Trust and Risk in Business Networks: Towards a Due Diligence for Electronic Commerce

This paper develops a due diligence for electronic transactions with new partners in business networks with complex goods such as food products to enable the use of e-commerce potentials in first time transactions. The e-commerce due diligence is a means to reduce perceived risks and uncertainties for businesses and create trust and confidence in the electronic transaction with appropriate information. The paper presents a conceptual framework for the due diligence integrating the principles of transaction decision making and the four phases of a transaction process. The operationalization of the framework assigns trust signals and control elements to the four process phases to be communicated during the process.Trust, risk, electronic commerce, first time transactions, due diligence, food networks, Agribusiness, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Marketing,

The Role of Trust in European Food Chains: Theory and Empirical Findings

In Europe, consumer trust in food has become one of the most important factors for the stability of the food sector. An essential prerequisite for the ability to communicate the trustworthiness of food to consumers (B2C) is the creation, maintenance, and communication of trust between companies across the entire food value chain (B2B). For the management and preservation of trust in food chains it is important to know whether differences occur across European countries or whether distinct product chains show variations regarding trust. Based on a survey in five European countries with 747 respondents, this paper assesses the current level of trust between companies together with its influencing structural factors in European food chains and determines criteria allowing the active management of the level of trust in business relations in food chains by estimating a structural equation model.trust, levels of trust, determinants to trust, food chain management, trust management, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Trust and Control Dynamics in Agrifood Supply Networks: Communication Strategies for Electronic Transaction Environments

Agrifood supply networks are dynamic structures where firms regularly face the need to search for new market partners. A decision for a transaction with a new partner requires the existence of appropriate control and safeguard mechanisms as well as trust to overcome perceived risk and uncertainties. Electronic transaction environments offer new potentials for the identification of new transaction partners. However, trust and control need to be communicated appropriately in electronic transaction environments for agrifood supply network scenarios. Problems for appropriate communication are posed by the complex interrelation between trust and control in transaction processes and their dynamically changing importance in a transaction relation. This paper contributes to the development of appropriate trust and control communication strategies in e-commerce as it analyzes the occurrence of trust and control elements in the phases of a transaction in the agrifood sector.Agricultural Markets Marketing, Marketing, Technological Change, Social Norms, Social Capital, e-Commerce, Industrial Organization, Marketing, Q13, O3, Z13, L81,

A multi-level cost benefit approach for regulatory decision support in food safety and quality assurance scenarios

In complex policy decision situations where policy objectives can only be reached through appropriate activities of individual actors with own decision authority and individual objectives, the classical approaches for measuring the effects of regulatory initiatives through cost-benefit or related types of analysis do not provide the appropriate information for decision support. This paper discusses a framework for a multi-level analysis approach that could provide decision support in multi-level policy decision situations.cost-benefit analysis, multi-level analysis, policy decision support, impact assessment, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Editorial: Food System Dynamics

The food system involves all actors, activities, resources, and environments that produce and provide food to people wherever they are. It serves basic human needs and is as such of core relevance for human survival. It is global in production, consumption, and environmental impacts. But it is also deeply rooted in the social, cultural, natural, political, and legal environments of society. It needs to serve a diversity of consumer needs and lifestyles and has to cope with an organizational complexity where, a.o. small scale farms or enterprises interact with globally active industry or retail groups and where rural sites of production are remote from the urban and ever growing centers of consumption.Editorial, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Supply Chain Management in the Life Science Sector: Does Trust Play a Role?

Supply chain management has emerged as cross functional, cross company concept to improve coordination of entire value chains through coordinated actions of all companies in the value chain. It has received a major push from the availability of Internet-based information and communication technologies. The conditions in certain sectors are favorable for a realization of chain wide supply chain management. In other sectors, however, conditions are more complex and companies and value chains still struggle to exploit the potentials from supply chain management, in particular when it comes to cross enterprise coordination. This paper takes a complex supply network as example and discusses improvement potentials from supply chain management and developments in their implementation as well as barriers to the realization of chain wide supply chain management.supply chain management, trust, life science sector, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

The Challenge of Reaching Transparency: ‘T-readiness’ of Enterprises and Sector Networks

Discussions on the safety and quality of food as well as growing interest in the sustainability of the production, distribution and consumption of food have contributed to the emergence of ‘transparency’ as a critical success factor for the food sector. However, reaching transparency for different stakeholders from different backgrounds and cultural identities is a dynamic process which depends on certain capabilities of enterprises and organizations along the food value chain but also on the realization of a fitting communication scheme within the sector. This discussion asks for the identification and utilization of an indicator that could identify deficiencies and support enterprises and the sector in reaching a level of transparency that could serve specified transparency needsAgribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Risk and Uncertainty,

Developments and Development Directions of Electronic Trade Platforms in US and European Agri-Food Markets: Impact on Sector Organization

Electronic trade platforms support trading transactions between enterprises. They have entered the business landscape including the agri-food sector only a few years ago. However, there already have been dramatic changes in the agri-food sectorÂ’s platform infrastructures. This paper analyzes developments in electronic trade platform infrastructures in the agri-food sector of the US and Europe between 2000 and 2002 and identifies development strategies of successful platforms. Of 85 platforms in existence in the year 2000, only 25 remained active in 2002. But there are still market entries of new platforms and existing platforms form various types of partnerships. The analysis could identify a range of strategic development lines of successful platforms. Initiating cooperation with other platforms on the use of specific features and the development and use of standards, gaining support by major market participants, the improvement of trading functionalities and the expansion of value-added services are the primary lines of development and evolvement of platforms. Platform evolvement tendencies and the present occurrence of the trade platform infrastructure allow for projecting the emergence of an agri-food sector with embedded, interconnected e-commerce infrastructure or mega-hub leading towards a more networked agri-food industry.Electronic commerce, Electronic trade platforms, Agri-food markets, Agribusiness, Marketing,

Expectations, Experiences, Trust in the Case of Short Circuit Food Supply Networks

Farmers Markets are receiving an increasing attention by both food chains actors and social scientists. Economic and sociological studies are contributing to the comprehension of these forms of exchange. Both consumers and producers are fostering their expectations about the renewal of a mode of exchange which sustained local production/ consumptions linkages. The main economic function of these organizational structures seems to be the reduction of the price paid by the consumers and the enhancements of allocation of farm products. The basic interpretation of these forms of exchange focuses on market structure, nonetheless the exchange relationships seems to emphasize several dimensions, including economic and cultural aspects. The objective of the paper is of investigating the role of networks among producers and consumers in structuring and making viable the Farmer Markets as structures of short food supply chains. The basic idea is that the strength of Farmer Markets is the ability of satisfying the consumers expectations about a few characteristics of the products, entailing given cultural and economic aspects. The study argues that under this view the Farmer Markets may be thought of as a emerging form of production‐consumption interaction. According to existing evidences it is suggested that the network is also the emerging forms of horizontal relationships among the producers participants to the markets. The paper aims at suggesting that basic types of trust act as key factor in structuring the networks and in promoting the stability of the market