Governance structures and response conditions to environmental laws: a case study in distilleries of Paraná State

Abstract

In this work, we aimed to understand, under theoretical umbrella of the New Institutional Economics, the way how the governance structures can affect the response condition to environmental laws in the relations between producers and processors in Paraná distilleries. Thus, we performed a qualitative, descriptive and cross-sectional research, with longitudinal perspective. Data were collected by means of unstructured interviews to agricultural managers and to the oldest suppliers of five of seven distilleries of the State of Paraná. According to results, besides vertical integration, the governance structure in the hybrid form, represented by the contract of partnership-type lease, was found to be the most suitable for attending the environmental laws, due to total control obtained under the productive process. The hybrid structures involving the agricultural and supplying partnership contracts, showed low response speed, by not making possible the total control of assets and by requiring higher coordination of the relation among distillery with its working partners.