New organizational forms in emerging economies: bridging the gap between agribusiness management and international development

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Emerald via the DOI in this recordPurpose: 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

A Future Eco-Design Framework Based on TRIZ’s Contradictions and Bio-Inspired Design Process

International audienceIn the products development process, innovation is prescribed as a key parameter for technological evolution. It describes itself as a complex process that exploits different ways of transforming an idea into a reliable product. However, its way of resolution tends to amplify the conflicts of technical systems called technological contradictions. In this paper, was used the contradiction solving methods based on TRIZ Matrix in order to extract an ideal inventive principle which basically requires the existence of at least one contradiction to be eliminated. Then we will explore the potential of Bio-Inspired Design process that seeks, from ecosystem elements to extract conflicting functions that can be technologically transferable. Taking in account the aforementioned reasoning, we will discuss how the technical contradictions and their causalities can interrogate biomimetic databases to improve the innovation process by designing new environmental-friendly products that are more reliable. The aim of this work is to introduce new “eco-principles” by analyzing analogies between technical and biological solutions. The main objective is to analyze the possibilities to optimize an eco-inventive process for the next new technological generations. Based on this vision, the endpoint is to provide designers and engineers with the ideal eco-inventive methodology

Ecological Innovation Efforts and Performances: An Empirical Analysis

The negative effects caused by global warming and climate change have increased the need for production technologies in decreasing environmental costs. This need has brought up the eco-innovation concept. Eco-innovation policies are the main priority of the European Union in ensuring a sustainable development and in the process of cyclical economy transformation. This chapter aims to investigate the relative eco-innovation efforts and performances of the European Union countries. In order to measure the eco-innovation performances of community members by the European Union, "eco-innovation index" has been published by calculating eco-innovation scoreboard since 2010. The 16 indicators gathered from different data sources are grouped into five thematic areas (eco-innovation inputs, eco-innovation activities, eco-innovation outputs, resource efficiency outputs and socioeconomic outputs). These variables indicate the efforts and performances of the European Union countries in terms of eco-innovation. In other words, eco-innovation inputs and ecoinnovation activities are used as a proxy for eco-innovation efforts. Eco-innovation outputs, resource efficiency outputs and socioeconomic outputs are used as a proxy eco-innovation performance. Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were used to determine the relative eco-innovation efforts and performances of the European Union countries. The results show that EU countries have different performance levels in terms of eco-innovation efforts

Strategic mapping of eco-innovations and human factors: Business projects’ success revisited

The ongoing discussion on the firm’s competitiveness requires to focus on environmental improvements. Thus, the development of eco-innovation projects has been recognized as an essential response of the firms to the pressure to diminish the impact on nature and society. The study aims to develop an approach to evaluate human-related factors affecting success of eco-innovation projects. The application of a multi-criteria decision-making and in particular the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method lets to disclose the main human-related factors. Meanwhile, an interval type 2 fuzzy DEMATEL revealed the cause and effect relations among the human-related factors. The results demonstrate that trust is the most important phenomenon among the human-related factors linked to the success of eco-innovation projects. On the other hand, the importance of leadership is relatively weak. Thus, the results suggest that eco-innovations increase the complexity of decisions and the traditional approaches to project management appear to be irrelevant. Moreover, the study revealed that communication and trust affect other human-related factors. These results are in particular relevant for managers responsible for eco-innovation projects. Moreover, the policymakers responsible for eco-innovation programs should focus on these aspects in developing training programs