What Drives Marketing and Organizational Innovation in the Food Industry? A Comparison between Italy and Germany

In the food industry low amounts of capital are invested in innovation and R&D and companies are mainly engaged in developing product and process innovations in order to keep up with continuously changing consumer preferences. Notwithstanding, marketing and organizational innovation are becoming pivotal for food companies in order to specifically meet these preferences, and develop new business practices which allow them to implement successful external relationships aimed at a greater and successful innovation activity.In this regard, the present paper aims to shed lights on the determinants of both types of non-technological innovations in two of the largest EU food and drink producers by turnover and value added: Italy and Germany. To this purpose, an econometric analysis is run using microdata of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) carried out in 2012.Results highlight that, apart from some significant differences concerning the role of knowledge sources, training activities represent a relevant driver for both marketing and organizational innovations in both countries

Drivers, effects and peculiarities of innovation activities in the food industry: a comparison across EU Member States using CIS data

Innovation is a clear target of the Europe 2020 growth strategy. It has been widely postulated that cooperation is especially important for innovation in the food industry because it has traditionally been regarded as a “low tech” sector. This paper analyses how different forms of cooperation affect innovation activities in the EU’s food industry. In particular, the study addresses the question of how cooperation between companies and key chain agents influences innovative activity. To do so, we analysed data at the country level drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The aggregated data allowed us to investigate national system-level processes that must be considered the outcomes of micro-level decisions and policies. A random effect linear model is formulated and estimated to analyse the panel data obtained from five CIS waves. The model indicates that cooperation with universities positively affects innovative activity and, surprisingly, that government financial support has not been an effective instrument to foster innovation by food companies

Drivers of innovation in the European Food Industry: Evidences from the Community Innovation Survey

Cooperation is particularly important for innovation in the food industry. as it has traditionally been considered as a “low tech” sector. This paper analyses how different forms of cooperation affect innovation activities in the EU’s food industry. To this purpose, we analysed data at the country level drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). A random effect linear model is formulated and estimated to analyse the panel data obtained from five CIS waves. The model indicates that cooperation with universities positively affects innovative activity whereas, surprisingly, government financial support has not been an effective instrument to foster innovation

Profiting from innovation when digital business ecosystems emerge: a control point perspective

The digital transformation of industrial-age sectors changes product architectures and industry architectures, influencing how value is created and captured in emerging digital business ecosystems. In the industrial era, products were designed around modular architectures and complementary assets, and bottlenecks determined who profits from innovation. In the digital era, products emerge on a layered modular architecture, and profiting from innovation is shifting to those who own control points. Despite the centrality of the interplay between the product architecture and industry architecture for value creation and value capture in the digital age, the effects on competitiveness and industry dynamics remain unclear. To fill this void, we draw on the concept of control points, a novel lens to reflect bargaining positions on a layered modular architecture in digital business ecosystems. Based on a case study of 19 companies, industry associations, and consulting firms in the digital business ecosystem of smart farming, we identify strategic control points, technical control points, generic control points, and institutional boundaries as instrumental in determining value creation and value capture positions. We find that actors (i.e., incumbents, diversifying entrants, and new entrants) in emerging digital business ecosystems follow a seesaw pattern in setting control points and acquiring bargaining positions, and propose a framework that allows to analyze the dynamics within digital business ecosystems. Our study offers managerial implications for firms seeking to optimize their ecosystem strategy and policy makers to support the effective development of the institutional context.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What do we know about chain actors’ evaluation of new food technologies? A systematic review of consumer and farmer studies

New food technologies, such as genetic modification, food fortification, and processing technologies, are of growing interest for future food security and safety. For ensuring successful implementation of such technologies, consumers and other food supply chain actors should embrace them. We present a systematic review to identify and compare key factors of supply chain actors’ evaluation of new food technologies. Evaluation encompasses indicators such as likelihood or intention to perform a behavior, perceived benefits/risks, willingness to pay, acceptance/adoption, and attitudes. Results from 183 studies showed several imbalances in research. Although studies mainly focused on (1) genetically modified foods, (2) by consumers, (3) in developed countries, only very few studies have targeted other food technologies, other supply chain actors such as farmers (13 studies) or processors (two studies), or developing countries (43 studies). With respect to consumers’ evaluation, key determinants were trust in institutions, information assessment, perceived risks and benefits, attitudes toward the product or technology, perceived behavioral control, quality perception of the product, and impact on health. Farmers’ evaluation of new food technologies was explained by the factors of perceived risk and benefits and of actual source of information. For the few processor evaluation studies, no convergence of factors could be reached. This systematic review contributes to a better understanding of consumers’ and farmers’ evaluation behavior and opens up avenues for future research on supply chain actors’ food technology evaluations. The differences in the conceptualization and measurement of extracted factors demonstrate the need for standardized approaches in future studies

