Convention economics and coordination mechanisms in collective actions: The Uruguay certified beef case

Abstract

Consumers’ interest for food quality and safety increases every day. The sanitary crises that have
occurred in the beef cattle market have led to the need to guarantee traceability and the development of
specialty brands (origin denominations, natural and organic meats, racial stamps, among others), in
which trust in the process is the basic tool for competence. Therefore, this study aims to identify the
forms of coordination configured by the agents of a beef cattle production chain in Uruguay that seeks
to develop an assured quality plan to differentiate the meat produced with the objective of generating
competitive advantages in the beef cattle market. Operationalization of the research was carried out
through a case study with the application of in-depth interviews with the members of the chain. The
results point out that the activities developed within a production chain can be characterized by several
forms of coordination in their different stages and even in a same segment, at the same time quality
conventions would allow us to explain the combination of these forms of coordination in an integrated
form of governance.