Cooperation as the Secret Ingredient in the Recipe to Foster Internal Technological Eco-Innovation in the Agri-Food Industry

Sustainability Strategies and Contractual Arrangements in the Italian Pasta Supply Chain: An Analysis under the Neo Institutional Economics Lens

Contracts represent key governance mechanisms along the supply chain to pursue collective sustainable strategies in line with new citizen-consumers’ preferences for sustainable products. Adopting an embedded multiple case study approach, this paper explores and analyzes 11 cases of contractual relationships between Italian semolina and pasta producers and farmers in order to investigate whether sustainability strategies affect the design of contracts and the related consequences. Findings reveal that different sustainability strategies correspond to different design and combinations of (both monetary and nonmonetary) contractual incentives aimed to centralize property and decision rights. What emerges is that stronger sustainability strategies entail a higher degree of buyers’ control over strategic investments (such as land and seeds) as well as wider provision of technical assistance and knowledge and innovation transfer toward farmers. Therefore, mutual gains seem at stake, even if socio-economic implications of the shift in decisional and control rights from farmers toward buyers shall be neglected, to ensure a better coherence with the farm to fork strategy and sustainable development goals.

Consumer Attitudes towards Technological Innovation in a Traditional Food Product: The Case of Wine

Food innovation is crucial for food companies in order to produce healthier, safer, and more convenient foods. However, there is a segment of consumers reluctant to accept new foods. This attitude is even more important when those novelties are developed in products such as wine that have habitually relied on heritage and traditional production as their main competitive advantage. In this study, consumer attitudes toward innovation in the wine industry were evaluated by simultaneously considering product neophobia and process neophobia. Based upon a sample of 400 personal interviews with Spanish wine consumers, the results showed that these two aspects of neophobia were uncorrelated, meaning they are useful to measure different aspects of general food neophobia. Cluster analysis showed that four different segments of consumers exist, with different attitudes toward technological innovation in the wine industry. The consumer segment that shows the most positive attitudes toward wine innovation (product and process innovation) is that with the highest income and highest level of education. Moreover, greater involvement with the product (wine) results in lower product neophobia. Therefore, future studies should consider product involvement and exposure to cultural diversity as essential factors when evaluating food neophobia.

Firm Growth as a Driver of Sustainable Product Innovation: Mediation and Moderation Analysis. Evidence from Manufacturing Firms

Facing worldwide environmental and social concerns, manufacturing firms are trying to adopt effective environmentally friendly actions to mitigate their environmental impacts. Although the existent literature has provided many insights about the drivers of sustainable product innovation, little is known about the impact of firm growth. Thus, we intend to contribute to this gap in the literature by examining the impact that firm growth can have on sustainable product innovation. To achieve this goal, the partial least square (PLS) modeling technique was used to analyze a dataset of 3250 manufacturing firms from 39 different countries. The results reveal that firm growth exerts a positive effect on sustainable product innovation and that the relationship is partially mediated by the adoption of environmental practices. The findings also indicate that managerial barriers lessen the effectiveness of the adoption of environmental practices in facilitating the development of sustainable product innovation, while improving labor conditions increases it. However, operational barriers do not exert a significant moderating effect between the adoption of environmental practices and sustainable product innovation. These results prompt interesting insights related to theory development in environmental management and sustainable product innovation research.