Search

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]

As a symptom of the current global climate emergency, rising temperatures pervade organizational lives. Yet organization studies have hardly investigated the everyday organizing necessary to cope and adapt, here and now, to life in a world approaching and even surpassing 50°C. This article seeks to open spaces of collective inquiry to grapple with practices of organizational co-evolution with heat. I apply Barad's post-humanist notion of diffraction—patterns of interference in entangled agency—through warming organizations, as rising temperatures intra-act with the matter, materials, bodies, and discourses that co-constitute them. Diffractive inquiry helps organization studies understand how rising heat alters and amplifies bodily differences across families, communities, firms, societies, and ecologies. This post-humanist view forces us to rethink theories of organizational resilience, inequality, and identity in co-evolution with heat and other ecological phenomena as part of a relational whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have witnessed a growing academic debate on labour exploitation, caporalato, organised crime, and migration issues in agriculture, which, as wicked problems, are deeply interconnected and resist generalisable solutions. To contribute to this thriving debate from a social innovation lens, we investigate the organising practices meant to disrupt the organised statusquo of exploitation. Drawing upon a case study from Foggia in Puglia (southern Italy), we investigate how an Italian non-profit organisation developed and implemented a multi-stakeholder pilot project of economic integration in rural areas to confront the phenomenon of labour exploitation in agriculture. Through collaboration among authorities, civil societies, and private sectors, this pilot project managed to unlock underused resources to meet the needs of the most vulnerable individuals embedded in the local ecosystem. By developing a grounded theory on practices of disembedding and embedding, this study contributes to theories on social innovation as political actions and interactions that purposely trigger disruption in established systems of labour exploitation, organised crime, and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple value chain challenges confront smallholder farmers, which necessitate context-specific solutions. Family resources, such as information and production inputs, are valuable assets for farmers. When properly used, farmers' family resources can help them in learning how to address value chain challenges. Yet, the learning in rural agricultural value chain literature still does not inform how family resources influence farmers' learning. Face-to-face interviews with 214 coffee farmers were used to investigate how family resources shape farmers' experiential learning process. The data was analyzed using PLS-SEM. Results show that family resources play a crucial role in farmers' experiential learning process, particular in reflecting on and addressing value chain challenges they are confronted with. Smallholder farms, as a collective and farmer-centered experiential learning context, can serve as a source of inspiration for extension agents bringing the paradigm shift from technology transfer to participatory advisory services to reality. The study contributes to experiential theory in the context of agriculture by advancing a model on how rural family support can function as a resource to change the mechanisms underlying farmers' experiential learning. The smallholder farm is a node in larger social learning networks (e.g. Innovation platform), where resources such as information, labor, emotional support, and production inputs, circulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While new rich learning opportunities emerged through the introduction of Innovation Platforms (IPs) in agricultural value chains, the extent to which IPs enhance farmer experiential learning is still unclear. This paper brings clarity to the above question by interviewing 91 coffee IP farmers. Data were analyzed through content analysis to generate overarching themes for farmers' experiences, learning activities, and outcomes. Results reveal that participation in IP learning activities generates farmers' knowledge to cope with coffee value chain challenges. Specifically, farmers' making-meaning of challenges and generating new solutions represents an iteration between individual critical reflection and experimentation of value chain activities. The IPs facilitated multi-directional knowledge flows among farmers by mobilizing necessary resources. As many Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) governments cannot provide sufficient extension support, farmers increasingly rely on IPs whose processes stimulate members' learning commitment and endeavors. Nevertheless, Governments can use these findings to tailor the design and implementation of IPs to farmers' experiential learning processes. The study contributes to experiential theory in the context of agriculture by advancing a model on how IPs can accelerate farmers' experiential learning processes based on the challenges experienced. This article extends knowledge of experiential learning in IPs context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal actors across scales and geographies increasingly demand visual applications of systems thinking -- the process of understanding and changing the reality of a system by considering its whole set of interdependencies -- to address complex problems affecting food and agriculture. Yet, despite the wide offer of systems mapping tools, there is still little guidance for managers, policy-makers, civil society and changemakers in food and agriculture on how to choose, combine and use these tools on the basis of a sufficiently deep understanding of socio-ecological systems. Unfortunately, actors seeking to address complex problems with inadequate understandings of systems often have limited influence on the socio-ecological systems