that the cultural resistance to state financial investments is anachronistic as well as every state means of obtaining revenues is subject to some level of financial risk. Based on well succeeded experiences in Brazil and abroad, it will be possible to conclude, in the end, that it is constitutionally and legally admissible that the State acts as an investor in financial and stock markets and that it is possible to suggest some standards on legal regulation for this issue.

Cette thèse examine la responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) par les entreprises de secteurs controverses. Dans le premier chapitre, on évalue les stratégies en RSE pour 565 entreprises de secteurs controverses de 1991 à 2013 en estimant la relation compensatoire entre Irresponsabilité Sociale des Entreprises (ISE) et RSE. On montre que ces entreprises tendent à compenser pour leur ISE en s'engageant dans des domaines stratégiques de RSE tels que la protection de l'environnement et le respect des communautés locales avec un manque d'engagement dans d'autres activités telles la gouvernance d'entreprise. Dans le deuxième chapitre, on examine si l'engagement RSE de 499 entreprises de secteurs controverses est susceptible de diminuer leur risque financier. Nos résultats montrent qu'un engagement RSE stratégique réduit le risque idiosyncratique et total pour certaines industries controversées et que le manque d'engagement dans les activités de gouvernance augmente leur risque. Le troisième chapitre examine la divulgation sociétale en tant que mécanisme de reddition de comptes dans le contexte d'un incident environnemental majeur. L'étude de cas des stratégies RSE utilisées par l'entreprise Canadienne En bridge, durant sa réponse a l'incident de déversement de parole en 2010 révèle que ses rapports RSE sont souvent optimistes et ne réussissent pas a décrire son incapacité à faire face aux problèmes de sécurité ayant entrainé l'incident; et ont aussi sous-estime le volume du déversement et la difficulté du nettoyage, ainsi mettant en question l'effet des activités RSE compare à l'effet de facteurs contextuels dans la protection de l'entreprise durant la crise. / This thesis is composed of three chapters that examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) within firms in controversial sectors. In the first chapter, we evaluate patterns of investment in CSR for 565 US publicly traded companies in eight controversial sectors between 1991 and 2013 by assessing the relationship between CSR and Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI). We show that firms in controversial sectors compensate for their CSI by engaging in strategic CSR areas such as environmental protection and community development with a lack of engagement towards other areas, such as corporate governance. In the second chapter, we determine whether engagement in specific CSR activities for 499 US companies in controversial sectors decreases their financial risk. We show that engaging in specific CSR activities considered as strategic reduces idiosyncratic and total risk for some controversial industries; and that poor engagement in corporate governance activities increases firm risk. In the third chapter, we investigate CSR reporting as an important mechanism for stakeholder accountability in the context of an environmental crisis. We perform a case study analysis of the CSR strategies used by the Canadian oil company Enbridge in its response to the July 2010 Kalamazoo spill and revealed that Enbridge's CSR reports were frequently optimistic and failed to describe the company's inability to deal with known safety problems that led to spill; and underestimated both the volume of the spill and the difficulty of the cleanup, thus making it difficult to distinguish the effects of the CSR efforts from the effects of other contextual and external factors.

Project control is essential to ensure that the investment on a project is providing the intended benefits and is valuable to the customers. Previous methods offer project performance monitoring and forecasting tools, but they lack accuracy and the associated techniques omit the project financial risk (any unplanned event that has an impact on schedule and budget); the main factor of project failure. Poor project execution, and particularly failure to control and accurately forecast the project performance, may lead to increased costs, upset customers and eventually loss of market share. These gaps have been filled in this study by the development of novel models that use statistical analysis of the previous project performance, including risk evaluation techniques. The proposed models succeeded in providing remarkably improved forecasts in three project dimensions: duration, cost and resources. The robustness of the models has been verified by testing them on real projects. The results show superiority in terms of accuracy and easy application compared to any existing method, proving that the risk inclusion provides improvement compared to previous studies. The most important features of the models are: risk-based adjustment of the forecasted values, periodic and completion forecasts, statistical processing and holistic approach. The greatest advancements have been made in the cost forecast, for which the risk adjustment inclusion is examined for the first time. The resources (man-hours) forecast is another pioneer element of the proposed models. All the above provide a complete image of the project status and paint the picture of future performance. The models results are fed in a Decision Support System, which highlights the overperforming and underperforming areas of the project. This confirms the proposition that the model results can be used to initiate restorative action. The contribution of this study to the project management field is easy-to-use and accurate models, which include the financial risk and facilitate the project manager’s decisions and actions. Anticipation of the project performance, by considering the risk, can result to significant time and cost savings, crucial for project success.