Sustainable Relations in International Development Cooperation Projects: The Role of Human Resource Management and Organizational Climate

The importance of organizational issues to assess the success of international development project has not been fully considered yet. An analysis of the literature on the project success definition, focused on the success criteria and success factors, was carried out by surveying the contribution of different authors and approaches. Traditionally projects were perceived as successful when they met time, budget and performance goals, assuming a basic similarity among projects (universalistic approach). However, starting from a non ‐universalistic approach, the importance of organization’s effectiveness, in terms of relations sustainability, emerged as a dimension able to define and assess a project success (Belassi W., Tukel O.I., 1996). Based on previous research contributions on the factors influencing the relations between organizations (Zanasi C., Rota C., 2009), the paper expands the analysis of the influence of human resource management on organizational climate that, in turn, influences the relation sustainability between project manager and project team involved in international cooperation for development. A etailed analysis of these relations is provided and a research hypothesis are built. A questionnaire on previous contributions was adapted to collect data for a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis. Five dimensions of organizational climate (Zeitz G. et al., 1997) (trust, communication, innovation, job challenge, social cohesion), four dimensions of human resource management (Snell S.A., Dean J.W, 1992) (staff recruitment, training, performance appraisal, reward system) and two dimension for sustainable relations (Fisher C., Reynolds N., 2008) (relations quality and strength) are reported and measured by using a 5 point Likert scale. The sample size is still in progress. The first results on internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) are satisfactory

WTP for Traceable Meat Attributes: A Meta‐analysis

Several researches evaluated consumers’ Willingness To Pay (WTP) for each meat traceable attribute, generating a lot of information in this regard, although related to the conditions of each study. In light of this, WTP estimates for traceability characteristics largely differ across the literature, leading sometimes to contrasting interpretations. Seeking a full, meaningful statistical description of the findings of a collection of studies, the meta ‐analysis allows us analyzing the consistency across studies and controlling for factors thought to drive variations in WTP estimates. The meta‐analysis has been conducted of 23 studies that, in aggregate, report 92 valuations for WTP

Innovation Trajectories in Honduras’ Coffee Value Chain? - Public and the Private Influence on the Use of new Knowledge and Technology among Coffee Growers -

In this paper we present results from a study on the use of improved coffee production technology schemes among smallholder coffee producers in three prominent coffee producing regions in Honduras. We analyze the impact of various schemes (trajectories) in which different agents influence the producers’ decision to use new technologies. In particular, we distinguish the influence of a) private coffee buying organizations and b) government and public development agencies on the innovation behavior of coffee growers. Drawing from network data that depict the internal and outbound connectedness of producers in three village communities in main coffee producing zones in Honduras, we applied tools of social network analysis to find out how interactions with certain agents, separately and cumulatively, has influenced their use of improved methods in coffee production and marketing. The results suggest that there are significant differences in the way that various providers of knowledge and technology, especially private buyers and development agencies, influence the farmers’ behavior towards innovation. The influence of buyers, according to our data, is focused on certification and quality aspects, whereas development agents focus on improved agronomic practices. We also find that farmers who communicate with the extension branch of input providers tend to be more innovative. These results suggest that development programs should take more seriously into account the role of private actors in innovation among agricultural producers and, hence, design development programs in such a way to allow for collaboration with these agents

Phase Space Reconstruction from Time Series Data: Where History Meets Theory

In ‘dissipative’ dynamical systems, variables evolve asymptotically toward lowdimensional ‘attractors’ that define their dynamical properties. Unfortunately, real‐world dynamical systems are generally too complex for us to directly observe these attractors. Fortunately, there is a method—‘phase space reconstruction’—that can be used to indirectly detect attractors in real‐world dynamical systems using time series data on a single variable (Broomhead and King, 1985; Schaffer and Kott, 1985; Kott et al, 1988; Williams,1997). Armed with this knowledge, we can formulate more accurate and informative models of real‐world dynamical systems