Floriculture is one of the most important segments of Brazilian agriculture due to the significant financial resources it involves, the amount of manpower employed and the potential for growth it presents through exportation and an increase of internal consumption. Therefore, quality and management are fundamental steps to make it grow. The objective of this paper was to develop a method to help producers of cut flowers in the task of identifying their managerial degree, leading them to adopt the theoretical basis, the criteria and activities of quality management that will result in an organized business. To develop this paper, the criteria recommended by the National Quality Foundation were used as a base line for the selection, the establishment of priorities and setting up of hierarchies of managerial themes and indicators to be adopted in the new method. Primary and secondary data, collected through this research, were given priorities and then hierarchy was set up through the Delphi technique in management parameters for agribusiness. A questionnaire was compiled and applied to 41 experts in the flower sector, both private and belonging to public institutions. Once set up the hierarchy of the parameters, these were converted into objective questions used to assemble a second questionnaire to be filled in by the organizations directly involved in the activity. This questionnaire, associated to a score table, indicates the managerial maturity degree of the organizations and points out the opportunities for process improvements. This model was called Management Degree Identification Method (MDIM). The MDIM was applied to 14 organizations involved in the Brazilian cut flower activity. The consistency in the answers obtained indicates that the method that was developed is adequate to quickly identify and evaluate the management degree in the production of cut flowers at a low cost.
Floriculture; quality; competitivity; agribusiness
