A grande maioria das organizações falha no processo de implementação de estratégias. A farta literatura de administração de empresas evidencia o fenômeno, e desafia os cientistas das organizações a buscarem aprimoramentos para o problema em questão. A presente tese identifica as principais variáveis críticas de sucesso para a implementação de estratégias, e desenvolve uma análise empírica do sistema de distribuição de defensivos agrícolas no Brasil. O referencial teórico empregado inova, ao trazer as abordagens da Economia das Organizações, na vertente da Economia dos Custos de Transação (ECT), para a análise de um problema de governança corporativa, complementando as tradicionais abordagens de Management, adotadas nas disciplinas de Administração Geral. A análise por meio da Economia das Organizações traz o embasamento econômico e a descrição social do comportamento humano aos processos de geração e implementação de estratégias, preenchendo uma lacuna teórica. A ECT desenvolve uma visão contratual do processo de implementação de estratégias, que analisa a relação entre os proprietários e executivos, para o desenvolvimento de ações definidas pelas estratégias. Assim, a tese associa as estruturas de governança minimizadoras dos custos de transação para a implementação de estratégias com as características das diversas organizações. A tese identificou como variáveis críticas de sucesso no processo de implementação de estratégias: i) a presença de gestão contratada, com executivos (gestores contratados) iniciando as estratégias, estrategistas (proprietários) ratificando-as, executivos implementando-as e estrategistas monitorando-as, para organizações complexas; ii) a existência de mecanismos de adaptação do processo de implementação de estratégias; iii) a existência de salvaguardas contratuais em função da necessidade de investimentos em ativos específicos, gerados a partir das estratégias; e iv) a existência de salvaguardas contratuais em função das incertezas do ambiente de negócio. A pesquisa empírica desenvolveu-se por meio de um survey, que analisou o processo de implementação de estratégias em 32 canais de distribuição de defensivos agrícolas no Brasil. Assim, tornou-se possível o desenvolvimento de uma discussão empírica das hipóteses, que evidencia a relevância das variáveis críticas de sucesso identificadas na revisão teórica. Os resultados da pesquisa empírica apontaram, com exceção da restrição ao resíduo do tomador de decisão, para empresas não complexas, que todas as variáveis críticas de sucesso identificadas na revisão teórica apresentaram relação direta e positiva com a performance do processo de implementação de estratégias, variando entretanto, com relação à significância estatística. A variável gestão contratada não apresentou significância estatística, o que se justifica em parte, pela presença de poucas organizações que apresentam profissionais contratados para gerirem as empresas que compõem a amostra, fato que dificultou a análise. Os resultados da pesquisa empírica não podem ser extrapolados para a população, uma vez que a amostra não é aleatória nem representativa. A partir da revisão teórica e das evidências da pesquisa empírica, a tese elaborou uma proposta metodológica que promove o desenvolvimento de estruturas de governança a partir da análise das variáveis críticas de sucesso, que geram eficiência no processo de implementação de estratégias. Foram estruturadas três dinâmicas que exploram as variações do comportamento dos agentes nas organizações, a necessidade de investimentos em ativos específicos em função das estratégias definidas no processo, e o nível de exposição a incertezas do ambiente de negócios das organizações. A tese consolidou um modelo de gestão estratégica e as dinâmicas são focadas na fase de implementação, após a definição das estratégias. / The great majority of organizations fail when it comes to implement strategies. The great amount of literature in business administration shows such a fact, and challenges the scientists of organizations to find improvements to this issue. The following thesis identifies the main critical success variables to implement strategies and comes up with an empirical analysis of the distribution system of agricultural agrochemical in Brazil. The theoretical references employed are innovative, for they bring the approaches of the Economy of Organizations, under the lines of Transactional Costs Economics (TCE), to the analysis of an issue of corporate governance, in addition to the traditional approaches of Management adopted in the subject matters of Business. The analysis through Economy of Organizations has the economic foundation and the social description of human behavior in the processes of generation and implementation of strategies, thus fulfilling a theoretical gap. TCE develops a contractual approach of the strategies implementation process, one which analyzes the relationship between owners and executives to develop actions defined by strategies. Thus, the thesis