Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:08:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo8490_1.pdf: 2163566 bytes, checksum: 14ff2afd1959e738d385de7c804915db (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Sob o contexto emergente do desenvolvimento sustentável, à medida que compromissos e responsabilidades devem ser assumidos por cada stakeholder atuante na realização de suas práticas na sociedade, o estudo do consumo sustentável (CS) é válido tendo em vista que o mesmo envolve um conjunto de interrelações praticadas por seus stakeholders e foca o alcance desse modelo de desenvolvimento. Nesse contexto, as empresas podem contribuir com essa perspectiva, já que possuem diferentes interações sociais quanto ao CS seguindo a ideia de: (1) desenvolvimento de novas práticas e tecnologias; (02) mudanças nos incentivos econômicos; e (3) mudanças na cultura da rede de influências. Desse modo, percebendo essa possibilidade de atuação, toma-se como pergunta de pesquisa: Como práticas responsáveis adotadas pelas empresas a partir de um conjunto de interações sociais com seus stakeholders podem contribuir para com o consumo sustentável? Na busca de sua resolução, utilizou-se o modelo de Michaelis (2003) como norteador das análises realizadas, bem como o estudo das práticas adotadas pelo Walmart Brasil na cidade de Recife/PE como caso que pode contribuir para o entendimento do CS no setor de supermercados, com foco na marca Hiper Bompreço. Baseando-se na perspectiva paradigmática positivista utilizada, a pesquisa tem como abordagem predominante a qualitativa, mas faz uso também de dados quantitativos para compreensão do fenômeno, ao utilizar como métodos de verificação o levantamento bibliográfico e documental, entrevistas semi-estruturadas, questionários e observação direta não-participante. Com a pesquisa, identificaram-se como categorias teóricas: Eco-eficiência, Práticas próprias de consumo, Incentivos do governo, Elos na cadeia de suprimentos, Edição de escolha, Cidadania corporativa, Marketing responsável e Diálogo com stakeholders, que podem ser utilizadas juntamente com os critérios e parâmetros que foram definidos. Com os resultados, observou-se que mesmo com ações favoráveis nesse sentido, o Walmart Brasil possui muitos critérios aquém do necessário para uma contribuição efetiva. A partir dessas considerações, percebe-se como principal contribuição da pesquisa a articulação teórica realizada, já que se esquematizou uma forma de operacionalizar o modelo e identificou-se a necessidade de inserção do ator Organizações do Terceiro Setor que não estava contemplado na rede de influência de Michaelis (20003). Além disso, há uma contribuição empírica na medida em que a empresa desenvolve práticas empresariais responsáveis, contribuindo efetivamente para a evolução das discussões sobre a temática

Today we find ourselves in limbo between the need to reduce usage of the world’s dwindling supply of natural resources and a stubborn resistance to change our consumption habits. The continuing scarcity of resources, coupled with an increase in demand for them from a growing population, is the largest challenge facing earth and its people. While many individual citizens, politicians, press sources and businesses are ignoring the current situation, some have recognized the need for a green revolution. Leaders have attempted to enact a cultural change, organizing events and initiatives to garner the attention of those in position to make a change, and people have taken responsibility for their own actions in choosing more sustainable options in their everyday lives. Very small starts have been made in the colossal struggle against the changing climate, mounting environmental problems and expansive social issues, but these will not be sufficient for sustaining out future. Some entity with power must stand up to lead change, and that entity should be business. While business is largely responsible for much of the world’s environmental problems today, the ability of the free market system to create positive change through sustainable business practices is far more powerful than public polic

Like other communities across the country, Blacksburg, Virginia, has struggled with land-use policy, planning, and growth issues. This struggle intensified when town residents discovered a Walmart store might be included in a new retail development project. Local interest groups quickly formed, establishing different perspectives concerning the issue, while a Blacksburg Town Council member introduced an ordinance that would give the town the power to halt plans for the store. This measure became the focal point of the conflict, and groups both supporting and opposing it worked aggressively to gain community support for their respective sides of the issue. Using Cobb and Elder's (1983) agenda-building framework, the goal of this thesis is to examine the ways various groups involved in a local land-use conflict defined, and sometimes redefined, their messages to town residents in an effort to expand the issue beyond the core members of the groups to gain more widespread support. The results of these efforts are also evaluated. A case study was conducted incorporating interviews with some of the key members of the interest groups involved in the conflict and discourse analysis to examine group messages generated during the controversy. This study found that the way an issue is defined could influence its progression and play an important role in its resolution. It also highlights definitive times during an issue's evolution that are critical to its progression. These findings demonstrate some of the benefits that can result from integrating effective issue management strategies into a communication program. / Master of Arts

