A case study of families eligible to The National Family Agriculture Strengthening Program (PRONAF)

O estudo analisa 447 estabelecimentos enquadráveis no PRONAF e pertencentes à amostra de 1.806 estabelecimentos da Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Os dados foram coletados em 1997 e 1998, e referem-se ao ano agrícola 1996/97. Foram encontradas 236 famílias com renda líquida negativa, RL < 0, e 211 delas têm renda líquida igual ou maior que zero, RL ≥ 0. O estudo testa a hipótese de que erros de administração e bloqueio à difusão de tecnologia explicam porque os dois grupos são tão diferentes, quanto à renda líquida. Não se rejeitou a hipótese da neutralidade da tecnologia: o grupo de renda líquida negativa tem a função de produção abaixo do outro grupo. Por isso, este grupo (RL≥0 ) desfruta de conhecimentos que o grupo RL < 0 não tem. Foram encontradas muitas falhas na alocação de recursos e escolha de tecnologia. Ainda o grupo de RL < 0 enfrenta restrições à expansão do negócio, pois apresenta retorno constante à escala. Os erros de alocação de recursos exigem competência em administração rural para solucioná-los. Assim, o treinamento dos extensionistas tem que enfatizar a administração rural. O crédito rural tem que ter, como visão do negócio, o estabelecimento, e não se limitar a financiar tão somente novas tecnologias. O montante do empréstimo deve nascer do planejamento do estabelecimento. _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThe paper studies the sub-sample of 447 farms entitled to the benefits of PRONAF, the Brazilian federal government's credit programme for smallholder families, part of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation's sample of 1806 farms in nine regions of the country. From those 447 farms, 236 have negative net income ( RL < 0 ) and 211 are in the class of non-negative net income ( RL ≥ 0 ). The data were collected in 1997 and 1998, referring to the July1996/June1997 farm year. This paper's central hypothesis is that negative net income is explained by farm mismanagement and restricted knowledge diffusion. Another hypothesis is that technology is neutral, in the sense that the production function of the negative net income group is below that of the non-negative group. Thus, group RL < 0 does not have access to the same type of knowledge as group RL ≥ 0 , with a number of flaws being found in resource allocation and technology choice. Also, this group's expansion of farm activities is hindered by constant returns to scale. Sound knowledge of farm management is required to improve resource allocation, which implies training rural extension professionals to cope with farm management problems. Furthermore, the rural credit system needs to view the farm as whole, and should not be limited to financing only new technology. Instead, loan amounts must be a consequence of farm planning

The meat market in Brazil: a partial equilibrium model

A partial equilibrium model for the meat market is fit to Brazilian data by three stages least squares. The model is consistent with the data and may be used for simulation purposes. In this context we compare model simulations for the near future with the OECD/ Aglink outlook. To illustrate using the model for simulations in policy assessments, we investigate the effect of a relative increase in corn price on the poultry and pork markets, coeteris paribus.Meat markets, elasticities, three stage least squares, simultaneous system of equations., Agribusiness, C 32,

The Role of Information Systems in Human Resource Management

Over the last years, human resource management (HRM) has experienced significant transformations. The focus has passed from the administrative management tasks to becoming a strategic partner of the overall organization strategy, largely with the strong support of information technologies’ evolution in this field of knowledge area. The extended use of information systems has a deep effect in the way HRM is managed nowadays. It boosted a major transformation of human resources (HR) processes and practices within organizations, namely on how they collect, store, use, and share information. Several HRM processes have become more efficient and the impact of this service level improvement allowed a greater involvement of HR in the business strategy. This new role in business strategy adds significant changes to HR function and to its professionals. Along this chapter, we discuss the effects of information systems in HRM, considering the existing literature on the topic, and describe the benefits and possible limitations of using them. We also provide an overview of some applications of technology in functional areas of HRM, within organizations

Organizational justice across cultures and entities: an investigation in Portugal and Angola

This thesis explores employees’ entity justice perceptions about the organization as a whole, their supervisor, work-colleagues, and subordinates, in Portugal and Angola. We relate these justice perceptions to individual, organizational, and cultural differences between the countries; and explore the implications for employees’ and organizations. The thesis includes two conceptual studies, which review the extant literature to explore factors underlying country differences in the ways employees develop and react to evaluations of justice; and how those sociocultural factors interact to explain country differences. Additionally, it includes three empirical studies, which apply and expand the GLOBE project cultural model to characterize values and practices in Portugal and Angola; explore the motivational effect of individual cultural orientations (i.e., interaction of cultural values and practices) and orientation consistency (i.e., discrepancy between cultural practices and values) on the relationship between entity justice and commitment; and finally, explore the relationship between entity justice, use of social and personal resources and perceived effectiveness of how host country national and expatriate middle-managers handle work events We investigate innovative justice foci, illustrating the importance of perceptions regarding colleagues and subordinates, and showing that perceptions regarding different entities have distinct antecedents and outcomes. We adopt a dynamic multi-trait approach to country differences, exploring the relationships between values and practices, in addition to individual and organizational differences. Finally, we explore seldom studied cultural contexts. By bringing organizational justice and cross-cultural research together we hope to shed light on uncharted areas of the justice experiences of employees in different countries.Esta tese investiga percepções de justiça dos trabalhadores, em Portugal e Angola, em relação à organização como um todo, supervisor, colegas de trabalho e subordinados. Essas percepções são relacionadas com diferenças individuais, organizacionais e culturais entre países e as implicações para trabalhadores e organizações são exploradas. A tese inclui dois estudos conceptuais que revêem a literatura existente para explorar os factores subjacentes às diferenças entre os países nas forma como os trabalhadores desenvolvem e reagem a avaliações de justiça; e como esses fatores socioculturais interagem para explicar as diferenças entre países. Além disso, inclui três estudos empíricos, que aplicam e expandem o modelo cultural do projeto GLOBE para caracterizar valores e práticas culturais em Portugal e Angola; explorar o efeito motivacional das orientações culturais individuais (i.e., interação entre valores e práticas) e sua consistência (i.e., discrepância entre valores e praticas) na relação entre justiça e implicação; e finalmente, explorar a relação entre justiça, uso de recursos sociais e pessoais, e eficácia percebida da forma como gestores intermédios nacionais e expatriados lidam com eventos no trabalho Investigamos focies de justiça inovadores, ilustrando a importância das percepções acerca de colegas e subordinados e demonstrando que as percepções sobre diferentes entidades têm antecedentes e outcomes distintos. Adotamos uma abordagem dinâmica e multifacetada das diferenças entre países explorando, além de diferenças individuais e organizacionais, relações entre valores e práticas culturais. Finalmente, investigamos contextos culturais raramente estudados. Ao combinar prespectivas de justiça organizacional e pesquisa inter-cultural esperamos desvendar aspectos desconhecidos das experiências de justiça dos trabalhadores em diferentes países