associates governance structures which are diminishing factors of cost transactions to implement strategies with the characteristics of several organizations. The thesis identified as critical success variables in the process of implementing strategies: i) the presence of contracted management, with executives (contracted managers) initiating the strategies, strategists (owners) ratifying them, executives implementing them and strategists monitoring them in complex organizations; ii) the presence of mechanisms to adapt the process of strategies implementation; iii) the existence of contractual safeguards due to the need for investments in specific assets generated as result of strategies; and iv) the presence of contractual safeguards due to the uncertainties of the business environment. The empirical research was conducted through a survey, which analyzed the process of strategies implementation in 32 agricultural agrochemical distribution channels in Brazil. Thus it was possible to develop an empiric discussion of the hypothesis that demonstrates the relevance of the critical success variables identified in the theoretical review. The results of the empirical survey show, with the exception of the restriction to the remnant of the decision maker for non-complex enterprises, that all critical success variables identified in the theoretical review showed a direct and positive relation with the performance of the process of strategies implementation, but with variations in relation to their statistical significance. The variable contracted management showed no statistical significance, partially due to the existence of few organizations with contracted professionals to manage the companies, a factor which hindered the analysis. The results of the empirical survey cannot be extended to the population, since the sampling is neither aleatory nor representative. With the theoretical review and the evidence presented in the empirical survey the thesis established a methodological proposal that promotes the development of governance structures from the analysis of critical success variables that generate efficiency in the strategies implementation process. Three dynamics were structured which explore the behavioral variations of agents in organizations, the need of investments in specific assets according to the strategies defined in the process and the level of exposure to uncertainties in the business environment of organizations. The thesis consolidated a model of strategic management and the dynamics are focused in the implementation phase, after the definition of strategies.

Ter ou contratar é a questão estratégica abordada na presente dissertação. A pesquisa tem o objetivo de estudar o mercado de serviços agrícolas de mecanização dentro do escopo e dos limites da firma agrícola. A questão a ser investigada focaliza as razões da predominância da opção pela propriedade da frota de equipamentos por parte dos agricultores. Destaca-se que foi feito um recorte com relação às culturas agrícolas para o estudo, os Sistemas Agroindustriais selecionados foram o da cana-de-açúcar e o da soja. Para resolver essa questão é utilizada a Nova Economia Institucional como base teórica. Os conceitos da Economia de Custos de Transação e sua estratégia de economizar nos custos de transação são elementos que fundamentam as hipóteses sobre a escolha dos arranjos institucionais. O cenário das transações é o ambiente institucional e as instituições são as responsáveis pelas regras que as governam; justificando a análise setorial sobre esse mercado de serviços mecanizados. A Teoria do Crescimento da Firma é utilizada para explicar o surgimento desse novo mercado. A análise empírica envolve duas abordagens: a qualitativa e quantitativa. Na qualitativa são analisados os SAG´s da soja e da cana-de-açúcar, em seguida a análise do ambiente institucional e as regras que envolvem a subcontratação no país para então uma análise setorial do mercado de serviços de colheita mecanizada ser elaborada com base no arcabouço teórico. Na abordagem quantitativa é feita uma comparação entre dos custos operacionais da aquisição de colhedoras ou a contratação de serviços de fornecedores externos; seguida de um modelo probit para investigar a relação entre contratar ou não um serviço de colheita mecanizada. Como resultado da analise do ambiente institucional, foi mostrado que existem regras ambíguas em relação à subcontratação, o que desencoraja e por vezes penaliza quem escolhe contratar. A análise setorial do mercado de serviços de colheita mecanizada no SAG da soja e da cana-de-açúcar foi feita por meio de dois estudos de caso. Foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade com os fornecedores de serviços de colheita mecanizada e stakeholders. Como resultado proeminente da análise constata-se que os serviços surgem de produtores rurais (100%) que já possuíam máquinas e decidiram otimizar seu uso, e também que a maioria (63%) atua informalmente. Esse resultado corrobora a primeira hipótese (H1) sobre o surgimento de serviços da Teoria do Crescimento da Firma. Em seguida na primeira análise quantitativa verifica-se que os custos operacionais de integrar e contratar o serviço são bem próximos se a opção for comprar uma máquina à vista e contratar. Porém quando financiadas a propriedade não se torna boa opção financeira. Na outra etapa quantitativa foi elaborado um modelo econométrico e investigou-se a relação entre contratar ou não um serviço de colheita mecanizada com a especificidade temporal e locacional, contratos anteriores e a influência negativa do ambiente institucional. Do modelo idealizado e do levantamento realizado os resultados são que as hipóteses relacionadas com a especificidade do ativo (H2) e a existência de contratos bem sucedidos no passado (H3) foram validados com grau de significância de 5%. A hipótese relacionada ao ambiente institucional (H4) apesar de ser significante não foi validada, pois tem o efeito oposto ao esperado. Foram utilizados, portanto, dados qualitativos e quantitativos. Concluiu-se como previsto que a maioria dos produtores é integrada verticalmente (67,2%) e que a opção não é financeira e que os custos de transação importam na tomada de decisões. A atenção agora se volta para os próximos passos sugeridos, como expandir o estudo para novas culturas e serviços agrícolas. / Make or contract is the strategic issue addressed in this dissertation. In this thesis I shall investigate the market of agricultural mechanization services within the scope and limits of the agricultural firm. The question to be investigated focuses on the reasons for the predominance of the option for ownership of the equipment by farmers It is emphasized that a cut was made with respect to agricultural crops for the study, the Agribusiness Systems selected were sugarcane and soybeans. To settle this proposition it is used the New Institutional Economics as a theoretical basis. The concepts of Transaction Cost Economics and its strategy to save on transaction costs are elements that underlie the hypotheses on the choice of institutional arrangements. The scenario of transactions is the institutional environment and the institutions are responsible for the rules which govern them; justifying the sectorial analysis of the market for mechanized services. The Theory of the Growth of the Firm is used to explain the emergence of this new market. The empirical analysis involves two approaches: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative analyzes the SAG\'s of soy and sugarcane, and then the analysis of the institutional environment and the rules surrounding outsourcing in the country for finally a sectorial analysis of the mechanical harvesting services market to be developed based the theoretical framework. In the quantitative approach a comparison is made between the operational costs of acquiring harvesters and contracting external providers; followed by a probit model to investigate the relationship between contracting or not a service of mechanized harvesting. As a result of analysis of the institutional environment, it was shown that there are ambiguous rules regarding subcontracting, which sometimes discourages and penalizes those who choose to hire. A sectorial analysis of the mechanical harvesting services market in SAG of soy and cane sugar was made hrough two case studies. In-depth interviews were conducted with providers and stakeholders of mechanized harvesting services. As a prominent result of the analysis it appears that the services arise from farmers (100%) who had decided to optimize their machines, and also that the majority (63%) operates informally. This result supports the first hypothesis (H1) on the emergence of the Theory of Growth of the Firm services. Then the first quantitative analysis it is found that the operational costs of integrating and contracting services are very close if the option is to buy a machine in cash or to contract. But when financed property does not become a good financial option. In another quantitative step an econometric model was developed and investigated the relationship between to contract or not mechanized harvesting service, related with the temporal and locational specificity, previous contracts and the negative influence of the institutional environment. The idealized model and the survey results are the assumptions related to asset specificity (H2) and the existence of successful contracts in the past (H3) were validated with significance level of 5% The related institutional environment (H4) despite being significant event has not been validated, it has the opposite effect to that expected. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative data were used. It was concluded as planned that most producers are vertically integrated (67.2%) and that the option is not financial and that transaction costs matter in making these decisions. Attention now turns to the next suggested steps such as expanding the study to new crops and agricultural services.