This dissertation explores issues on women’s employment and children’s health in economics. In chapter I, I investigate the causal effects of maternal employment on childhood obesity. Empirical analysis of the effects of maternal employment on childhood obesity is complicated by the endogeneity of mother’s labor supply. A mother’s decision to work likely reflects underlying factors – such as ability and motivation – that could directly influence child health outcomes. To address this concern, this study implements an instrumental variables (IV) strategy which utilizes exogenous variation in maternal employment coming from the youngest sibling’s school eligibility. With data on children ages 7-17 from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth linked to the Child Supplement, I explore the effects of maternal employment on children’s BMI z-score and probabilities of being overweight and obese. OLS estimates indicate a moderate association, consistent with the prior literature. However, the IV estimates show that an increase in mothers’ labor supply leads to large weight gains among children, suggesting that not addressing the endogeneity of maternal employment leads to underestimated causal effects. Chapter II examines the effects of Walmart Supercenters on household and child food insecurity. Walmart Supercenters may reduce food insecurity by lowering food prices and expanding food availability. Our food insecurity-related outcomes come from the 2001-2007 waves of the December Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement. We match these data to our hand-collected data of Walmart Supercenters at the census tract-level. First, we estimate a naïve linear probability model and find that households and children who live near Walmart Supercenters are more likely than others to be food insecure. Since the location of Walmart Supercenters might be endogenous, we then turn to instrumental variables models that utilize the predictable geographic expansion patterns of Walmart Supercenters outward from Walmart’s corporate headquarters. The IV estimates suggest that the causal effect of Walmart Supercenters is to reduce food insecurity among households and children. The effect is largest among low-income families. In the third paper, I investigate the effects of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on women’s labor market outcomes. The FMLA is a federal policy that aims to help workers balance job and family responsibilities. However, it may have unintended consequences on employment because it imposes costs on firms. In this study, I investigate the impact of the FMLA with labor market flows—i.e., hires, separations and recalls. Focusing on labor market flow outcomes is crucial to identifying the immediate impact of the policy because employment and wages adjust slowly when there is a policy change while labor market flows are flexible. Using data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators and adopting a triple-difference model, I get results that are unlikely to be interpreted as causal because the data are insufficient to obtain precise estimates. However, the idea of using labor market flows can be easily applied to a broad range of topics relate to workplace mandates.

abstract: The objective of this dissertation is to empirically analyze the results of the retail location decision making process and how chain networks evolve given their value platform. It employs one of the largest cross-sectional databases of retailers ever assembled, including 50 US retail chains and over 70,000 store locations. Three closely related articles, which develop new theory explaining location deployment and behaviors of retailers, are presented. The first article, "Regionalism in US Retailing," presents a comprehensive spatial analysis of the domestic patterns of retailers. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistics examine the degree to which the chains are deployed regionally versus nationally. Regional bias is found to be associated with store counts, small market deployment, and the location of the founding store, but not the age of the chain. Chains that started in smaller markets deploy more stores in other small markets and vice versa for chains that started in larger markets. The second article, "The Location Types of US Retailers," is an inductive analysis of the types of locations chosen by the retailers. Retail locations are classified into types using cluster analysis on situational and trade area data at the geographical scale of the individual stores. A total of twelve distinct location types were identified. A second cluster analysis groups together the chains with the most similar location profiles. Retailers within the same retail business often chose similar types of locations and were placed in the same clusters. Retailers generally restrict their deployment to one of three overall strategies including metropolitan, large retail areas, or market size variety. The third article, "Modeling Retail Chain Expansion and Maturity through Wave Analysis: Theory and Application to Walmart and Target," presents a theory of retail chain expansion and maturity whereby retailers expand in waves with alternating periods of faster and slower growth. Walmart diffused gradually from Arkansas and Target grew from the coasts inward. They were similar, however, in that after expanding into an area they reached a point of saturation and opened fewer stores, then moved on to other areas, only to revisit the earlier areas for new stores. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geography 2013

