À querida orientadora Ana Cristina Limongi França pela atenção, apoio, confiança, amizade, orientação e exemplo. Ao professor James Terence Coulter Wright, pelo incentivo e apoio, em vários anos de convivência; ao professor Roberto Sbragia, pelo apoio na formulação do problema e metodologia. Às professoras Bernadete de Lourdes Marinho e Maria Aparecida Gouvêa, pelas contribuições oferecidas e disponibilidade em ajudar.

This study discusses the influence of internal and relational resources on the performance of purchasing companies in which strategic suppliers are involved in their business processes, through interaction with operational competencies. The discussion of competency development has followed an internal focus on the company influenced by the resource-based view. In turn, the relational view proposes strategies of interorganizational cooperation to develop competitive relationships through short- and long-term collaborative actions. This study fills an important gap in the field of resource theory in Latin America. The results show that relational vision categories, when integrated with operational competences, influence business performance.

This article investigates the economic gains with the reduction of logistic costs after the asphalt pavement of the highway MT 235 for a Brazilian crystal sugar and alcohol industry. Investment in infrastructure is an attribute that increases economic growth and increases the competitiveness of companies. As far as road transport infrastructure is concerned, the problems are not limited to a specific area, but stretches of highways, which link urban transportation and ports to the generation and transmission of electricity, among others. Only 12.2% of Brazilian highways are paved. This work is the result of a longitudinal case study with participant observation, in a time line from 2009 to 2017. It was possible to identify that, after improvements in road transport infrastructure, the asphalt pavement of the highway MT 235 made possible a gain in travel time and a decrease in logistics costs, which led to the closure of the activities of one of the subsidiaries of the company studied, located in Manaus (Amazonas), in 2009. With the benefits of the asphalt pavement of the MT 235, in 2017 we found that sales volume increased 650% in relation to 2011, logistics costs have been significantly reduced in relation to gross revenues, maintaining an average of 11.58%. In 2017, the logistic costs of the company studied were 12.61% versus 20.7% from the group of Brazilian agribusiness companies. The findings show that investments in road transport infrastructure are crucial when it comes to fostering trade and competitiveness of domestic products in international markets, by reducing logistics costs.

The debate about relational resources and their influences has followed an internal focus on organizations, and in the literature this has been shown to have a high influence on the ways of the resource-based view. This article aims to analyze the development of operational competencies following the focus of the relational view from the interaction of relational resources shared in supply chains. The research was guided by the strategy of multiple case studies in the steel industry, automotive and industrial applications, pulp production, and engineering for the energy industry. The results of the analysis of the four cases show that deeper relationships in the form of partnerships enable a process of investing in specific assets, knowledge accumulation, learning exchange, and a combination of complementary strategic resources that develop relational operational competencies. And, these competencies that represent the company's ability to promote a skill set to use resources efficiently and to provide a barrier to imitation are further developed by the information and knowledge constructs.