É comum no Brasil, a afirmação de que existem leis que \"não pegam\". Nesse sentido, o presente estudo visa a analisar como os incentivos influenciam no cumprimento de normas positivadas em sistemas agroindustriais (SAG). Sendo assim, as leis escolhidas foram: a lei de uso e conservação do solo, com foco no combate e controle da erosão e a lei dos agrotóxicos, com ênfase no armazenamento na propriedade agrícola e retorno das embalagens. A base teórica adota a linha da Nova Economia Institucional, tratando assim do conceito e da importância do ambiente institucional, dos custos sociais, dos custos de transação e mensuração, da questão dos bens comuns e dos direitos de propriedade. Partindo-se desses conceitos foram fundamentadas cinco hipóteses de trabalho, os cinco tipos de incentivos ao cumprimento das normais formais, os quais são: alinhamento da norma formal às normas sociais; a influência do interesse privado; a influência do interesse do Estado; custos ao Estado e aos agentes econômicos. Para a parte empírica optou-se pelo método de estudo de casos, contemplados por análises de estatísticas descritivas. Foram utilizados, portanto, dados qualitativos e quantitativos. Destaca-se que foi feito um recorte com relação às culturas agrícolas e regiões para a coleta de dados. As culturas selecionadas foram a da cana-de-açúcar e a da pastagem (bovinocultura). Assim, as regiões nas quais foram feitas as entrevistas e questionários foram: Andradina, Araçatuba, Presidente Prudente, São José do Rio Preto e Ribeirão Preto. Como resultado verificou-se que quatro das cinco hipóteses de trabalho apresentaram evidências para sua não rejeição. A exceção ficou por conta da hipótese associada ao efeito do custo de adesão pelos agentes econômicos. Embora tal hipótese tenha sido rejeitada pelos números obtidos, observa-se que ela deve ser levada em consideração na análise de incentivos, mas não de forma isolada. Os custos a que se refere essa hipótese podem estar associados a outros incentivos, como, por exemplo, as outras hipóteses de estudo. Por meio de tais resultados, concluiu-se que normas que tratam dos bens comuns (em alguma medida) possuem um mecanismo de cumprimento mais complexo, já que não se trata de uma questão puramente econômica. Ações que promovam o conhecimento de tais normas e a conscientização da amplitude do tema são importantes para que as normas sociais, que não se modificam rapidamente, estejam alinhadas à norma formal promovendo o seu cumprimento voluntário. Além disso, as normas que tratam da temática ambiental devem envolver toda a cadeia (SAG), dado que, particularmente nesse tipo de cadeia, há uma dependência grande entre os atores. Assim, devem-se analisar conjuntamente os efeitos da norma formal em questão. / It is common in Brazil, the affirmation that there are laws that \"do not catch\". In this sense, this study aims to analyze how incentives influence the compliance of rules in agribusiness systems. Thus, the laws that were chosen are: the law of use and conservation ground, focusing on combating and controlling erosion, and the agrochemicals law, with an emphasis on storage on the farm and the return of packages. The theoretical basis adopts the line of the New Institutional Economics, thus treating the concept and the importance of the institutional environment, the social costs, the transaction and measurement costs, the question of the commons and property rights. Based on these concepts were developed five working hypotheses, the five types of incentives to comply formal rules which are: the alignment of the formal norms to social norms, the influence of private interest, the influence of the interest of the State, the costs to the State, and the costs to economic agents. For the empirical part it was chosen the method of cases study, contemplated by analysis of descriptive statistics. Therefore qualitative and quantitative data were employed. It is highlighted that a cut was made with respect to agricultural crops and regions for data collection. The cultures that were selected are the sugar cane and the pasture (cattle). Thus, the interviews and questionnaires were made in the following regions: Andradina Araçatuba, Presidente Prudente, São José do Rio Preto and Ribeirão Preto. As a result it was found that four of five working hypotheses showed no evidences for its rejection. The exception was the hypothesis associated with the effect of the adhesion costs by economic agents. Although this hypothesis has been rejected by data obtained, it is observed that this hypothesis must be taken into account in the analysis of incentives, but not in an isolated way. The costs that are treated on that hypothesis may be associated with other incentives, such as the incentives that are treated in the other hypotheses of this research. Through these results, it was concluded that formal rules that deal with commons (in some measure) have a compliance mechanism more complex, once it is not a purely economic question. Activities that promote knowledge of the formal norm and the awareness of the breadth of the subject are important for that the social norms (which do not change quickly) are aligned with the formal norm, promoting the voluntary compliance of this. Moreover, the formal rules that deal with environmental issues should involve the all chain (agribusiness system), inasmuch as, particularly in this type of chain there is a great dependency between actors. Thus one should make an analysis considering, in a set, the effects of the formal norm in question.

