For adequacy of the project of dissertation or thesis of the candidate, it must be clarified that the basic orientation of the PPGA/UFLA is reflected in three areas of concentration combined to the research lines. The description below reflects this orientation, representing the group of professors who are responsible for subjects of the program and have responsibilities/participation in scientific research projects. The professors are organized in groups, which develop research projects, including PhD, master’s and Undergraduate Research students. These areas of concentration/lines of research are:
Area/line 1 – Strategic management, marketing and innovation
This area of concentration/line of research aims to develop studies that focus on the following thematic clusters:
– Strategy and inter-organizational relations: seeks to understand the strategy, competitive dynamics, interaction processes in organizational networks, productive settlements and their effects, paying attention to the complexity of the theme that requires multiple theoretical and methodological approaches. It also involves strategic studies in teaching and research in administration.
– Knowledge, technology and innovation management: emphasizes the management of innovation processes, both in technologies such as business processes, by a theoretical, methodological and pragmatic vision of transformation of society via generation and dissemination of knowledge, design and introduction of new technologies and strategic impacts that innovation has on the competitive environment and the creation of values in a knowledge economy. It also involves innovation related to studies at universities, innovation of business models, and theories of adoption of technologies.
– Marketing strategies and consumer behavior: investigate the marketing strategies of organizations and their implications for the development, creation of markets, and dissemination of marketing practices. It emphasizes the study of the processes of purchase and consumption and the influence of factors of economic, sociological, anthropological and psychological order in the decisions of consumer, focusing on food, well-being, and quality of life.
Area/line 2 – Organizations, management and society
The area is constituted by a plurality of theoretical-analytical perspectives to understand organizations. It is interested in theoretical and methodological debates, conceptual and empirical, about organizations, the processes linked to them and their interface with social management. Studies in this area seek to give visibility to the relationship among individuals, organizations, State, society and the environment, contributing to the understanding of social changes related to various types of rural and urban organizations that are mixed in the composition of the contemporary society. This area includes two thematic clusters:
– Organizational studies: this thematic cluster encourages the building of links between different areas of knowledge within Organizational Studies that address topics such as power, culture, labor, diversity, gender, identity, and organizational and social change in the various formats and its borders.
– Management and Public Policies: this thematic cluster seeks to generate knowledge on public management and public policies, in order to stimulate processes and management practices in their technological, human, social, political, and cultural interfaces in public organizations.
Area/line 3 – Business management, economy and markets
This line of research studies organizations, business networks and their implications in productive industrial and financial segments, contributing to the formulation of public and private policies. The main thematic clusters of activity include:
– Market and agroindustrial systems – emphasizes the management of agribusiness, technological innovation and competitiveness as well as the relations between the economic agents and the management of quality and food safety.
– Industrial organization and internationalization of companies – Develops studies on the dynamics of company growth, investment strategy of national and multinational companies, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, settlements, and impacts of foreign direct investment to the local economy.
– Agricultural derivatives market and stocks – includes studies on risk management and return of investment, information technology in agribusiness, methodologies for creation of international scenarios, market and formation of prices of agricultural commodities, commercialization and creation of management indices for benchmarket.
– Controllership and corporate finances – involves issues relating to financial, economic, tax and management control models in scenarios of instability and uncertainty, creating value, capital structure and assessment of the performance of organizations.