TaReCa – Cascade utilization of horticultural biomass for a resource efficient production of valuable bioactive substances

Viele pflanzliche Sekundärmetabolite haben antioxidative oder andere bioaktive Eigenschaften, weshalb sie einerseits wichtige Bestandteile der menschlichen Ernährung sind, andererseits aber auch als pharmazeutische Verbindungen oder als Substrat für die chemische Synthese von bioaktiven Substanzen verwendet werden. Pflanzen induzieren die Produktion solcher nutzbaren Sekundärmetabolite wie z.B. Flavonoiden als Reaktion auf abiotischen Stress. Die Produktion von Gemüse und Früchten in Gewächshäusern hinterlässt große Mengen an ungenutzter pflanzlicher Biomasse, welche eine potentielle Ressource für die Gewinnung wertvoller Metabolite darstellt. Durch eine kaskadenartige Verwendung von Gartenbaukulturen zur Produktion von Früchten und Gemüse mit einer anschließenden Gewinnung hochwertiger Substanzen aus der verbleibenden Restbiomasse würde ein erheblicher Mehrwert generiert. Das Projekt TaReCa bearbeitet die Entwicklung einer maßgeschneiderten Kaskadenverwertung von Paprikapflanzen-Restbiomasse aus dem Gartenbau. Dabei soll der pflanzliche Sekundärmetabolismus durch spezifische abiotische Stressbedingungen nach der Fruchternte gezielt induziert werden, um die Konzentrationen der Zielmetaboliten zu steigern. Durch umweltfreundliche und wirtschaftliche Extraktionsprozesse und eine anschließende Verwertung des verbleibenden Pflanzenmaterials in einer Bioraffinerie wird die Wertschöpfungskette erweitert. Eine Analyse der Anwendungsgebiete sowie Untersuchungen zur Akzeptanz der induzierten Inhaltsstoffe, Prozesse und Technologien werden helfen, das Marktpotenzial der Restbiomasse für die Nutzung in Kaskaden zu evaluieren. Die maßgeschneiderte Nutzung von Gartenbaubiomasse durch Lebensmittelproduktion, Extraktion bioaktiver Sekundärmetabolite und Bioraffinerien kann wirtschaftlich relevante, biobasierte Produkte für industrielle Anwendungen erzeugen und somit zur Entwicklung einer nachhaltigen, effizienten und integrierten Bioökonomie beitragen, ohne mit der Lebensmittelproduktion zu konkurrieren.Many plant secondary metabolites have antioxidant or pharmaceutically relevant properties, which makes them important components of the human diet, but also as pharmaceutical compounds or for the chemical synthesis of bioactive substances. Plants induce the production of secondary metabolites, e.g. flavonoids in response to environmental stress stimuli. The production of vegetables and fruits in greenhouses leaves huge amounts of so far under-utilized biomass after fruit harvest, which is a potential source for production of valuable metabolites. A cascade utilization of horticultural crops to produce fruits and vegetables with subsequent extraction of high quality compounds would generate significant added value. The project TaReCa is working on the development of a tailored cascade utilization of bell pepper plant residues from horticulture. The secondary metabolism will be induced by specific abiotic stress treatments after the last fruit harvest, in order to increase the concentrations of the target metabolites. Eco-friendly and economical extraction processes and subsequent utilization of the remaining plant material in a biorefinery will expand the value chain. An analysis of the application areas as well as studies on the acceptance of the induced ingredients, processes and technologies will help to evaluate the market potential of the residual biomass for the proposed cascaded use. The tailored utilization of horticultural biomass in food production, extraction of bioactive secondary metabolites and biorefineries can produce economically relevant bio-based products for industrial applications and thus contribute to the development of a sustainable, efficient and integrated bioeconomy without competing with food production

The emergence of genome editing—Innovation network dynamics of academic publications, patents, and business activities

Transformative societal change can both be triggered and influenced by both macro-level political means and the emergence of technologies. Key enabling technologies and therein biotechnology hold the power to drive those changes forward, evolving from breakthrough academic discoveries into business activities. Due to its increasing empirical relevance, we picked genome editing as an example for an emerging technology and extracted publication, patent, and company data from the years 2000 to 2020. By drawing upon social network analysis, we identify major networks and clusters that are dominating the respective time and layer. Based on these networks, we draw vertical connections between scientific knowledge, patented technologies, and business activities to visualize the interlevel relationships between actors through technological development. Thereby, we identify network dynamics of the emergence of genome editing, the most important actors and clusters evolving, and its spread into different areas.This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant number 031B0019).Peer reviewe

DataSheet1_The Emergence of Genome Editing—Innovation Network Dynamics of Academic Publications, Patents, and Business Activities.DOCX

Supplementary Table S1: Databases and corresponding search strings for data retrieval.Peer reviewe