Avaliação das estratégias ambiental e social da indústria têxtil do Nordeste

Abstract

With the opening of the Brazilian economy in the 1990´s, the textile industry pursued the modernization of it’s products, processes and management methods to become competitive and to face competition in the global market place. Thus firms started to integrate social and environmental issues into their business strategies. The strategies assumed various positions related to the extent to which firms received increased demands from interest groups and shifted their conduct in pursuit of a more sustainable position. Given this situation our objective was to evaluate the environmental and social strategies of the textile industry of Northeastern Brazil based on the theory of the Structure-Conduct-Performance-Triple SCP-Model. The model asserts that firms subject to pressures of the industry structure adopt economic, environmental and social conducts to obtain a performance also manifested in these three dimensions. A qualitative quantitative survey of an exploratory nature was carried out using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was used in 17 firms in the spinning, weaving and knitwear sectors located in the states of Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte. The analysis of the date shows the importance of pressures on the structure of the industry exerted by inspection organizations and interest groups which are perceived by firms according to their intensity on the environmental and social dimension. In the environmental dimension, the firms are more concentrated in the “indifferent” and “reactive” strategic positions. In the social dimension, the firms are concentrated in the “accommodative” and “reactive” strategic positions. It is concluded that there is a predominance of firms with conduct not compatible with the competitive realities of global markets and therefore their strategic positions do not respond appropriately to stakeholder pressures.