Search

Diversification is an alternative for sustainability and competitiveness for the sugar industry. The objective of this work was to develop an index for diversification, integrating the limiting bio-physical, ecological and socio-economic factors in municipalities producing sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) in a sugarcane region of Mexico, using a multi-criteria evaluation of analytical hierarchies in a Geographic Information System as an approach methodology. Results indicate that the impact of social-economic limiting factors has an importance of 71.2%, while the importance for the ecological factors is 29.4%. Regarding the socio-economic factors, experience in diversification projects and quantity and quality production of raw materials represent 30% of the capacity for diversifying cane-producing municipalities. These municipalities ought to be incorporated in the decision-making and the formulation of differentiated public policies for the sustainability of this agro-industry in cane-producing regions. The decisions of technological scope or techniques applied to date to achieve diversification do not depend on one factor alone; therefore, the resources, capacities, abilities, education and motivation of the sugarcane producers could be seen as the essential motor for local diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the interactive effects of product diversification (PD), multinationality (MN), and country involvement (CI) on firm performance, and explores these effects not only in pairs but also in groups. It locates the optimal combinations of these three variables that will help firms to maximize their performance. The results indicate that when these three variables interact in pairs (that is, MN and CI, respectively, interact with PD), their impact on firm performance are opposite, when they interact as a group (MN and CI jointly interact with PD), they mutually strengthen or cancel each other out, and the optimal combinations differ depending on the interactions of PD with MN and CI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]