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-01-12T17:50:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Mariana Lima Prates.pdf: 2568543 bytes, checksum: 92b10ebce44863fce861a620e45a0659 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-12T17:50:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mariana Lima Prates.pdf: 2568543 bytes, checksum: 92b10ebce44863fce861a620e45a0659 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Several changes in access to information have led the consumer to a new level; consumers today are more accessible to receive, search and disseminate information at anytime and anywhere. Innovative retailers had accepted this condition and started interacting with their customers in their environment. These interactions generate, uninterruptedly, an infinite mass of data known as Big Data. This study is an analysis of the worldwide retail activities in order to verify how the use of Big Data can contribute to the construction of customer value, focused on the American retailer Walmart. Through a case study, it was possible to identify how innovative and technologyfocused positioning in information analysis has brought benefits to the company, creating customer value and exceeding its expectations. Among the results found in the US operation there are the growth of purchases made online with the option to pick up in a physical store and in the number of customers that choose the use of geolocation in order to speed up the purchase process and, in Brazil there are reduction in the number of complaints, growth of interactions with customers in social networks and increased sales online / Mudanças no acesso à informação conduziram o consumidor a um novo patamar; os consumidores hoje em dia estão mais acessíveis para recebimento, busca e difusão de informação a qualquer hora ou lugar. Os varejistas inovadores aceitam esta condição e passaram a interagir com seus clientes no ambiente em que estes se encontram. Estas interações geram, ininterruptamente, uma massa de dados infinitos conhecido como Big Data. Este trabalho é uma análise das atividades exercidas no varejo mundial em prol de verificar como o uso do Big Data pode contribuir na construção de valor ao cliente, com foco no varejista americano Walmart. Através de um estudo de caso, foi possível identificar como o posicionamento inovador e focado em tecnologia na análise de informações trouxe benefícios à companhia, criando valor ao cliente e superando suas expectativas. Dentre os resultados encontrados na operação americana está o crescimento no número de compras realizadas na loja online com opção de retirada em loja física e no número de clientes que optam pelo uso de geolocalização com intuito de agilizar o processo de compra e, no Brasil, redução no número de reclamações, aumento de interações com os clientes nas redes sociais e aumento nas vendas da loja online

The big-box superstore has created a dramatic effect on the retail landscape since its appearance in 1962. As big-box stores proliferate, small business owners continue to struggle with how to compete. The purpose of this multiple case study was to identify and explore strategies small business owners use to maintain or grow profit margins post big-box store market entry. The sample consisted of 5 small business owners in Kansas City, Missouri who survived the entry of the big-box store for at least 1 year. The conceptual framework was the general systems theory and systems thinking. Data were collected using semistructured interviews, archival data, and data mining. I used Yin's five-phase process of compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding for data analysis where 3 themes emerged that contributed to the case study's small businesses maintaining or increasing profits. These themes were employees and customers, finances, and organizational strategies. Key findings within the themes indicated that innovation, product differentiation, and flexibility were keys to profitability. The sustainability of small business in communities brings a variety of benefits to include social, economic, environmental, and aesthetic. These benefits can translate into tangible results such as a reduction in crime, increased social interaction, a stronger sense of identity, increased diversity, and more equity. Empowering local small business owners with sustainable business strategies could result in more businesses remaining profitable, leading to an improved standard of living for business owners and urban redevelopment as businesses flourish while contributing to local economies.

M.Com. / Hi-Lo price promotions are engraved in the South African fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector where price cuts and pricing specials are used to draw consumer traffic into stores. Massmart, in particular, Game stores are known for price cuts in the way they promote hence the arrival of Walmart present a dilemma for Games stores because Walmart is known for its everyday low pricing strategy (EDLP) compared to Hi-Lo price promotions which are popular in Game stores...

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This dissertation identifies and investigates the characteristics of the early 21st-century social, economic, and political situation as intrinsically connected and grouped under the concept of corporatism. Starting from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s schizoanalysis of capitalism, this thesis argues that corporatism or corporate capitalism is immanent: an interconnected, networked, rhizomatic system that has been successful at overtaking biopower – life in all its forms, human and otherwise – and managing it, or even making it its business. Methodologically, this dissertation aims to move beyond negative into creative critique, whose role is the uncovering of imagined or real alternatives to the problems of corporatism. Consequently, this dissertation is divided into four chapters that attempt to bring this methodology to life. Chapter 1 presents the theoretical basis of corporatism, modeled on the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Chapter 2 begins to exemplify corporatism by investigating three corporate examples. This chapter sheds light on the real-life functioning of three corporations, Hudson’s Bay Company, Walmart, and Unilever, while also connecting them to the theoretical genealogy of human social systems described by Deleuze and Guattari. Chapter 3 turns to literature as both a diagnostician of the contemporary corporatism, as well as an imaginative solution-provider. While not instrumentalizing literature, this chapter rather looks to three novels for both descriptions of the corporatist social machine and prescriptions on how to attempt to change it. The novels featured in this chapter are aligned with the creative critique methodology: from the negative and even reactionary critique of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, through the problems with the contemporary episteme illustrated by Margaret Atwood’s dystopic Oryx and Crake, to the alternative outlined by Scarlett Thomas in PopCo. Chapter 4 investigates real-life experiments in order to assess their viability in altering the present conditions of life. To this end, the last chapter couples theoretical Deleuze-Guattarian alternatives with two locavore books: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, and The 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. / English