The article investigates the factors that make businesses postpone integrating the performance dimension of sustainability in global agrifood supply chains. Based on literature-based conceptual reasoning, the article conceptualizes a... more
The article investigates the factors that make businesses postpone integrating the performance dimension of sustainability in global agrifood supply chains. Based on literature-based conceptual reasoning, the article conceptualizes a double company lens distinguishing between substantial supply chain management and mere public relations endeavors as a major obstacle for businesses pursuing comprehensive supply chain performance in global agrifood chains. We point out that many supply chain performance attributes represent, in fact, credence attributes that cannot be verified by the consumer, hence entailing an information asymmetry between the company and its consumers. Rational business responses to this situation tend to focus on symbolic actions and communication efforts by means of sustainability reports and other brand-enhancing marketing tools that may be decoupled from substantial operations and supply chain improvements. The research propositions developed have partly been corroborated by a content analysis of annual and sustainability reports of four major agrifood companies (Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Mondelez International). The conceptual arguments and empirical analysis presented in the article may serve as the basis for managers and academics to develop innovative inter-and intraorganizational business processes that reconcile trade-offs between various agrifood supply chain performance dimensions, thus pushing the performance frontier outward, and that provide the necessary transparency for overcoming the currently adverse setting of incentives inherent in the food production, processing, retailing, and consumption system.
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Purpose – In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper is to... more
Purpose
– In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the recent theoretical developments and then integrate them in a framework for studying and managing corporations.
Design/methodology/approach
– Conceiving socio‐cultural and economic systems within the ecosystem, this paper call for research in the food sector that takes the planetary boundaries into consideration and places the essential needs of the world's poor onto the research agenda of CR, SCM and strategy.
Findings
– First, a new perspective on CR could be “holistic and beyond responsive”, as it emphasizes the focal actor's role. Second, SCM could be strengthened at its interface with sustainability by the “bottom of the pyramid” view, as it looks for new ways to make business models and operations beneficial for poor communities. And third, in examining the strategies for these two, the strategy‐as‐practice perspective might prove useful, as it is not only limited to organizational practice but also includes the concepts of organizational praxis and practitioners.
Research limitations/implications
– This paper argues that these new perspectives are promising avenues for managing and studying business in the food sector, and thus have implications for both academia and industry.
Originality/value
– The framework provided in the paper combines three important areas of business research for sustainable development, namely CR, SCM and strategy.
– In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the recent theoretical developments and then integrate them in a framework for studying and managing corporations.
Design/methodology/approach
– Conceiving socio‐cultural and economic systems within the ecosystem, this paper call for research in the food sector that takes the planetary boundaries into consideration and places the essential needs of the world's poor onto the research agenda of CR, SCM and strategy.
Findings
– First, a new perspective on CR could be “holistic and beyond responsive”, as it emphasizes the focal actor's role. Second, SCM could be strengthened at its interface with sustainability by the “bottom of the pyramid” view, as it looks for new ways to make business models and operations beneficial for poor communities. And third, in examining the strategies for these two, the strategy‐as‐practice perspective might prove useful, as it is not only limited to organizational practice but also includes the concepts of organizational praxis and practitioners.
Research limitations/implications
– This paper argues that these new perspectives are promising avenues for managing and studying business in the food sector, and thus have implications for both academia and industry.
Originality/value
– The framework provided in the paper combines three important areas of business research for sustainable development, namely CR, SCM and strategy.
