Competitiveness and coordination in the Brazilian Papaya exporting agribusiness chain: a multiple cases study

Abstract

The research aims to understand the international market's competition standards and to evaluate the organizational framework adopted by Brazilian firms in the Papaya exporting agribusiness chain and its relations with the determinant factors of that standard. The theoretical basis of this study is the concept related to the economy of transaction costs and to the Strategy School. The basic grounds of the research lays in the hypothesis that firms with more adequate organizational framework than of the competition standard will have a better chance of acquiring an maintaining a better competitive position. The empirical work was based in a multiple cases study. The analysis of the determinant factors of the competition standard, as well as of the organizational framework has produced a detailed map of Brazilian Papaya exporting agribusiness chain under a dynamic perspective, because it includes the evolution trends of selected factors. In the paper are pointed out possible explanations for the adaptation and answering ability of the organizational framework in matching the factors of the competition standards. The two considered approaches complement each other in the analysis of the adherence of the supply and international distribution strategies of the exporting firms to the determinant factors of the competition standard, helping to infer the competitive ability due to organizational framework in the Brazilian Papaya exporting agribusiness chain.