Orientador: Maurício Aguiar Serra / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T09:09:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carvalho_AndreCutrim_D.pdf: 4474029 bytes, checksum: c2a4434f05f9639325475df7d98b3350 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A presente Tese de Doutorado se propõe a investigar e discutir teoricamente os principais fatores responsáveis pela dinâmica do desmatamento florestal na Amazônia paraense, numa perspectiva de abordagem realizada por intermédio da Nova Economia Institucional. A hipótese básica desta Tese é de que a expansão da fronteira agropecuária é o elemento condutor do fenômeno do desmatamento florestal na Amazônia paraense, sendo que esse avanço da fronteira agropecuária carrega, também, outros fatores que estão ligadas diretamente ao avanço do progresso econômico capitalista, tais como: crescimento econômico (PIB), construção de estradas, incremento do rebanho bovino, estrutura fundiária concentrada, especulação sobre o preço da terra, crédito rural, Instituições, mecanismos de governança, entre outros. No entanto, a principal atividade causadora de desmatamento florestal na Amazônia paraense é a pecuária de corte em regime extensivo. Nesse contexto, a econometria espacial será uma ferramenta de extrema importância para mensurar, a partir dos resultados obtidos no modelo econométrico espacial, os efeitos que o desmatamento florestal vem provocando na Amazônia paraense, bem como a especificidade de cada um, traçando um panorama histórico-institucionalista para sustentar os argumentos empíricos. O período escolhido para a análise econométrica compreende os anos de 2000 e 2008, devido à elevada taxa de desmatamento florestal na Amazônia paraense / Abstract: This PhD thesis proposes to investigate theoretically and discuss the main factors responsible for the dynamics of deforestation in the Amazon forest in Pará, in the interests of approach through the New Institutional Economics. The basic hypothesis of this thesis is that the expansion of the agricultural frontier is the conductive element of the phenomenon of deforestation in the Amazon forest in Pará, and this advancing agricultural frontier bears are also other factors that are directly linked to the advance of capitalist economic progress, such as: cresimento economic (GDP), construction of roads, increase of cattle, concentrated land ownership, speculation about the price of land, rural credit institutions, governance mechanisms, among others. However, the main activity causing deforestation in the Amazon forest in Pará is the beef cattle in extensive farming.. In this context, spatial econometrics is an extremely important tool to measure, from the results obtained in the spatial econometric model, the effects of deforestation in the Amazon forest has led to Para, and the specificity of each one, drawing a historical-institutionalist arguments to support the empirical. The period chosen for the econometric analysis covers the years 2000 and 2008 due to the high rate of deforestation in the Amazon forest in Pará / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento Economico, Espaço e Meio Ambiente / Doutor em Desenvolvimento Economico

L’objectif de ce travail est d’identifier les contraintes économiques à prendre en compte pour encourager l’investissement (public et prive) dans la restauration des écosystèmes aquatiques à partir du prisme de l’économie néo-institutionnelle. Au cours de ce travail nous avons mobilisé des matériaux et des méthodes variés qui nous ont permis d’identifier trois types de contraintes : des contraintes de coûts, des contraintes organisationnelles et des contraintes institutionnelles.Nos résultats montrent que ces projets sont exposés à une grande variabilité de coûts de production dans laquelle certains attributs jouent un rôle clé: le type d’écosystème cible, le contexte institutionnel, le degré de perturbation initial, l’ampleur des travaux à réaliser, le climat et la taille des projets.La mobilisation du cadre de l’économie néo-institutionnelle nous a conduits à nous intéresser aux coûts de transaction qui entourent les actions d’investissement dans la restauration des écosystèmes aquatiques. Ces coûts sont liés à l’existence de dispositifs de coordination particuliers entre acteurs du fait de la complexité des dynamiques de la biodiversité. Trois caractéristiques des projets sont à l’origine des coûts de transaction : la spécificité des actifs, l’incertitude et la fréquence des transactions. À partir de l’étude du marché de la compensation aux États-Unis et de quatre cas d’étude en France, nous montrons le lien qui existe entre source des coûts de