Investment and Income Responses to Marketing Channel Choice

Marketing,

Public and Private Institutional Responses to Advocacy Attacks: The Case of the Global Cocoa Industry and Child Labour Abuse

Over the past decade the global agri-food industry has come under increasing attack by advocacy groups related to their production and marketing processes (Bowmar and Gow, 2009). Advocacy groups have used these attacks to exploit the growing intergenerational disconnect between consumers and farming to campaign for narrowly defined political ideals while challenging traditional agricultural practices (Olin, 1999). This disconnect has provided advocacy groups the opportunity to use boycotts and other media attacks to severely adverse impact not only branded manufacturers and retailers, but their farmer suppliers. The agri-food industry’s challenge is to understand how to develop appropriate individual and collective responses to these attacks that minimize their current and future adverse impact and provide mutually beneficial outcomes for all of the channel members. Using an instrumental case study of the international cocoa and chocolate industry’s response to the child labour abuse and trafficking claims, we analyse and evaluate the alternative individual and collective responses that firms can implement to minimize their current and future adverse impact from advocacy attacks and provide mutually beneficial outcomes for all of the channel members. This paper follows a comparative institutional analysis methodology to analyse the multiple nested case studies and evaluate the impact and implications of each alternative.Certification, Advocacy, Cocoa, Chocolate, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, Marketing,

CO-OPERATING TO COMPETE IN HIGH VELOCITY GLOBAL MARKETS: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF FLEXIBLE SUPPLY CHAIN ARCHITECTURES

Continued value creation is paramount for the survival of firms competing in today's high velocity global business environment. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding how firms can create and capture value within a highly volatile and uncertain business environment by exploiting both performance gaps and opportunity gaps through the development and use of flexible supply chain architectures. The choice of flexible organizational architecture allows for the continued reconfiguration of the independent modular components of the supply chain so as to achieve optimal leverage of both the firms core competencies as well as their collaborative partners complementary resources. The case of Cellars of Canterbury, a New Zealand based International wine marketing and distribution cooperative enterprise provides empirical support.Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade,

CO-OPERATING TO COMPETE IN HIGH VELOCITY GLOBAL MARKETS: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF FLEXIBLE SUPPLY CHAIN ARCHITECTURES

Continued value creation is paramount for the survival of firms competing in today's high velocity global business environment. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding how firms can create and capture value within a highly volatile and uncertain business environment by exploiting both performance gaps and opportunity gaps through the development and use of flexible supply chain architectures. The choice of flexible organizational architecture allows for the continued reconfiguration of the independent modular components of the supply chain so as to achieve optimal leverage of both the firms core competencies as well as their collaborative partners complementary resources. The case of "Cellars of Canterbury," a New Zealand based International wine marketing and distribution cooperative enterprise provides empirical support. Keywords: value creation, flexible supply chain architectures, leverage, core competencies.value creation, flexible supply chain architectures, leverage, core competencies., Industrial Organization, Marketing,

Strategic Positioning Under Agricultural Structural Change: A Critique of Long Jump Co-operative Ventures

This study utilizes strategic management theory to analyze the recent proliferation in non-commodity vertical integration producer-owned businesses in the US. The paper introduces the notion of the Value Creation Triad where ownership, competency, and control need to be aligned for success. Very related to the Triad concept is the differentiation in strategy between long and short jumping. The paper presents an empirical case of successful vertical integration by a New Zealand lamb cooperative.Strategic management theory, Value added agriculture, Vertical integration, Producer-owned enterprise, Core competencies, Tacit knowledge, Productivity gap, Opportunity gap, Agribusiness,

Strategic Positioning Under Agricultural Structural Change: A Critique of Long Jump Co-operative Ventures

Industrial Organization, Agribusiness,

Market Orientation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: An Empirical Examination of the Illinois Beef Industry

This paper explores the importance of a producer’s market orientation on their subjective performance within agricultural commodity markets. Using a structural equation model of beef producers, our findings suggest that market oriented firms are highly innovative and achieve superior performance. These findings are consistent with previous research on the market orientation-performance relationship in heterogeneous product markets. The cost focus of a firm was also found to have a significant influence on innovation, but no direct effect on performance. This suggests that beef producers should follow a balanced approach utilizing both an external market and an internal productivity focus to achieve superior returns as opposed to solely focusing on internal productivity as many producers currently do.market orientation, beef production, innovation, performance, Marketing, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q10, Q13, Q16,

SUCCESSFUL ALLIANCE ESTABLISHMENT AND EVOLUTION IN A VOLATILE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT: THE CASE OF "CELLARS OF CANTERBURY"

Little attention has been given to the process of development that leads to alliance relationships flexible enough to withstand unforeseen environmental shifts and evolve while others fail. We believe that the problem stems from the contractual rigidity imposed by partners in the initial stages to the formation of an alliance. This paper analyzes a process to create self-enforcing agreements that lead to a flexible alliance architecture capable of reconfiguration to meet the demands of environmental change. Using an empirical case study of "Cellars of Canterbury" a New Zealand wine producing and marketing joint venture, we suggest that immediate value creation establishes private enforcement capital in a relationship which allows for critical relation-specific investment to take place without the need for written contractual safeguards. We also emphasize the advantage of external contract enforcement mechanisms and third party verification in reinforcing these relationships. We then argue that it is this lack of contractual rigidity that allows an alliance agreement to be reconfigured when environmental circumstances change.Agribusiness,

Positional Advantage within Small Farms: Evidence from Illinois

As the economic viability of small farms continues to be an issue facing policy makers and economists alike, a market orientation may be a valuable resource producers can develop as they compete in a marketplace dominated by larger firms. Marketing and strategy scholars have long established the importance of a market orientation in determining firm performance. More recently, scholars have studied the effect of these concepts in agriculture. Extending the literature of market orientation in agriculture, this study examines the concept of a positional advantage and its effect on performance using a sample of small farms in Illinois. Using a sample of 347 Illinois beef producers, we empirically measure and test the construct of positional advantage and test the relationship between positional advantage and subjective performance. Our results indicate that market orientation, entrepreneurship, innovation and learning are first-order indicators of positional advantage and that the positional advantage of a firm is positively related to firm performance.Agriculture, innovation, market orientation, positional advantage, Farm Management, Production Economics, L11, L25, L26,

Investment, and Contract Hold-Ups in Transition: Evidence from Hungary

This paper analyses empirically the effect of "hold-ups" on capital investment in farms using a sample of 318 Hungarian enterprises, surveyed over 1997. A negative relationship arises between capital investment and the incidence of hold-up behaviour. This relationship is affected by farm's wealth and liquidity position, the quality of legal enforcement of contracts, by whether farms have contracted sales to foreign processors, and whether they are established as successors to pre-reform organisations rather than start-up businesses.contracting, hold-ups, firm investment, transition, Agricultural Finance,