Should I make or should I buy? Innovation strategies and governance structures in the Italian food sector

This paper analyses the “make or buy” decision of food firms applied to innovation strategy using 389 Italian food firms data from the Unicredit 2007 database. We develop a set of hypothesis from three theoretical perspectives such as transaction cost economics, strategic management and resource-based view. Our paper aims at highlight whether or not different firm’s features can be linked to the decision to make or buy. We found out that these two decisions are positively interlinked. Moreover we also found out that it is difficult to indicate a clear-cut behaviour for the Italian food firms if we refer to making or buying decisions. We discuss these results and use them to bring some interesting outcomes to discuss managerial implications and/or policy interventions in this highly strategic domain

Intrinsic expansions for averaged diffusion processes

We show that the rate of convergence of asymptotic expansions for solutions of SDEs is generally higher in the case of degenerate (or partial) diffusion compared to the elliptic case, i.e. it is higher when the Brownian motion directly acts only on some components of the diffusion. In the scalar case, this phenomenon was already observed in (Gobet and Miri 2014) using Malliavin calculus techniques. In this paper, we provide a general and detailed analysis by employing the recent study of intrinsic functional spaces related to hypoelliptic Kolmogorov operators in (Pagliarani et al. 2016). Relevant applications to finance are discussed, in particular in the study of path-dependent derivatives (e.g. Asian options) and in models incorporating dependence on past information

Value creation strategies in credence food productions. The case of organic farming in Italy

In this paper we analyse different strategies used by Italian organic farmers to create value from credence food production. More specifically, we consider the following strategies: participation in policy support programmes (i.e. rural development measures and agro-environmental schemes), direct marketing (i.e. short-chains, on-farm businesses, agro-tourism), on-farm processing and being a member of a marketing and/or processing cooperative. We use data from the 2006 Italian FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) related to 981 organic farmers. To estimate the factors affecting farmers’ strategies and to evaluate them simultaneously we implement a multivariate probit model (MVP). The results could be helpful to implement guidelines for public and private intervention in the next CAP programming period. Allowing for differences in farmers’ goals and their impact on the choice of farming method and strategies is important in a modern competitive scenario

Community Supported Agriculture in the urban fringe: empirical evidence for project potentiality in the metropolitan area of Naples (Italy)

Urbanisation of city-side areas effects on farm land use and organisation are analysed in this study with the objective of seeking the most effective way to implement a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme. Specifically, we used a theoretical framework to describe and assess the relationships between urbanisation and changes in farm-styles in the city belt. Our analysis is based on a case study in the protected area of the Campi Flegrei Regional Park situated in the north-western part of the Neapolitan metropolitan area, which is a peri-urban rural area with severe environmental management problems. Our results from the empirical analysis allowed us to distinguish the farms of the area into three behavioural-social groups on the basis of specific features, in order to identify the best suited type of farm for the strategic implementation of the CSA. A market scenario was predicted for each of them without any intervention

Institutional incentives in circular economy transition: The case of material use in the Dutch textile industry

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.The aim of this paper is to gain insight into how requirements for transitioning to circular economy creates new organizational forms in inter-firm collaborations, and ultimately how they stimulate the emergence of new institutions enhancing sustainability. Two strands of literature, one on circular economy and one on institutional analysis, provide the theoretical background for this research. Currently a clearly formulated and unified theory on the institutions of circular economy is lacking. Therefore this research compares and contrasts empirical evidence from cases derived from the textile industry in The Netherlands, and concepts derived from institutional analysis and literature on circular economy to inductively build a cohesive conceptual framework. Using information from cases we identified two pathways to transition into circular economy and to manage circular material flows. We define these pathways Status Quo arrangements (SQ), when firms focus on optimizing up-cycling technologies and infrastructure in their circular relations and collaborations, and Product as Service arrangements (PAS), to indicate a focus on providing products in service contracts. Chain coordination, contracting, and financial mechanisms were identified as key organizational elements for creating new pathways to transition into circular materials flows. However in analyzing these elements we also highlight differences between SQ and PAS arrangements. SQ arrangements may have implications at the level of formal rules, for example by creating a new industry standards for up-cycled fabrics. PAS arrangements may have wider implications, for example by reshaping ownership in service contracts and creating cascading activities. Moving ownership to the supply chain will result in increased responsibility for materials and will create an incentive for improving quality of products, including their environmental performance. This is expected to generate positive socio-environmental impacts at a system level as well. Moreover PAS arrangements may have bottom up effects at a formal institutional level, resulting in alteration and creation of formal rules, for example in terms of new approaches to the ownership of materials

Factors Affecting Participation of Italian Farmers in Rural Development Policy

In this paper a (micro)econometric approach is developed by considering the farmer likelihood to participate in different policy programs as linked to the objective of farmer to maximize their welfare. In this way we model farmers participation in policy support scheme by using a new institutional economics approach and conceptualizing the decision to entry as a contractual choice between two rural development types of policy. Different discrete choice modelling approaches are used to analyze the complementarity/ substitutability of different policy programs such as environmental-related measures and farm investment supports policy schemes and the main driving factors behind them. We use an extensive cross-sectional database related to the Italian FADN 2006. Results indicate that social capital and institutional factors should be taken much more into account in order to understand farmers likelihood to entry in policy support schemes. Location and farm(er) socio-economic features are also relevant factors. Moreover complementarity has been found between different policy schemes

Quantum noise of non-ideal Sagnac speed meter interferometer with asymmetries

The speed meter concept has been identified as a technique that can potentially provide laser-interferometric measurements at a sensitivity level which surpasses the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) over a broad frequency range. As with other sub-SQL measurement techniques, losses play a central role in speed meter interferometers and they ultimately determine the quantum noise limited sensitivity that can be achieved. So far in the literature, the quantum noise limited sensitivity has only been derived for lossless or lossy cases using certain approximations (for instance that the arm cavity round trip loss is small compared to the arm cavity mirror transmission). In this article we present a generalised, analytical treatment of losses in speed meters that allows accurate calculation of the quantum noise limited sensitivity of Sagnac speed meters with arm cavities. In addition, our analysis allows us to take into account potential imperfections in the interferometer such as an asymmetric beam splitter or differences of the reflectivities of the two arm cavity input mirrors. Finally,we use the examples of the proof-of-concept Sagnac speed meter currently under construction in Glasgow and a potential implementation of a Sagnac speed meter in the Einstein Telescope (ET) to illustrate how our findings affect Sagnac speed meters with meter- and kilometre-long baselines.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, (minor corrections and changes made to text and figures in version 2