Title: Sustainable practices adopted in the management of food industry operations and their effect on the performance of its organisation

Authors: Simone Sehnem; Susana Carla Farias Pereira

Addresses: Fundação Getulio Vargas – São Paulo, Street Itapeva, N.432, Bela Vista Neighborhood, São Paulo, 01313-902, São Paulo, Brazi; UNOESC, Avenue Nereu Ramos, 3777-D-Seminary Neighborhood, Chapecó, 89813-000, SC, Brazil; UNISUL, Avenue Trajano, Florianópolis, Center, 88010 010, SC, Brazil ' Fundação Getulio Vargas – São Paulo, Street Itapeva, N.432, Bela Vista Neighborhood, São Paulo, 01313-902, São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract: The aim of this study was to analyse the strategies of operations, specifically sustainable and circular economy operations and their effect on the performance of organisations. The study sample included 304 enterprises in this industrial sector in southern Brazil. The results show that sustainable operations and performance are variables that move together in the same direction. Furthermore, regression analysis indicates that the model is useful in predicting the performance of organisations, as the p value of the F test is less than 0.05. However, operations strategy explains only 4% of performance variability. Other variables must be entered to improve the explanatory power of the analysis regarding the performance of the organisations surveyed. This finding is relevant because it shows that the sustainability investments do not always imply performance improvement. Furthermore, the performance of the company is not explained by political correctness, especially when the sample studied has a predominance of small and medium enterprises.

Keywords: sustainability; sustainable operations; circular economy.

DOI: 10.1504/LAJMSD.2017.088856

Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development, 2017 Vol.3 No.3, pp.212 - 236

Received: 28 Oct 2016
Accepted: 22 Mar 2017

Published online: 21 Dec 2017 *

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