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Background: Although the literature on education and learning sciences determined how student identities influence their experiential learning process, this link is less clear in the agricultural context, where farmers have faced unique value chain challenges i.e., production to marketing. Purpose: This study contributes to examining how farmers' role identities support or hamper farmers' experiential learning processes. Methodology: First, a qualitative analysis of 91 interviews with coffee farmers in Uganda was carried out to understand the nature and relevance of farmers' role identities. Second, using partial least squares regression-based path analysis, the moderating effect of 214 coffee farmers' production role identity on their experiential learning was assessed. Findings : Findings reveal that farmers' identification as coffee farmers shape what, how, and when they learn from their value chain challenges. Farmers' role identity, in particular, supports their reflection on past challenges to increase their challenge-solving knowledge, as well as experimentation to solve their challenges. Implications: This study integrates role identity theories in the study of learning processes in rural coffee value chains. Moreover, the findings suggest that agricultural extension workers should understand farmers' identities and their influence on their learning to select the targets and developments of their training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on sustainability often focuses on its technical side, such as in studies of life cycle assessment, supply chain management and cleaner production systems. It traditionally assumes that creativity and sustainability are two separate entities in organizations. Contrasting with this implicit assumption, this study analyses the process of how aesthetics serve as a mediating tool to translate individual creativity into sustainable messages within and beyond the organization. Empirical evidence is drawn from the Brazilian luxury fashion house Osklen. Aside from introducing the conceptual construct of aesthetic mediation, the paper also proposes a methodological contribution: by combining interviews with aesthetic inquiry, the article pushes the boundaries of ‘traditional’ qualitative methods. The aim is to encourage sustainable entrepreneurship and organization scholars to expand their methodological horizon in order to capture the emotionally charged, value-laden processes they study. Through a two-level coding of Osklen fashion collections forged through aesthetic inquiry, this study conceptualizes the process of aesthetic mediation in terms of four sequential practices: opening up to inspiring phenomena, having an epiphany, connecting to a sustainability message and translating the message into a tangible product. In particular, the translating a sustainability message into a tangible product involves the support of three techniques: preservation, transformation and adding novelty. The authors conclude by drawing general implications for developing and communicating sustainability messages in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have emerged as collaborative partnerships to deal with wicked problems, particularly in the global food system. This article analyzes the role that academics play in these initiatives at a global level, and the nature of their participation. Based on a qualitative analysis supported by a database of 41 multi-stakeholder initiatives in the global agriculture and food sector and 51 interviews with their participants, this research identifies five key roles that academics play in multi-stakeholder initiatives and in communities of practice around them. In multi-stakeholder initiatives, academics act as knowledge experts, agenda-setting advisors and facilitators. In communities of practice, academics develop new knowledge on multi-stakeholder initiatives by theorizing from their observation and reflection and they build international bridges between students and multi-stakeholder initiatives. The results imply that academics engaging in multi-stakeholder initiatives that deal with global wicked problems can choose multiple paths to align their societal mission of co-creating sustainability with the broader organizational goals of their universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the impact of individual group members’ heterogeneous characteristics, resources and strategies on their level of cooperation on defining the future regulation of Geographical Indications (GIs). By following a “grounded theory” approach, this study combines qualitative evidence from an in-depth study on the “Prosciutto di Parma” Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Consortium with quantitative evidence based on data collected from 94 Consortium members and analysed through path modelling. Results confirm that (1) “Prosciutto di Parma” Consortium members have highly and increasingly heterogeneous characteristics, assets and strategies and that (2) higher heterogeneity negatively affects members’ agreement on the future level of restrictiveness of “Prosciutto di Parma” PDO as GI and therefore the effectiveness of the collective action. Overall, these findings give light to another internal barrier that may threaten producers’ opportunity of profiting from the use of established and highly recognized GIs. Managerial and policy implications for both “Prosciutto di Parma” Consortium members and other groups governing established and highly recognized GIs are drawn. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study analyzes the mitigating effect of positive brand information on animal welfare on consumers' perceptions, attitudes, and buying intentions for meat products when provided before a negative information shock related to the same issue. By tackling this question, this study integrates with the existing agricultural economics literature, which mainly analyzed consumers' willingness to pay for meat with the animal welfare attribute, and the marketing literature, which extensively studied the interaction of positive and negative information in similar but different settings. Data are collected from a convenience sample of 394 university students through an online survey on fast food chicken breast sandwiches. The latent growth model (LGM) used to analyze the data allows understanding how different segments of consumers dynamically change their perceptions and attitudes when affected by contrasting information. This analysis provides meat companies a tool to tailor their brand information to communicate more effectively to their stakeholders, to build and protect their brand from the risks of negative shocks, and ultimately to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the concept of resilience being increasingly applied in farming systems research, there is general agreement that the resilience theory should be supported by sound assessment methodologies. Yet, in the extant literature, definitions and measures of resilience as a system outcome, a system capability or a process are often conflated, causing conceptual and methodological ambiguities. To overcome these limitations, here we systematically review the literature on assessing the resilience of farming systems and identify patterns, including similarities and differences in underpinning theories and in methodologies. We analyzed 123 papers on how the resilience of farming systems is conceptualized and assessed. From these papers, we identified four theoretical positions (“lenses”): traditional, vulnerability, capacities, and agroecology. These lenses differ and complement each other in terms of the outcome definition of resilience (stability, transformation, and reduced vulnerability), the prominent components of resilience (capacities, practices, and resources), and the perturbations that farming systems are exposed to (shocks, exposure, and sensitivity). Collectively, these lenses offer a novel causality framework with a complementary set of causal links between perturbations, components, and outcomes. This paper suggests for the first time that resilience assessment methodologies can be further developed by drawing from the strengths and complementarities of the different perspectives. Hence, this paper identifies five design choices that need to be made in order to rigorously assess the resilience of farming systems. These concern the choice of system traits, of perturbations, of type of resilience, of contributing factors, and of resilience outcomes that will be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations increasingly acknowledge the importance of sustainable practices. Corporate social responsibility is therefore gaining significance in the business world. Since solving corporate social responsibility issues is not a routine job, every challenge in corporate social responsibility requires its own approach; and management competencies are crucial for designing appropriate approaches towards the realization of sustainable solutions. On the basis of seven corporate social responsibility competencies synthesized from the extant literature, this research provides an empirical analysis of which of these competencies managers need in order to achieve corporate social responsibility goals within their specific context; and at which specific stage of the implementation process. The data sources are interviews with corporate social responsibility managers – whose positions and circumstances share many similarities – at four large multinational enterprises. The empirical analysis reveals that managers undertake four corporate social responsibility core tasks: I) orientation, II) reaching common ground, III) performing pilot projects, and IV) embedding results. Within the context of the analysis, the competencies: Systems Thinking , Embracing Diversity and Interdisciplinarity , Interpersonal Competence , Action Competence , and Strategic Management were found to be necessary. The Embracing Diversity and Interdisciplinarity competence was identified as the most relevant. This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility (education) literature by introducing an empirical test of which competencies are considered necessary for managers in various stages of corporate social responsibility implementation. Linking these competencies to core tasks makes them more concrete and increases the chances of interpreting them unambiguously, which in turn can aid learning trajectories in both business and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]