This study assesses the main factors influencing the behavior of wine producers and the strategies implemented by them with regard to changing climatic conditions. To do so, we adopted a Bayesian ...Network combining climatic, technical, and economic factors, as well as farmer perception and environmental actions. Based on the scientific literature reviewed, a set of research hypotheses was formulated and compared with empirical evidence collected in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. Climatic data, both at the regional and vineyard levels were collected and primary information on wine growing and wine making firms was gathered by means of a producer survey, including 56 wine farms. The results showed that the probability to be negatively affected by the effects of climate change is influenced by structural and technical farm characteristics and by farmer readiness to embrace change. Local climatic conditions, particularly temperature and water surplus, are the factors that most affect both wine production and adaptation behavior in the study area. We conclude that the adoption of focused management and appropriate adaptation strategies, as well as appropriate policies with regard to regulation, incentives and support, are crucial issues for farmers to face the ongoing climatic challenge.
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•Diverse FOP messages highlight the multiple benefits of a novel food product.•Effects of diverse FOP messages on consumers’ perception, WTB and WTP are assessed.•Empirical findings ...show that the most effective FOP message is the nutrition claim.•WTB is influenced by product perception and novelty seeking in consumption.•A profile of target consumers for innovative condiments in Italy is outlined.
The present study aims to assess the effect of different Front-Of-Pack messages on consumer perception, willingness to buy and willingness to pay for a new food product, with multiple attributes, such as particular nutritional information, sensory characteristics, and a potentially positive environmental impact. Furthermore, this study explores the differences between consumers based on their individual latent traits in order to evaluate how these factors affect the willingness to buy the new product, as well as to outline a profile of target consumers attracted by innovative food products. A consumer survey was conducted on a representative sample of 1250 Italian consumers, using a between-subject design with different Front-Of-Pack messages as stimuli. Messages were related to different attributes: nutrition, environmental impact, hedonic characteristics, and process innovation. Empirical findings show that Front-Of-Pack messages do not directly affect consumer willingness to buy, but they do influence consumer perception of the product. The most effective message is the nutrition one. Consumer willingness to buy is particularly influenced by product perception and by their novelty seeking orientation in consumption. Furthermore, consumers were segmented through hierarchical clustering based on their novelty seeking orientation. The results obtained provide valuable suggestions for the design of new products’ labeling and for the outline of the profile of potential target customers for innovative food products.
Growing Mediterranean seafood consumption, increasing consumers' awareness of food safety and quality, and changing food lifestyles are leading to the development of new food products. However, the ...majority of new food products launched on the market are expected to fail within the first year. One of the most effective ways to enhance new product success is by involving consumers during the first phases of New Product Development (NPD), using the so-called co-creation approach. Based on data collected through online discussion rooms, two new seafood product concepts-sardine fillets and sea burgers-were evaluated by a set of potential consumers in three Mediterranean countries-Italy, Spain, and Croatia. Textual information was analyzed by first using the topic modeling technique. Then, for each main topic identified, sentiment scores were calculated, followed by the identification of the main related emotions that were evoked. Overall, consumers seem to positively evaluate both proposed seafood product concepts, and three recurrent positive emotions (trust, anticipation, joy) were identified in relation to the main topics aroused during the discussions. The results of this study will be useful to guide future researchers and actors in this industry in the next development steps of the targeted seafood products in Mediterranean countries.
The rise in the world’s demand for fish is increasingly met by aquaculture. However, this sector still shows various criticalities in terms of sustainability of practices, first and foremost, that of ...feed availability. Nowadays, the use of insect meal represents one of the potential sustainable solutions, but consumption intention of fish fed with insect meal and the factors affecting it have not yet been adequately understood. This study investigates 318 Italian consumers’ intentions to buy fish fed with insect meal using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior, including consumers’ moral attitude and sustainability consciousness as additional constructs. The results of structural equation models show that consumers’ high sustainability consciousness (6.16 on a scale from 1 to 7) does not influence their consumption intention of this product. Also, the two moderating variables involved in the model, i.e., the country of origin and price sensitivity, do not significantly affect consumers’ intentions. Since the analysis demonstrates that, for consumers, insect meal-fed fish conforms to their moral principles and a significant positive attitude toward this practice it could be argued that fish fed with insect meal can match the demand from consumers who feel responsible for their consumer behavior. Although the limited area of investigations and the high education of interviewed do not allow for generalizing of the results, this paper provides pivotal food for thought for companies, policymakers, and academics responding to previous research calls on understanding the role of some constructs of consumption intention and highlighting the levers on which to act to foster the consumption intention of insect-fed fish.
