Gestão de custos interorganizacionais nos relacionamentos entre produtores e usina sucroenergética

Abstract

Agribusiness companies face challenges related to climatic factors, product perishability, seasonality and market uncertainties; these reasons demand cost management strategies to remain competitive in the market. This study aimed to verify how the IOCM configuration is established, from the TCE perspective, in the sugar and ethanol value chain between the producers and the mill, starting from the variables that can inhibit or favor the IOCM in the sugar-energy segment. Methodologically, this is a qualitative research carried out through a case study in a plant in the Southeast region of the country, which has been in the market for more than 90 years and has sugarcane producers that are part of its production chain, through document analysis, non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that, according to the IOCM, the agents maintain a family-level relationship, which allows them to aim for profitability through the variables of interdependence, trust, stability, frequency and commercial loyalty, which permeate the achievement of mutual benefits, increasing profitability, even with the increase in production costs, and thus reducing the risk of opportunistic behavior by the parties, even if sugarcane presents locational and temporal specificity. Additionally, the findings showed that there is a formal contract as the main safeguard in this relationship, even if there are no interorganizational cost clauses. However, there is interest in establishing longer-term contracts with the aim of mitigating the risks involved in the relationship on the part of the mill, which depends on sugarcane as raw material for its manufacturing process, and on the part of producers, who wish to sell its products and target land in subpartnerships with the plant to leverage its earnings. In this process, confidence in the commitments assumed is one of the main attributes mentioned. It is concluded, therefore, that IOCM is present in this relationship, even though it is not effectively applied and that the researched mill has a high partnership relationship with its producers, in which the focus is not on reducing costs, but on improving the quality of the sugarcane, to achieve profitability, through strategies that avoid missing the harvest deadline with operational controls, such as pests, and so that the sugarcane does not suffer contamination and consequently reduce its productivity at the plant. Investment in training are mechanisms that were identified among the agents, with the sharing of technical level employees, so that together they can find solutions to improve the performance of the product with the objective that everyone wins. This research generates contributions to the literature by proposing the analysis of IOCM in the sugar-energy sector, and how agents use this artifact to obtain profitability, in addition to the data enhancing the development of studies using the TCE theory. It also contributes, in a practical way, to the mills and their sugarcane producers, on the benefits that IOCM can bring and, above all, to benefit society in terms of the sustainability of products from this segment, such as renewable energy.