Do céu ao inferno – a crise da carne em 2017: análise do mercado e papel dos stakeholders

Abstract

Brazil is a huge country with an abundance of land, water and a favourable climate. This has enabled the development of one of the largest chains of animal protein production in the world. In 2016, 26,35 million tons of meat production resulted in Brazil becoming the world's biggest producer of meat. The production of meat in that year was responsible for 22,5% of the country's GDP. More than U$1,11 billion was exported to the USA and to more than 150 countries in 2016. This generated over 6,7 million direct and indirect jobs and as a result the meat industry established itself as one of the main socio-economic pillars of the country. On the other hand, Brazil is also known for its social, cultural and political problems. High rates of corruption and recent political turbulence resulted in a police investigation on 17th of March of 2017, known as the "Carne fraca". This investigation shed light on the corruption scheme that used kickbacks and slowed down civil officers control. This situation caused serious reservations in the minds of the Brazilian meat consumers worldwide and unleashed a crisis of image that reflected in the whole chain of production and sales. This resulted lack of confidence and threatened to discredit to the whole industry. The primary actors and stakeholders involved in this industry were not content with the situation and considered it important to analyse the industry more closely to determine and face cause and effect. Therefore, this paper aims to understand how primary actors and their main stakeholders took a position in the face of the main impacts of the 2017 meat crisis, as well as to describe the context of the crisis, identify the central characters, to analyze the relevant impacts perceived by them and to detail their positioning. From a qualitative interpretive study, documental research analysis and in-depth interviews with the main actors, some of their stakeholders and experts in the crisis management area were used. The results showed that crisis management has been insufficiently researched by the Brazilian organizations involved in the meat crisis. These results demonstrated that crisis management has been insufficiently researched by the Brazilian organizations involved in the meat crisis. It also demonstrated that with the focus on the concept of stakeholders salience as pertaining to the ideas proposed by Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) made it easier to identify the way the main stakeholders have positioned themselves in the face of the crisis, based on attributes of power, urgency and legitimacy. The results highlighted that stakeholders assume archetypes during crisis events such as villains, saviours or victims, making the model more dynamic. At the same time it was verified that the archytypes which the stakeholders adopted hindered the crisis further as it resulted in a greater demand of the Administrators. This study contributes valuable knowledge about management during organisational crises. It seeks for effective mapping of the attributes which stakeholders possess and also identifies possible archetypes which can develop during a crisis event. Organisations, professionals and academics can receive important data which helps to better manage stakeholder crises and the development of new studies into the dilemma involving the dynamics of stakeholders and possible archetypal behaviours.