In this study, we seek to verify the contributions made by three international standards to efforts by eight companies to reduce their environmental impacts and move toward sustainable development. The standards considered in this article are the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental management systems), and the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001. The eight companies analyzed for this study are located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. As part of this work, the authors generated a proposed sustainable positioning matrix and placed each company within one of four quadrants—economic approach, environmental approach, social approach, and sustainability approach—derived from the context of the Triple Bottom Line (Elkington, ).

Resumo: O objetivo deste estudo é verificar quais aspectos associados à estrutura organizacional e à capacidade de prestação de serviços contribuem para o desempenho de fornecedores logísticos no contexto de relações B2B (business to business) com empresas cliente, configuradas em cadeias de suprimentos (CS Palavras-chave: Fornecedores logísticos; Cadeia de suprimentos; Relacionamento B2B; Desempenho.Abstract: This study aims to verify what aspects related with organizational structure and service capability contribute to the performance of logistics providers in the business-to-business (B2B) context with client companies in supply chains. A sample of 80 logistics provider companies of the South of Brazil was surveyed, from a universe of companies that develop logistics activities, such as warehousing and inventory control, transportation, scheduled deliveries, port operations and customs clearance. The survey instrument consists of multiple scales to represent the construct variables related to organizational structure, service capability, and business performance. The answers reflect the logistics providers' perception of their work performance for the main customer in the supply chain. Resorting to multivariate statistical analysis based on structural equations modeling -LV-PLS (Latent Variable -Partial Least Squares) with bootstrapping, we found that the sole attribute that contributes for a better business performance of the logistics provider is its ability to meet, both technically and operationally, the service contracted by the customer. The ability to provide logistics service is positively and significantly influenced by an organizational structure endowed with both autonomy and organization.

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The aim of this paper is to verify the influence of marketing actions in order to obtain sustainable products, as well as better compliance with environmental regulation in typical industrial companies. The research presents two stages: (1) an exploratory stage characterized by a theoretical review for the definition of scales to measure constructs, as well as a review about compliance with environmental regulation, pro-environmental marketing and sustainable products; and (2) descriptive stage that involves data collection and analysis in the target study population (manufacturing companies of nondurable, semi-durable and durable consumer goods). The sample consisted of 110 valid cases, which were analysed through descriptive statistics and graphic representations of the distribution of cases in the context of research variables. Two control cases were used to verify the correspondence of their positions in the graphs when compared with the communications strategy about their pro-environment actions. Sample results showed that a more effective pro-environmental marketing exerts more influence on the compliance with environmental regulation than on achieving sustainable products. Both cases of control fall in the quadrant of more sustainability, which corresponds to public disclosures about actions to protect the environment.

The present work identified possible factors that led some collaborative network organizations to close. The case study was based on experiences obtained in networks that took part of the Collaborative Network Program of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). One of the Program creators, managers, consultants and entrepreneurs of six networks that broke down were interviewed based on a semi-structured instrument. The analysis of the Collaborative Network method indicated that important factors could motivate the failure of networks, which were validated with the integrated model of alliance failure proposed by Park and Ungson [1]. The article ends by suggesting some improvements in the Collaborative Network Program of the State of Rio Grande do Sul to become more efficient and contribute to the network success.