Research Interests:
Disaster preparedness has been recognized as a central element in reducing the impact of disasters worldwide. The usual methods of preparedness, such as pre-positioning relief inventory in countries prone to disasters, are problematic... more
Disaster preparedness has been recognized as a central element in reducing the impact of disasters worldwide. The usual methods of preparedness, such as pre-positioning relief inventory in countries prone to disasters, are problematic because they require high investment in various locations, due to the uncertainty about the timing and location of the next disaster. Investing in disaster management capabilities, such as training staff, pre-negotiating customs agreements with countries prone to disasters, or harmonizing import procedures with local customs clearance procedures, has been recognized as a way to overcome this constraint. By means of system dynamics modeling, we model the delivery process of ready-to-use therapeutic food items during the immediate response phase of a disaster, and we analyze the performance of different preparedness scenarios. We find that pre-positioning inventory produces positive results for the beneficiaries, but at extremely high costs. Investing in disaster management capabilities is an interesting alternative, as it allows lead time reductions of up to 67% (18 days) compared to a scenario without preparedness, at significantly lower costs than pre-positioning inventory. We find that the best performance can be achieved when combining both preparedness strategies, allocating part of the available funding to disaster management capabilities and part to pre-positioning inventory. We analyze 2828 such combined scenarios to identify the best mix of preparedness strategies for different levels of available funding. On the basis of our findings, we provide recommendations for relief organizations on how to allocate their preparedness budget.
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What are the management challenges and opportunities of bio-energy chains for both running their business efficiently and effectively and fostering the relationships with most relevant external stakeholders? This question is approached by... more
What are the management challenges and opportunities of bio-energy chains for both running their business efficiently and effectively and fostering the relationships with most relevant external stakeholders? This question is approached by systematically reviewing papers at the interface of bio-energy and supply chain or logistics issues. The review conducted as content analysis is based on an analytic framework that conceives
Research Interests: Supply Chain Management, Climate Change, Sustainable Development, Content Analysis, Economic Development, and 12 moreSupply Chain, Social impact, Literature Review, New Technology, Information Exchange, Profitability, Stakeholder Management, Systematic review, Energy Production, Energy System, Success Factor, and Ecological Applications
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ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Inconsistent research output makes critical literature reviews crucial tools for assessing and developing the knowledge base within a research field. Literature reviews in the field of supply chain management (SCM) are... more
ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Inconsistent research output makes critical literature reviews crucial tools for assessing and developing the knowledge base within a research field. Literature reviews in the field of supply chain management (SCM) are often considerably less stringently presented than other empirical research. Replicability of the research and traceability of the arguments and conclusions call for more transparent and systematic procedures. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the importance of literature reviews in SCM. Design/methodology/approach ‐ Literature reviews are defined as primarily qualitative synthesis. Content analysis is introduced and applied for reviewing 22 literature reviews of seven sub-fields of SCM, published in English-speaking peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and 2009. A descriptive evaluation of the literature body is followed by a content analysis on the basis of a specific pattern of analytic categories derived from a typical research process. Findings ‐ Each paper was assessed for the aim of research, the method of data gathering, the method of data analysis, and quality measures. While some papers provide information on all of these categories, many fail to provide all the information. This questions the quality of the literature review process and the findings presented in respective papers. Research limitations/implications ‐ While 22 literature reviews are taken into account in this paper as the basis of the empirical analysis, this allows for assessing the range of procedures applied in previous literature reviews and for pointing to their strengths and shortcomings. Originality/value ‐ The findings and subsequent methodological discussions aim at providing practical guidance for SCM researchers on how to use content analysis for conducting literature reviews.
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... Philip Beske studied Economic Science at the Universities of Oldenburg, Germany, and Salamanca, Spain. ... Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) conceive corporate sustainability as the business case (economic), the natural case (environmental)... more
... Philip Beske studied Economic Science at the Universities of Oldenburg, Germany, and Salamanca, Spain. ... Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) conceive corporate sustainability as the business case (economic), the natural case (environmental) and the societal case (social). ...
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ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper... more
ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the recent theoretical developments and then integrate them in a framework for studying and managing corporations. Design/methodology/approach ‐ Conceiving socio-cultural and economic systems within the ecosystem, this paper call for research in the food sector that takes the planetary boundaries into consideration and places the essential needs of the world's poor onto the research agenda of CR, SCM and strategy. Findings ‐ First, a new perspective on CR could be "holistic and beyond responsive", as it emphasizes the focal actor's role. Second, SCM could be strengthened at its interface with sustainability by the "bottom of the pyramid" view, as it looks for new ways to make business models and operations beneficial for poor communities. And third, in examining the strategies for these two, the strategy-as-practice perspective might prove useful, as it is not only limited to organizational practice but also includes the concepts of organizational praxis and practitioners. Research limitations/implications ‐ This paper argues that these new perspectives are promising avenues for managing and studying business in the food sector, and thus have implications for both academia and industry. Originality/value ‐ The framework provided in the paper combines three important areas of business research for sustainable development, namely CR, SCM and strategy.
