Agriculture : can sustainability practices enhance firm competitiveness? : a case study

• Autor(a) principal: Longo, Bruno Miguel da Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/25321
• topic: Agriculture; Sustainability; Competitiveness and competitive advantage; Agricultura; Sustentabilidade; Competitividade e vantagem competitiva; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

This dissertation is a case study on a Portuguese example on how sustainability practices enhances the competitiveness of the firm. The case is kept anonymous, but it deals with a fruit producing company in the South of Portugal that exports almost all of its production to Northern European countries. We aim to research the extent of sustainability in agriculture and its relationship with the competitive advantage. Therefore, through a qualitative approach, a semi structured interview was conducted with the CEO of an agriculture company. Moreover, a standardized Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) questionnaire was answered to access the company level of compliance with sustainability practices. The gathered data, has shown that even though there is an agreement with the definition followed in the literature review, there is an appropriation to suit the company interests. Furthermore, the questionnaire revealed that the company in this case study presents a high level of sustainability. Regarding, the competitive advantage, it was discovered that a differentiation strategy based on the resource based view is the one that best leverages practices into a superior performance. In the last years the topic sustainability has become a tendency, however there was a lack of research in the connection with competitive advantage. This dissertation provides a different point of view about sustainability connecting both concepts, based on the evaluation of a Portuguese agriculture company.