they inhabit, and sometimes even generate unintended negative consequences. Hence, we first review, discuss and exemplify seven key features of systems that should be -- but rarely have been -- incorporated in strategic decisions in the agri-food sector: interdependency, level-multiplicity, dynamism, path dependency, self-organization, non-linearity and complex causality. Second, on the basis of these features, we propose a collective process to systems mapping that grounds on the notion that the configuration of problems (i.e., how multiple issues entangle with each other) and the configuration of actors (i.e., how multiple actors relate to each other and share resources) represent two sides of the same coin. Third, we provide implications for societal actors - including decisionmakers, trainers and facilitators - using systems mapping to trigger or accelerate systems change in five purposive ways: targeting multiple goals; generating ripple effects; mitigating unintended consequences; tackling systemic constraints, and collaborating with unconventional partners. [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]

This paper theorizes the spiritual processes of community entrepreneuring as navigating tensions that arise when community-based enterprises (CBEs) emerge within communities and generate socio-economic inequality. Grounded on an ethnographic study of a dairy CBE in rural Malawi, findings reveal that intra-community tensions revolve around the occurrence of 'bad events' – mysterious tragedies that, among their multiple meanings, are also framed as witchcraft. Community members prepare for, frame, cope and build collective sustenance from 'bad events' by intertwining witchcraft and mundane socio-material practices. Together, these practices reflect the mystery and the ambiguity that surround 'bad events' and prevent intra-community tensions from overtly erupting. Through witchcraft, intra-community tensions are channelled, amplified and tamed cyclically as this process first destabilizes community social order and then restabilizes it after partial compensation for socio-economic inequality. Generalizing beyond witchcraft, this spiritual view of community entrepreneuring enriches our understanding of entrepreneuring – meant as organization-creation process in an already organized world – in the context of communities. Furthermore, it sheds light on the dynamics of socio-economic inequality surrounding CBEs, and on how spirituality helps community members to cope with inequality and its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In contexts of transition economies generally characterized by weak formal institutions, a rich literature remarks the important role of informal institutions in fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. Nevertheless, in the agricultural context, little is known yet about how and why institutions shape farmer entrepreneurship. To better understand how informal institutions shape farmer entrepreneurship, this paper investigates how farmers' trust towards their buyers influence their entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the rural context of a transition economy. Design/methodology/approach: A structured survey was conducted in June–July 2017 with Albanian dairy farmers. In total, 238 milk producers were interviewed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is employed to develop measures for the latent variables of the study (e.g. farmers' trust, EO), and an instrumental variable (IV) approach is employed to estimate the effect of farmers' trust towards the buyer on their EO, by using farmers' reciprocity as a suitable IV. Findings: Empirical findings reveal that innovativeness, risk-taking and proactivity represent effective dimensions of farmers' EO also in the rural context of a transition economy. Furthermore, farmers' trust towards their buyers shapes their EO, and, at the same time, younger and wealthier farmers are more likely to have higher levels of EO. Research limitations/implications: The results show that there is an association between farmers' wealth and their EO. This relationship can go both ways. However, cross-sectional studies are not appropriate to investigate feedback loops. Originality/value: This study addresses a knowledge gap in the institution–entrepreneurship literature in transition economies, by making two contributions. First, it tests the measurement model for farmers' EO, an established psychological antecedent of farmers' entrepreneurial activity. Second, it tests the hypothesis that farmers' trust towards their buyers may influence their EO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a nano (hyperlocal) view of climate change mitigation by viewing regenerative organizing through the eyes (as well as bodies and senses, etc.) of the households engaged in community-based energy projects. By showing what humans make up for in the largely absent relationship between nature and technology in these projects, we envision an incremental extension of the literature on community-based energy. The radically different contribution we aim to make is a tripartite imbrication that brings in natural agency alongside the human and the technical but specifies precisely how nano (smaller than micro) embodied practices afford mis- and realignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A flourishing literature assesses how sustainable business models create and capture value in socio-ecological systems. Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about how the organization of sustainable business models—of which cross-sector partnerships represent a core and distinctive mechanism—can support socio-ecological resilience. We address this knowledge gap by taking a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective. We develop a framework that identifies the key strategic, institutional, and learning elements of partnerships that sustainable business models rely on to support socio-ecological resilience. With our analytical framework, we underpin the importance of assessing sustainable business initiatives in terms of their impact on resilience at the level of socio-ecological systems, not just of organizations. Therefore, we reveal how cross-sector partnerships provide the organizational support for sustainable business models to support socio-ecological resilience. By combining the key features of CAS and the key elements of partnerships, we provide insight into the formidable task of designing cross-sector partnerships so that they support socio-ecological resilience and avoid unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study theorizes on the sociomateriality of food in authority-building processes of partial organizations by exploring alternative food networks (AFNs). Through the construction of arenas for food provisioning, AFNs represent grassroots collectives that deliberately differentiate their practices from mainstream forms of food provisioning. Based on a sequential mixed-methods analysis of 24 AFNs, where an inductive chronological analysis is followed by a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we found that the entanglements between participants' food provisioning practices and food itself shape how authority emerges in AFNs. Food generates biological, physiological and social struggles for AFN participants who, in turn, respond by embracing or avoiding them. As an outcome, most AFNs tend to bureaucratize over time according to four identified patterns while a few idiosyncratically build a more shared basis of authority. We conclude that the sociomateriality of food plays an important yet indirect role in understanding why and how food provisioning arenas re-organize and forge their forms of authority over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study explores the role of the key dimensions of farmers' entrepreneurial orientation – namely proactiveness, risk-taking, innovativeness and intentions – as drivers of product, process and market innovation in the context of one coffee MSP in Uganda. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical data from 152 coffee farmers were analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis and partial least square multi-variate statistics. Findings: Findings highlight, first, that farmers' proactiveness significantly drives their product innovation and, to a lesser extent, process innovation. This effect holds when considering key control variables, such as access to key resources and associated actors. Second, more surprisingly, farmers' innovativeness hampers market innovation. Third, entrepreneurial intentions per se did not play a significant role in farmers' innovation. Fourth, the adapted measurement of risk-taking from the Western literature did not suit well the Ugandan coffee farming context. Research limitations/implications: These results lead to methodological implications for the measurement of farmers' risk-taking, innovative and proactive attitudes, as well as market innovation in rural Africa. Furthermore, they expand the role farmers' entrepreneurial orientation on product, process and market innovation in a rural African context. Originality/value: Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) are often claimed to play an important role in stimulating farmers' innovation and enhancing rural development. Nevertheless, little is known yet on if why some farmers participating in MSPs may innovate more than others. This paper addresses this gap by shedding light on the role of farmers' entrepreneurial orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the increasing interest on multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) as novel organizational forms addressing grand challenges surrounding agri-food systems, the literature on how MSPs influence farmers' innovation remains scattered across sub-disciplines and geographies and, overall, of limited help for informing managerial and policy action and reflection. Design/methodology/approach: To address this gap, this systematic literature review (SRL) provides an overview on what MSPs are and how they influence farmers' innovation in emerging economies. Findings: The selected sample included n = 44 publications in 2004–2018, focussing for 70% on Africa, with minor shares in Latin America and Asia, and with a strong theoretical and methodological segmentation across five sub-disciplines (agribusiness management, agricultural economics, agricultural innovation systems, agricultural research for development and public policy and governance). Overall, this SRL leads to three findings. First, a key distinctive organizational feature of MSPs relative to other novel organizational forms in emerging economies entails the presence of a virtual and/or physical interface spanning across multiple heterogeneous stakeholders. Second, in relation to their impact pathways towards farmers' innovation, MSPs tend to achieve different intermediary outcomes and levels of innovation depending on their organizational goals and activities. Research limitations/implications: These findings also reveal four key limitations of the extant MSP literature – namely, disciplinary silos thinking, linear thinking, limited focus on the role of informal institutions and little emphasis on power dynamics – which could inform managers and policy makers on how MSPs could influence farmers; innovation. Originality/value: This study offers a SLR with the goal of providing practitioners and academics with first, a holistic view of the available research on the impact of MSPs on farmers innovation, and second, propose an impact pathway framework to understand how and under which circumstances MSPs support farmers' innovation given their functioning, structure and the governance mechanisms of MSPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This editorial article introduces and analyzes a variety of new organizational forms that rapidly emerged in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the latest two decades. Among the others, these include: business model partnerships, business platforms, incubators and hubs, public–private partnerships, agribusiness