Research Interests: Applied Ethics, Supply Chain Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development, Strategy As Practice, and 9 moreSustainable Supply Chain, Corporate Responsibility, Business and Management, Bottom of the pyramid, Global Responsibility, Food Industry, Climate change and sustainable food production, Sustainable supply chain management, and ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
This paper presents selected findings from a representative consumer survey of the German population exploring the image of timber as a construction material in general, and of timber frame houses in particular. The study found that... more
This paper presents selected findings from a representative consumer survey of the German population exploring the image of timber as a construction material in general, and of timber frame houses in particular. The study found that prejudice regarding the deficiency of timber as a construction material and of timber frame houses, in terms of fire resistance, durability and stability, persists
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Within the concert of renewable energy technologies, bio-energy can play a decisive role during the next decades, when smartly designed and applied under favorable conditions. In this respect, efficient and effective supply chain and... more
Within the concert of renewable energy technologies, bio-energy can play a decisive role during the next decades, when smartly designed and applied under favorable conditions. In this respect, efficient and effective supply chain and logistics management represent one key parameter. This paper presents a literature review of articles published in English-speaking peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2009, which cover the
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ABSTRACT This paper presents a cluster analysis defining eight consumer types with regard to their disposition of choosing timber as predominant construction material for newly constructed houses in Germany. This typology is based on... more
ABSTRACT This paper presents a cluster analysis defining eight consumer types with regard to their disposition of choosing timber as predominant construction material for newly constructed houses in Germany. This typology is based on findings from a representative survey among the German population about people's attitudes towards general social issues, environment, wood, forestry, timber as construction material and wooden framehouses. The paper identifies eight consumer types according to their attitudes towards these topics and complements them by specific information about their past and anticipated buying behaviour and their socio-demographic characteristics. Four clusters (47% of the population) can be regarded as promising target groups for framehouse marketing.
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The study deals with the challenge of adjusting inconsistencies in the historical data series over time for the main forest resources parameters (forest area, growing stock and increment) based on the UNECE/FAO Forest Resources... more
The study deals with the challenge of adjusting inconsistencies in the historical data series over time for the main forest resources parameters (forest area, growing stock and increment) based on the UNECE/FAO Forest Resources Assessments (FRA) source data. It describes the methods used to improve the quality of long-term series based on national inventory data and assesses trends for a
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... facilitated by various forms of information technology and even extended to sensitive ... depth data from multiple sources, allow-ing detailed insights while extending the perspective ... Vachon and Klassen (2006) extend the... more
... facilitated by various forms of information technology and even extended to sensitive ... depth data from multiple sources, allow-ing detailed insights while extending the perspective ... Vachon and Klassen (2006) extend the 'collaborative paradigm' (Chen and Paulraj, 2004) beyond ...
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Disaster response operations aim at helping as many victims as possible in the shortest time, with limited consideration of the socio-economic context. During the disaster rehabilitation phase, the perspective needs to broaden and... more
Disaster response operations aim at helping as many victims as possible in the shortest time, with limited consideration of the socio-economic context. During the disaster rehabilitation phase, the perspective needs to broaden and comprehensively take into account the local environment. We propose a framework of sustainable humanitarian supply chain management (SCM) that facilitates such comprehensive performance. We conceptualise the framework by combining literature from the fields of sustainable and humanitarian SCM. We test the framework through an analytic induction process by means of multiple case studies of four relief organisations. Our framework suggests that supply chain design needs to be aligned not only to relief organisations’ enablers, but also to the population's long-term requirements as well as any socio-economic and governmental contingency factors. A good fit between these dimensions leads to sustainable performance. The framework provides an instrument for relief organisations to achieve sustainable performance in the disaster rehabilitation phase.