transaction et efficacité organisationnelle du système. Nous montrons notamment qu’il existe une tension entre un objectif ambitieux de conservation et un objectif de développement des incitations à l’investissement. / The objective of this work was to develop the framework of the new institutional economics to identify the economic constraints to overcome in order to encourage public or private agents to invest in restoring aquatic ecosystems. In the course of this work we mobilized different materials and methods that allowed us to identify three types of constraints: cost constraints, organizational constraints and institutional constraints.Our results show that these projects are exposed to a great variability of production costs, some key attributes play a decisive role in this variability: the type of targeted ecosystem, the institutional context, the initial degree of disturbance, the amount of works needed, the climate and the size of projects.Using the new institutional economics framework, we were interested in the transaction costs that surround investment project of restoring aquatic ecosystems. These costs are associated to the need of specific coordination devices between actors adapted to the complexity of biodiversity dynamics. Transaction costs originate from three different characteristics of projects: asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency of transactions. From the study of the market of wetland mitigation in the United States and of four case study in France, we show the link between the origin of transaction costs and organizational efficacy of the system. Among other results, we show that there is a tradeoff between an objective of challenging conservation and an objective of creating incentives for investment for the restoration of aquatic ecosystems.

Cette thèse vise à comprendre les mécanismes par lesquels les Paiements pour Services Environnementaux (PSE) émergent et influencent la conservation effective des écosystèmes naturels au Cambodge. Elle contribue également à poursuivre l’opérationnalisation des cadres conceptuels institutionnalistes d’analyse des PSE dans le cadre d’un pays parmi les moins avancés de la planète. Au Cambodge, les PSE apparaissent comme le résultat de processus politiques de négociations influencés par les institutions préexistantes et dans lesquelles certains acteurs, notamment le Gouvernement et les ONG, cherchent à influencer les décisions relatives à la définition de nouvelles règles d’utilisation des ressources naturelles afin que celles-ci s’alignent sur leurs intérêts. Ceci amène, au Cambodge, au blocage de certains types de PSE. La thèse cherche également à mesurer et expliquer l’efficacitéenvironnementale d’un cas de PSE communautaire. Ce type de mécanisme peut contribuer à la conservation efficace des forêts même lorsque la pression extérieure augmente. Néanmoins, ces effets dépendent de certaines caractéristiques du contexte socio-économique local, probablement parce qu’elles influencent la capacité de gestion collective des forêts que vise à renforcer ce type de PSE. De plus, la pérennité de ces effets n’est pas assurée sur le long terme. Le programme a ainsi érodé certaines perceptions des valeurs d’usage de la conservation de la forêt qui, dans un contexte de pauvreté et de dépendance forte des populations locales aux ressources naturelles, peuvent constituer des motivations partiellement intrinsèques à conserver. / This thesis aims to understand the mechanisms through which Payments for Environmental Services (PES) emerge and influence the effective conservation of natural ecosystems in Cambodia. It also contributes to the operationalization of institutional conceptual frameworks for the analysis of PES, as it takes to the case of one of the world’s least developed countries. In Cambodia, PES appear to be the result of political processes (negotiations) influenced by pre-existing institutions and in which some stakeholders, such as the Government and NGOs,seek to influence decisions related to the definition of new rules for the use of natural resources so that they align with their interests. This explains why some types of PES schemes face political blockages at the national level. The thesis also seeks to measure and explain the environmental effectiveness of one community-PES. The case study leads to the effective conservation of forests even when the external pressure increases. However, this effect depends on some characteristics of the local socio-economic context, probably because they influence the likelihood of local collective management of forests, which the scheme aims to strengthen. In addition, the permanence of these effects is not guaranteed in the long run. The program has indeed eroded some perceptions of use values of forest conservation, which are, in a context of poverty and strong dependence of local communities on natural resources, the foundation for partially intrinsic motivation to conserve.