companies' foundations and spin-offs, short supply chains, community-supported agriculture and other community self-organizing experiences. Building upon the recent literature and the five selected papers in this special issue, the authors discuss what is novel in these organizations and why, when and how they emerge and evolve over time. Design/methodology/approach: The authors identify three elements that, when considered together, explain and predict the emergence and evolution of these new organizational forms: institutions, strategies and learning processes. Findings: The authors demonstrate that societal actors seeking to (re)design these new organizational forms need to consider these three elements to combine the pursuit of their interests of their own constituencies with the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Originality/value: Taking stock from the literature, the authors invite future research on new organizational forms to take explicitly the pursuit of the SDGs into consideration; to build upon a process ontology; and to deeply reflect on our positionality of scientists studying and sometimes engaging in these organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Climate‐Smart Landscape (CSL) approach has recently emerged as an integrated management strategy to address the increasing pressures on agricultural production, ecosystem conservation, rural livelihoods, and climate change mitigation/adaptation. Agribusiness companies play a controversial role in achieving CSL goals. On one hand, their operations cause land and natural resource degradation. On the other hand, they have technical, managerial, and financial resources to invest in more sustainable landscapes. Despite the controversy, empirical evidence on which practices agribusiness companies plan to undertake for sustainable landscape management and their intentions to contribute achieving CSL objectives is scarce and fragmented in the academic literature. To fill in this knowledge gap, this paper describes and reviews agribusiness companies' planned practices for integrated landscape management worldwide. Additionally, this paper evaluates to what extent companies plan to engage in two crucial factors to achieving CSL: stakeholder involvement and activities' monitoring. Results show that despite many agribusiness‐led initiatives have potential in contributing to more sustainable practices, major steps should still be taken to involve stakeholders and monitoring their process and outcomes to actually achieve CSL goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the burgeoning literature on the governance and impact of cross-sector partnerships in the past two decades, the debate on how and when these collaborative arrangements address globally relevant problems and contribute to systemic change remains open. Building upon the notion of wicked problems and the literature on governing such wicked problems, this paper defines harnessing problems in multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) as the approach of taking into account the nature of the problem and of organizing governance processes accordingly. The paper develops an innovative analytical framework that conceptualizes MSPs in terms of three governance processes (deliberation, decision-making and enforcement) harnessing three key dimensions of wicked problems (knowledge uncertainty, value conflict and dynamic complexity). The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil provides an illustrative case study on how this analytical framework describes and explains organizational change in partnerships from a problem-based perspective. The framework can be used to better understand and predict the complex relationships between MSP governance processes, systemic change and societal problems, but also as a guiding tool in (re-)organizing governance processes to continuously re-assess the problems over time and address them accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the proliferation of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems, the recent literature has still not unravelled what sharing exactly entails from an organizational standpoint. In light of this knowledge gap, this study aims to understand which resources are shared, and how, in a heterogeneous set of sharing economy initiatives in the context of food and agriculture. Specifically, this study compares the organization of various forms of alternative food networks (AFNs), which are recognized to be frugal forms of sharing economy initiatives (i.e., locally based, small-scale and with limited use of information technology), in terms of leadership, bureaucracy, shared resources and participants' engagement. Data from a comparative case study across 18 AFNs identify five sharing economy models of AFNs with distinctive shared resources and organizational mechanisms: consumer groups; commercial community gardens; as well as network-based, privately owned and publicly owned self-consumption community gardens. These models also display notable differences in terms of their origins, participants' goals and constraints which, to some extent, may be associated to the nature of their organization. Findings inform policy-makers, AFNs' leaders and stakeholders-especially those seeking to support innovative models towards sustainable transitions-on how to tailor institutional norms and develop networks to meet the heterogeneous needs of different typologies of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of much research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) responses to secondary stakeholders (i.e., social movements, activists, media, civil society and non-governmental organizations), the debate on how companies learn from pressure and collaboration with these societal groups is still open. Building upon stakeholder and knowledge management theories, this paper analyzes how secondary stakeholder pressure and embeddedness influence agribusiness companies’ absorptive capacity and their CSR strategies. Data are obtained from 152 Dutch agribusiness company