This study investigates the factors affecting the inter-organizational relationships and governance of firms in agri-food supply chains and assesses the influence that the current conditions of ...vertical coordination have on the economic performance of these firms. Research hypotheses describing the causal effects between the environment, product characteristics, inter-organizational relationships, relational governance, and firm economic performance are formulated and tested using a structural equation modeling approach. Data were gathered from a questionnaire administered via a direct survey to both farmers and processors in a traditional high-quality dairy sheep supply chain in the Italian region of Sardinia: the Pecorino Romano Protected Designation of Origin. Results point out the role of informal contractual arrangements in this local production system characterized by social cohesion, entailing higher product quality and better economic performance. Further, the study highlights the role of trust as a key variable for attaining collaborative paths along the agri-food supply chain, particularly between farmers and processors.
The digitalization of agriculture generates a new environment for the actors involved in agrifood production. In such a context, Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKISs) face the ...challenge of reconsidering their operational paradigms, redefining priorities, and designing strategies to achieve new aims. To do so, the actors participating in AKISs should develop and exploit a set of competencies known as dynamic capabilities, including the aptitude to sense the change in the external environment, the capacity to seize the opportunities that this change creates, and an ability to transform and adapt themselves to the new conditions that digitalization generates. In this study, using as examples the AKISs operating in Greece and Italy, we aimed to uncover if and how actors participating in these systems attempt and manage to deploy such capabilities. Based on a qualitative approach and drawing on data from two workshops, we discovered that seizing the opportunities sensed is a challenging task for AKIS actors. Our results also indicate that knowledge is a pivotal resource for AKISs, allowing actors to enhance their transformative capacity. However, to create a “collective” knowledge base, AKISs should ensure a functional connection between stakeholders and strengthen the roles of actors not actively engaged with the system, like public advisory organizations, universities, and technology providers.
Internationalisation has been a key strategy for businesses around the world over the last decades. Nowadays, the European wine sector finds itself in an increasingly competitive international ...environment, which is characterised by mature and declining per capita wine consumption in traditional markets and increasing competition form new emerging wine producing countries. Structurally, this sector is characterised by a vast majority of family businesses and faces several particularities. This research investigates the perception of difficulties in the internationalisation process of small and medium wineries in two emerging Italian wine exporting regions. It is found that the difficulties perceived in the internationalisation process depend on strategic and structural factors. The strategic factors highlighted in this paper are the degree of international diversification and the geographic scope of a firm's export activities. The structural factors relate to the characteristics of the exported goods, the management and the size of a firm. The findings are discussed in the light of recent developments of Italian wine exports and their implications for the Italian wine sector are derived.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors influencing agri-food small and medium enterprises (SMEs) participation in business networks and to evaluate the impacts of these ...factors on network structure and the ensuing competitive strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is articulated in four main steps. First, a critical literature review is conducted concerning the main approaches to firm competitive advantage and the role of stakeholder relationships. Then, three research questions are formulated and discussed in the light of two case studies describing the implementation of an innovative contractual solution in Italy (i.e. business network contracts). Finally, based on these findings, a set of more general “propositions” are stated and included in a provisional conceptual model that schematically depicts an integrated vision of the antecedents and mechanisms influencing SMEs business network structure and competitive strategy.
Findings
The study results pointed out the opportunity to adopt an integrated approach, combining resource-based view and stakeholder causal scope approaches. The provisional conceptual model proposed illustrates the role of both external and internal resources and relational constructs to shaping network structure and competitive strategy.
Originality/value
The study’s contribution is twofold. First, the empirical study shed light on opportunities and limits of two business networks with different backgrounds, approaches and outcomes towards value creation. Second, the conceptual framework proposed advances our understanding and knowledge of the factors and mechanisms influencing SMEs business network structure and competitive strategy.
While Hopfield networks are known as paradigmatic models for memory storage and retrieval, modern artificial intelligence systems mainly stand on the machine learning paradigm. We show that it is ...possible to formulate a teacher-student self-supervised learning problem with Boltzmann machines in terms of a suitable generalization of the Hopfield model with structured patterns, where the spin variables are the machine weights and patterns correspond to the training set's examples. We analyze the learning performance by studying the phase diagram in terms of the training set size, the dataset noise and the inference temperature (i.e. the weight regularization). With a small but informative dataset the machine can learn by memorization. With a noisy dataset, an extensive number of examples above a critical threshold is needed. In this regime the memory storage limits becomes an opportunity for the occurrence of a learning regime in which the system can generalize.
•A teacher-student self-supervised learning problem with Boltzmann machines formulated as a Hopfield model with structured patterns.•Learning performance studied in terms of training set size, dataset noise and inference temperature.•With a small but informative dataset the machine can learn by memorization.•The memory storage limits becomes an opportunity for a learning regime in which the system can generalize.
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