The diploma thesis looks into the matter of political and economic transformation of Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic through lenses of institutional economics theories. It claims that the transformation measures did not consider the social embeddedness within cultural and historical limitations. The first part of the paper defines the methodology of institutional economics based mainly on Ronald Coase's and Oliver Williamson's work. The following part aims to draw an image of historical and political context of Czechoslovak transformation. The compatibility of conditions, goals and means of the transformation is being considered in the third part. Finally, the work structures and evaluates World Bank's data set that forms an important part of endogenous influences of institutionalisation. The conclusion judges the outcome of political and economical transformation rather critically.

Chinese compradors, official managers, and overseas Chinese capitalists have received scholarly attention of late with special notice to studying their contributions to China’s industrial modernization. This thesis shifts this emphasis to seeing these three groups of Chinese merchants as types of Chinese capitalist middlemen, whose principal efforts were in the commercial sector during the late Qing and early Republican periods. Specifically, it focuses on their activities within Shanghai’s International Settlements, where the openings for entrepreneurial innovation could be made the most of with little interference from Chinese state officials. The market created by Chinese capitalist middlemen is distinguished from the greater Chinese economy by its concentration in Shanghai’s International Settlements and its being a commercial revolution. Particularly, this thesis links entrepreneurial business history with New Institutional Economics by placing the entrepreneur at the heart of Chinese commercial development beginning in the 1860s. It investigates how the above three types of middlemen’s commercial activities impacted the structural organization of the traditional family firm, reshaping this organization into a modern operation. As the traditional Chinese family firm emerged in a political institutional framework that both favored firms’ risk reduction and official sponsorship, Chinese capitalist middlemen played a part in structurally re-organizing the family firm into the modern firm. Chinese entrepreneurial behavior arose through a social process of bridging, which occurred through Chinese middlemen’s daily interactive commercial activities in Western firms in Shanghai. In the cases of compradors, these acculturated practices were employed in their own family firms and reflected a novel risk-taking pattern wherein they engaged in new fields of enterprise. In the cases of guandu shangban enterprises, official managers evolved these firms to absorb the pricing mechanism and lower transaction costs to benefit customers and the firm’s revenue. In the cases of returned overseas Chinese capitalists, in this thesis Australian ones are examined, they capitalized their department stores’ operations through reinvesting overseas Chinese surplus income that had traditionally been returned as remittances home to China. All of them fashioned a cosmopolitan view of themselves and fostered a moral view that combined Confucian and Christian ethics giving rise to a notion of human capital as a form of commercial welfare. / Graduate

abstract: In many social-ecological systems, shared resources play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of rural populations. Physical infrastructure enables resource access and reduces the variability of resource supply. In order for the infrastructure to remain functional, institutions must incentivize individuals to engage in provision and maintenance. The objective of my dissertation is to understand key formal and informal institutions that affect provision of shared infrastructure and the policy tools that may improve infrastructure provision. I examine these questions in the context of irrigation systems in India because infrastructure maintenance is a persistent challenge and system function is critical for global food production. My first study investigates how the presence of private infrastructure, such as groundwater pumps, affects the provision of shared infrastructure, such