Interação entre ciência e tecnologia no Brasil: notas sobre a relação entre P&D industrial e a importância das universidades para as empresas

This communication investigates the interaction between firms and universities in the Brazilian industry, looking for "partial connections" between science and technology in the Brazilian system of innovation. This communication presents two special tabulations prepared by the IBGE, using data from PINTEC. The resulting tables focus the relationship between industrial R&D and the relevance of universities for firms. The results confirm the conjecture that as firms engage in R&D they increase the relevance of universities for their innovative activities. And the continuous engagement in R&D multiplies the relevance of universities.innovation systems, Industrial R&D, universities

Spots of interaction: an investigation on the relationship between firms and universities in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Spots of interaction summarize the nature of partial connections (between science and technology) operating in the Brazilian system of innovation. A pilot study in Minas Gerais, Brazil, uses two new research tools (for immature NSIs) and presents a database with research groups located in universities and a database built upon an adapted version of the pioneering Yale and Carnegie Mellon Surveys. These complementary databases identify spots of interaction, indicating how economic sectors use specific science and engineering fields. This investigation identifies a dual role of universities in immature NSIs, as substitutes and/or complements firms R&D.systems of innovation, underdevelopment, interactions between science and technology, surveys, universities

Interactions between firms and universities in an immature system of innovation: a survey of industrial R&D-performers firms in Minas Gerais, Brazil

This paper presents preliminary results from a survey of R&D-performer industrial firms located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The inspiration for this research comes from the Yale Survey (Klevorick et all, 1995) and from the Carnegie Mellon Survey (Cohen et all, 2002), for these Surveys are groundwork for the study of interactions between universities and firms. The objective of this Minas Gerais Survey (MG Survey, henceforth) is the investigation of specific characteristics of the interaction between universities and firms in an 'immature national system of innovation'. The first section summarizes the theoretical questions putted forward by this investigation, specially the role of universities in immature NSIs. The second section investigates the Brazilian NSI using data from the IBGE’s PINTEC, focusing the R&D performer firms in Brazil and the importance of universities and public research institutes as source of knowledge for industrial innovation. This second section presents data that highlight the position of Minas Gerais in the Brazilian NSI and helps to define the MG Survey research universe. The third section summarizes the issues involved in the adaptation of the Yale and the Carnegie Mellon questionnaires to the Brazilian reality and in the identification of the R&D-performer firms in Minas Gerais. The fourth section presents the MG Survey results. The fifth section concludes the paper.systems of innovations, interactions between science and technologies

Mudanças no uso e na cobertura do solo em uma área piloto da mesorregião agreste de Pernambuco.

Visando a subsidiar estudos das alterações no balanço de emissões de gases de efeito estufa e balanço de carbono em ambientes terrestres para as diversas fisionomias vegetais, este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar, com base em imagens de satélites da série Landsat, as mudanças ocorridas, entre 1987 e 2013, no uso e na ocupação do solo. A área piloto foi representada pela folha Venturosa (SC24-X-B-V), escala 1:100.000. Foram utilizadas imagens radiometricamente corrigidas dos sensores Landsat 5 TM de 1987 e Landsat 8 LDCM de 2013. Utilizou-se a classificação supervisionada pelo método da máxima verossimilhança considerando-se as seguintes classes de cobertura: agricultura, pastagem, caatinga densa, caatinga aberta, solo exposto e corpos de água. Nos dois anos considerados a cobertura foi mantida em cerca de 43% da área. A área de agricultura não foi alterada. A perda de vegetação nativa de melhor qualidade (caatinga densa) representou uma perda de lenha de aproximadamente 5.000.000 st. O aumento da área de pastagem em cerca de 10% foi atribuído ao aumento do rebanho bovino entre os anos de 1986 e 1996. O aumento nas áreas de caatinga aberta e de solo exposto pode indicar um aumento na degradação dos solos

Diferenciação intersetorial na interação entre empresas e universidades no Brasil: notas introdutórias sobre as especificidades da interação entre ciência e tecnologia em sistemas de inovação imaturos

This article presents results based on special tabulations prepared by IBGE, using data from PINTEC in order to focus on the interaction between firms and universities in the Brazilian industry. The basic hypothesis states that the relevance of universities as a source of information to the firms’ innovation activities is greater when firms are engaged in R&D activities (both internal and external). The hypothesis is not rejected neither for the general industry nor for inter-sectorial analysis.systems, industrial R&D, universities