Search

How do consumers and farmers organize credence food transactions? This paper discusses this issue through the concept of Food Community Network (FCN). A FCN is defined as an organization where consumers and farmers integrate their goals organizing a network. FCN is based on pooling specific resources and using membership-based contracts, to assign decision and property rights. It implies an organization based on a combination of several democratic and communitarian elements, with few market-like and bureaucratic ones. Based on those concepts this paper proposes a research to analyse the FCN governance mechanisms. Real case studies collected through an internet-based investigation on Community Supported Agriculture in North America have been found. Applying (i) new institutional economics and (ii) organizational science arguments, the case studies were used to determine features that are useful to describe how FCN governance works. On one hand we used (i) new institutional economics based features such as pooling resources and contracting; (ii) on the other hand market-like, bureaucratic, communitarian and democratic elements represent the organizational science approach. The results indicate a great variety of FCN organizational forms emerging in North America.

Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, persisting poverty, a mounting obesity epidemic, food insecurity and the use of biotechnology are all examples of wicked problems faced by agricultural and food organizations. Yet, managers and policy-makers often do not recognize that these problems are “wicked”. Wicked problems have cause-effect relationships that are difficult or impossible to define, cannot be framed and solved without creating controversies among stakeholders and require collective action among societal groups with strongly held, conflicting beliefs and values. In contrast to past research, this Special Issue takes an organizational perspective by tackling three key managerial questions: what is the value of managing wicked problems and engaging with multiple stakeholders? What are the human and organizational resources and the strategic conditions needed to engage with multiple stakeholders effectively? How can multi-stakeholder engagements be undertaken? A world collection of empirical case studies conducted by business, NGO and university leaders tackle these questions. For managers, the Issue offers recent and thought-provoking insights on how to recognize and deal with wicked problems. For academics, it proposes an agenda for addressing the topic and promises to fuel a research and education debate for years to come., The IFAMR is published quarterly by IFAMA. www.ifama.org

Several studies have analyzed the conditions under which geographical indications (GIs), such as the European Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) and Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs), can represent a profitable market opportunity for agri-food producers. The development of a common set of rules by a group of producers and the governance of the collective brand are key issues to jointly exploit market opportunities through GIs. This paper explores whether heterogeneous characteristics, resources and strategies of individual producers within a PDO Consortium influence their level of agreement on the future of the collective regulation and governance of GIs. We conduct an in-depth study on a representative sample of firms member of the “Prosciutto di Parma” PDO Consortium by integrating a multi-variate statistical analysis with a qualitative description of the vision that companies have for the future of their PDO. From the results of this study, we found confirmation that “Prosciutto di Parma” PDO Consortium members have highly heterogeneous characteristics which lead to significant segmentation in two major groups. The first segment includes a large number of Consortium members, mostly constituted by smaller firms, producing mainly PDO-labeled “Prosciutto di Parma”. The second is composed by a group of larger companies focusing on production of generic hams without the PDO-label. This difference clearly affects the level of agreement on the future regulation of "Prosciutto di Parma" as GI. The first segment advocates for the establishment of a “high-quality” PDO or for a PDO with stricter controls and standards, while the second would prefer that a PGI label was introduced, either in substitution to or parallel with the current PDO. Results, although explorative in nature, show that group heterogeneity influences the level of cooperation among the members of a producer group regulating and governing a PDO. Therefore, this study provides evidence that increasing group heterogeneity may represent a new challenge for the sustainability and profitability of GIs.

Managing a global brand means developing its equity but also protecting it from global challenges (Shocker et al., 1994) and from the risk of negative shocks that may affect a brand (Okada and Rubstein, 1998), a multi-national company (Klein and Dawar, 2004) or a whole industry (Roehm and Tybout, 2006). Negative information shocks may arise because of sudden product-harm crises or scandals (Klein and Dawar, 2004; Roehm and Tybout, 2006), such as food-borne disease outbreaks or environmental violation practices. In these situations, providing positive brand information can mitigate the effect of negative information shocks on consumers’ brand evaluations and buying intentions (Smith and Vogt, 1995; Okada and Rubstein, 1998; Klein and Dawar, 2004; Roehm and Tybout, 2006).

Growing segments of world consumers seek better quality, healthiness and larger variety in their food consumption (Verbeke, 2005; IDDBA, 2008). As part of this process, consumers’ attention for place-of-origin (POO) attributes as part of the demand of agri-food products is increasing (Grunert, 2005). The major dimension of POO attributes that have been studied in agricultural economics and marketing literature since the 1960s is country-of-origin (Dichter, 1962; Schooler, 1965; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999; Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2004; Loureiro and Umberger, 2005; Ehmke et al., 2008) while in the last decade region-of-origin attributes have been studied separately, in relation with consumers’ values for tradition and authenticity of agri-food products (Kuznesof et al., 1997; Tregear et al., 1998; Van der Lans et al., 2001; Van Ittersum and Candel, 2001; Van Ittersum et al., 2001; Scarpa et al., 2005).

Growing segments of world consumers seek better quality, healthiness and larger variety in their food consumption (Verbeke, 2005; IDDBA, 2008). As part of this process, consumers’ attention for place-of-origin (POO) attributes as part of the demand of agri-food products is increasing (Grunert, 2005). The major dimension of POO attributes that have been studied in agricultural economics and marketing literature since the 1960s is country-of-origin (Dichter, 1962; Schooler, 1965; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999; Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2004; Loureiro and Umberger, 2005; Ehmke et al., 2008) while in the last decade region-of-origin attributes have been studied separately, in relation with consumers’ values for tradition and authenticity of agri-food products (Kuznesof et al., 1997; Tregear et al., 1998; Van der Lans et al., 2001; Van Ittersum and Candel, 2001; Van Ittersum et al., 2001; Scarpa et al., 2005).