as shared tanks or surface reservoirs. I examine whether formal institutions, such as water pricing instruments, may prevent under-provision of the shared tanks. My findings suggest that in the absence of rules that coordinate tank maintenance, the presence of private pumps will have a detrimental effect on system productivity and equality. On the other hand, the combination of a fixed groundwater fee and a location-based maintenance fee for tank users can improve system productivity and equality. The second study examines the effect of power asymmetries between farmers, caused by informal institutions such as caste, on the persistence of political institutions that govern infrastructure provision. I examined the effect of policy tools, such as non-farm wage employment and informational interventions, on the persistence of two types of political institutions: self-governed and nested. Results suggest that critical regime shifts in political institutions can be generated by either intervening in formal institutions, such as non-farm wage employment, or informal institutions, such as knowledge transmission or learning mechanisms. The third study investigates how bureaucratic and political corruption affect public good provision. I examine how institutional and environmental factors affect the likelihood of corruption and infrastructure provision. I demonstrate that cracking down on corruption is only beneficial when infrastructure provision is poor. I also show that bureaucratic wages play an important role in curbing extralegal transactions and improving infrastructure provision. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019

Labour migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has been occurring forseveral decades. Most of the GCC countries regulate this process through the Kafala System, alegal regime through which individuals and companies can sponsor foreigners with whom theyhave concluded an employment contract. But why do these countries bring millions of foreignersto their lands and what rights does the Kafala System guarantee them? Are there any negativeeconomic and political consequences that result from the way that the Kafala System has beenconceived in the GCC countries? If so, how can this system be reformed so that it produces moredesirable economic and political outcomes? This thesis explores these questions in the contextof the Kafala System in Saudi Arabia. It uses a New Institutional Economics (NIE) approach tounderstand the political, economic, and historical context within which the Kafala System arose,positing that the design of the system reflects a desire to promote economic growth and improvepolitical stability while remaining rooted in the Islamic identity of Saudi Arabia. It further showsthat for a long time, the Kafala System was successful in furthering these objectives. However, ithas lately become prone to producing suboptimal outcomes. Foreign direct investment in SaudiArabia has gone down, remittance outflows as a percentage of GDP have increased, skilled andhighly skilled workers are leaving the kingdom, and even Saudi Arabia’s political stability has beenreduced. Given all of these problems, the thesis uses Path Dependence (PD) theory to argue thatthe only reason that the Kafala System continues to be in place is that it has become a path-­‐dependent institution that is resistant to change. This took place in three steps: (1) the initial setof choices that created the Kafala System were informed by important economic and politicalconsiderations as well as an affirmation of the Kingdom’s commitment to tie all legal institutionsto an Islamic source, (2) the Kafala System successfully helped Saudi Arabia achieve rapideconomic growth and increased political stability, outcomes which served as a positive feedbackeffect, and (3) the continued use of the Kafala System has increased switching costs because oflearning effects, coordination effects, and adaptive expectations. The thesis then argues that inorder to successfully reform this system, it is important in the first instance to justify proposedchanges in light of Islamic teachings, since this will improve how receptive Saudi society is tothem. At the same time, it is also necessary to show that changes in the international investmentclimate and the transition to a global information economy constitute a ‘critical juncture’ duringwhich the problem of switching costs can be overcome and far-­‐reaching reforms can besuccessful. Of course, it goes without saying that reforms that increase protections for the rightsof workers would also align Saudi Arabia’s domestic law with its international treaty obligations.