managers. The results highlight that, first, absorptive capacity influences companies’ new product innovation, product positioning and organizational innovation to be more oriented towards CSR. Second, stakeholder embeddedness of agribusiness companies triggers absorptive capacity more than pressure from them. Third, stakeholder pressure and embeddedness also have direct (i.e., not mediated by companies’ absorptive capacity) yet weaker effects on CSR organizational innovation and product positioning. Findings corroborate the idea that firms develop innovative CSR strategies when they combine internal reflection processes and partnerships with secondary stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between business experience in cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) and the co-creation of what we refer to as 'dynamic capabilities for stakeholder orientation,' consisting of the four dimensions of (1) sensing, (2) interacting with, (3) learning from and (4) changing based on stakeholders. We argue that the co-creation of dynamic capabilities for stakeholder orientation is crucial for CSPs to create societal impact, as stakeholder-oriented organizations are more suited to deal with 'wicked problems,' i.e., problems that are large, messy, and complex (Rittel and Webber, Policy Sciences 4:155-169, ; Waddock, Paper presented at the 3rd international symposium on cross sector social interactions, ). By means of a grounded theory approach of inductive research, we collected and interpreted data on four global agri-food companies which have heterogeneous experience in participating in CSPs. The results of this paper highlight that only companies' capability of interacting with stakeholders continually increases, while their capabilities of sensing, learning from, and changing based on stakeholders first increase and then decrease as companies gain more experience in CSP participation. To a large extent, this can be attributed to the development of corporate strategies on sustainability after a few years of CSP participation, which entails a shift from a reactive to a proactive attitude towards sustainability issues and which may decrease the need or motivation for stakeholder orientation. These findings open up important issues for discussion and for future research on the impact of CSPs in a context of wicked problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend and elaborate the notion of successful organizational change to incorporate the concept of large system change (LSC), by developing a framework that brings together complexity and wicked problems theories to understand how individual organizations and change agents can better influence LSC. Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper integrates wicked problems and complexity theories to understand and cope with large system initiatives from the perspective of change agents in organizations, and uses the case of the electricity system as an illustrative example for these concepts. Findings – The paper provides implications for LSC and action steps for change agents in organizations, arguing that by understanding change initiatives through the lenses of complexity and wicked problems, change agents are likely to be more effective. Research limitations/implications – The integration of complexity science and wicked problems underpins the development of a comprehensive framework for creating effective LSC solutions, however, these ideas still need to be grounded in practice and empirical research. Practical implications – Using these ideas, change agents in organizations can enhance their influence and use the power of system dynamics to support positive action for sustainable change. This paper provides a foundation to help think through the cross-sectoral, inter-organizational, and change dynamics involved in LSC efforts needed to bring about a more sustainable, secure, and equitable world for all. Social implications – The world greatly needs system change; however, there is limited theory on effective LSC. This paper hopes to contribute to understanding the ways in which the difficulties of such change can be harnessed to move in positive directions with minimal disruption and greatest effectiveness. Originality/value – Theories of change management that position the organization in the context of a broader system and define its role in creating change do not yet articulate the nature of the problems at hand in relation to the large systems where they are embedded. This paper builds upon wicked problems and complexity theories to shed light on the role of change agents and organizations in effective transformational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Why are consumers increasingly participating in alternative food chains to co-produce and distribute foods with farmers? In this paper, values and food-related lifestyles, as well as transaction costs and socio-demographics, are used to analyze consumer participation in alternative food chains in Italy. Using a simultaneous system of equations, a model with instrumental variables is implemented to measure the relationships between values and food-related lifestyles, and between the latter and participation in an alternative food chain. Our results show that Italian participants in alternative food chains have the profile of rational shoppers who typically look at price and taste criteria. Although transaction costs do not affect participation directly, they do so through food-related lifestyles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of three credence labels (Australian, animal welfare and grass-fed) on US consumer attitudes toward buying beef steaks. Furthermore, it explores the impact of consumer attribute knowledge, usage frequency, education and opinion strength on the magnitude of direct and indirect effects. Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected through an online experiment with 460 US consumers and analyzed with path modeling. Findings – The Australian label generates a 86 percent negative direct effect vs a 14 percent negative indirect effect on consumer attitudes, which means that US consumers do not make strong inferences to form their attitudes toward buying Australian beef. The animal welfare label generates 50 percent direct and 50 percent indirect effects. The grass-fed label generates only indirect effects (100 percent). The higher consumer education, attribute knowledge, usage frequency, education and opinion strength, the weaker are the indirect effects of credence labels. Research limitations/implications – The study focusses on consumers in one country (USA), one product (beef steak) and one label across three attributes, therefore generalization of results is limited. Practical implications – The study offers a tool to agribusiness managers as well as to policy makers, NGOs and consumer groups to design and assess the effectiveness of communication campaigns attempting to strengthen (or weaken) consumer inferences and attitudes relative to credence labels. Originality/value – Despite the wide literature on consumer inferences based on credence labels, this is the first study that quantitatively disentangles the complex set of inferential effects generated by credence labels and explores common relationships across multiple credence attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agri-food organizations that are capable of "sensing the market" - that is, capable of searching, processing and using market information, are usually also market oriented, innovative, entrepreneurial and successful. But how can a small farm with limited resources develop market sensing capabilities? This research explores when public Research & Development (R&D) has an impact on small farms' market sensing capabilities. The literature on the impact of public R&D on small farms' market orientation is limited despite the importance of the topic for regional competitiveness and economic development. This research follows an inductive "grounded theory" approach of investigation. Qualitative and quantitative data is collected from five cases of public-private R&D projects funded by the Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). One "typical" in-depth case study of an R&D project in the oyster sector provide empirical evidence for cross-case comparison and structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings highlight the provision of R&D market information on estimated prices and quantities, end users' lower initial capabilities and higher discipline clarity, and the absence of industry associations undertaking marketing roles for farmers to enhance the impact of public R&D on small farmers' market sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economic Botany is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The case of the Australian Southern Rock Lobster Association describes real issues faced by the Market Development Manager of a collective agri-food organization (SRL) representing all the southern rock lobster fishermen in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The case deals with recent globalization issues faced by the Australian rock lobster industry: the rise of China as a vital and risky market of high-end food products; the financial crisis that affected the US starting from 2006 and the rise of sustainability issues that constrained the rock lobster supply. This case is designed for advanced BSc and MSc in agribusiness and international business. It is relevant for both for strategic management and supply chain management courses. In this case, managers, policy-makers and academics find challenging questions that are still open and can be similarly posed to other agribusiness industries worldwide attempting to compete collectively in international markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

To create and sustain a competitive advantage in markets that increasingly value animal welfare attributes, meat companies need to meet public and private production standards while communicating to final consumers through their brands. Data are collected from a representative sample of 460 U.S. residents through an on-line experiment on McDonald's chicken breast sandwiches and analyzed with Latent Growth Modeling. This study assesses which content of positive brand information effectively mitigates the risk of negative information shocks on animal welfare. On average, brand information has the same positive impact on consumers' beliefs and attitudes, regardless of whether it is related or unrelated to animal welfare. However, there is strong market segmentation in terms of consumers' response when exposed to brand information, suggesting that brand managers would benefit from tailoring brand information according to consumers' age, education, gender and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of resilience gained traction in academic, policy, and development discourse in recent years, yet its conceptualization and application at the farm level has received little attention. For instance, recent policy recommendations present farm resilience as a silver bullet in dealing with agricultural risks and uncertainty, and in achieving sustainable agri-food systems. Yet, the question of what determines farm resilience in a smallholder farming set-up remains fuzzy. To address this knowledge gap, we firstly develop a novel conceptual framework based on determinants of farm resilience and farmer adaptive capacity as a pathway through which farm resilience is strengthened. The emphasis on adaptive capacity responds to a conceptual weakness inherent in studies that present socio-ecological systems as static systems. Secondly, based on a literature review, we propose mechanisms through which farmer entrepreneurship, membership in farmer organization, and farmer–buyer relationships may influence farmer adaptive capacity and thereby farm resilience. Based on our conceptual understanding of the determinants of farm resilience, we recommend approaches that augment farmer entrepreneurship, support farmer organizations, and strengthen farmer–buyer relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]