Abstract
The paper investigates how food safety investment decisions are affected on the one hand by laws and on the other by firm’s economic and organizational drivers. The paper shares findings from an empirical study that considers investments in HACCP, Certification, and Traceability in the Italian meat sector. The main finding of the study is that the allocation of the decision rights to invest in food safety explains the patterns of investment decisions observed. The conclusion is that regulatory interventions are more effective if there is a private possibility to allocate investment decision rights with respect to the distribution of information between private and public agents and the degree of uncertainty. The study contributes to the analysis of the allocation of the decision rights in the organization of value chain. Under this innovative view, it empirically shows how regulation and freedom of contract act as drivers of food safety investments. The research is particularly interesting in its policy implication: information regarding the role of these collective bodies will become relevant in the near future in the context of expected changes in the EU’s agricultural policy.
Highlights
In the second paragraph we introduce the conceptual framework and propose two research questions: a) is the decentralization of the decision rights to invest, in order to implement the safety strategies, associated with the investment decisions in the three food safety systems? and b) what is the relative importance of legal decisions and of the freedom of contract in the investment decisions? We firstly address these questions by drawing a conceptual framework from transaction Cost Economics (Ménard, 2018; 2013)
Research questions and hypotheses Drawing from the previous conceptual framework we introduce the following research questions: a) Is the allocation of the decision rights to invest in order to implement the safety strategies associated the investment made in the three food safety systems?
The main result of the study is that, according to theory, the allocation of the decision right to invest in food safety explains the patterns of investment decisions observed
Summary
Food safety directly pertains to food availability as a basic characteristic of the food (McMichael et al, 2007): for human health and environmental sustainability, for social concerns central to sustainable strategy building (Beske et al, 2008), and for economic sustainability (Martino, Perugini, 2006; Loader and Hobbs, 1999).This study considers three basic organizational systems that have been developed to achieve food safety objectives Hazard analysis critical control point system (HACCP), Certification and Traceability as they support the main strategies designed by farms and food companies in the field of food safety (Martino and Bovorovà, 2014).HACCP is studied with regard to management issues and the associated implementation difficulties (Wilcock et al, 2011). Heyder et al (2012) showed that the costs caused by the management of traceability systems negatively influence the choice to adopt them, whereas the intention to invest has a positive effect of the NEW MEDIT N. 2/2020 adoption of the adequate technology. Banterle and Stranieri (2008) investigated the voluntary traceability systems and found they increase asset specificity in inter-firm relationships. Banterle and Stranieri (2008) investigated the voluntary traceability systems and found they increase asset specificity in inter-firm relationships It is usually recognized the critical importance of voluntary and mandatory certification systems within safety strategies (Crespi and Marette, 2001; Fares and Rouviere, 2010; Malorgio et al, 2016). This study aims at contributing to this literature, focusing on the role of the decentralization of the decision rights to invest in order to implement food safety strategies. In the second paragraph we introduce the conceptual framework and propose two research questions: a) is the decentralization of the decision rights to invest, in order to implement the safety strategies, associated with the investment decisions in the three food safety systems? The empirical results are presented and discussed in par. 4, while the final paragraph is dedicated to conclusions
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