Related Value Chain Research Articles

Implementing A Strategic Information System Through End-to-End Digitalization of The Value Chain In Agro-Food Sector

The Fourth Industrial Revolution exerted significant emphasis on the value chain of the economic sector to keep abreast with the most recent developments in information systems and information technology. When formulating a strategy and making plans, practitioners make use of a variety of tools and instruments. Among the methodology used for strategic information system planning is Porter’s value chain technique. The majority of businesses are actively involved in primary or support activities as a mechanism of transforming inputs into outputs. More value is contributed to the products than the total value added by individual activities due to the chain of activities. The Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint has recognized the importance of the agriculture sector in boosting the digital economy. One of the key features of the National Agro-food Policy 2021-2030 (NAP 2.0) is it focuses on transparency, ethics, and a secure digital environment in the agro-food sector. This is supported by several strategies including greater accessibility to data available and guiding industry players’ related value chains throughout the process of digital transformation. One of the strategies under policy thrust in NAP 2.0 is to drive end-to-end digitalization of the value chain through the process of converting physical products and information into digital equivalents. Thus, the objective of the paper is to discuss the use of digitalization throughout all stages of the value chain that will result in numerous benefits including improvement of the value chain’s efficiency and growth of the agro-food sector.

Actor analysis for sustainable soil management – A case study from the Netherlands

Soil quality is an important determinant of the productivity, environmental quality and resilience of agricultural ecosystems. In addition to the farmer, there are other actors who may have different interests in soil quality, hampering the implementation of sustainable soil management. To date, these actors have received surprisingly little attention. This study presents an inventory of actors involved in sustainable soil management, including farmers, but also value chain participants (e.g. input suppliers and processors), environmentally engaged actors and policy makers. We applied Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to elicit actors’ priorities for soil sustainability criteria. AHP is a method of multi-criteria analysis that uses pairwise comparisons to assess the relative importance of criteria. Additionally, we differentiated actors based on their involvement and perceived ability to influence decision-making. Based on the results of a survey, actors were placed in a power-interest grid. In this grid, the self-perceived power and interest of actors was differentiated from their power and interest as perceived by other actors. The main findings were that a complex and heterogenous network of actors exists around the farmer. Within this network, farmers and related value chain participants showed a priority for economic soil sustainability criteria. Environmentally engaged actors were confirmed to have a clear priority for environmental criteria. The power-interest grids underscored the prime role of farmers and the relatively high power of value chain participants. The self-assessment of power-interest compared to assessment by others revealed noticeable differences, especially for NGOs and environmentally engaged actors. This study provides an overview of which actors to involve in decision-making on sustainable soil management, which is illustrated for the EU mission “Soil Health and Food”.

Technological Innovations for Improving Cassava Production in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Cassava is crucial for food security of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. The crop has great potential to contribute to African development and is increasing its income-earning potential for small-scale farmers and related value chains on the continent. Therefore, it is critical to increase cassava production, as well as its quality attributes. Technological innovations offer great potential to drive this envisioned change. This paper highlights genomic tools and resources available in cassava. The paper also provides a glimpse of how these resources have been used to screen and understand the pattern of cassava genetic diversity on the continent. Here, we reviewed the approaches currently used for phenotyping cassava traits, highlighting the methodologies used to link genotypic and phenotypic information, dissect the genetics architecture of key cassava traits, and identify quantitative trait loci/markers significantly associated with those traits. Additionally, we examined how knowledge acquired is utilized to contribute to crop improvement. We explored major approaches applied in the field of molecular breeding for cassava, their promises, and limitations. We also examined the role of national agricultural research systems as key partners for sustainable cassava production.

‘Sharing the space’ in the agricultural knowledge and innovation system: multi-actor innovation partnerships with farmers and foresters in Europe

ABSTRACT Purpose Networks and partnerships are commonly-used tools to foster knowledge sharing between actors and organisations in the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS), but in Europe the policy emphasis on including users, such as farmers and foresters, is relatively recent. This paper assesses user involvement in a diverse set of European Union (EU)-funded and non-EU (formal and informal) multi-actor partnerships. Design/methodology/approach A review of 200 projects and other partnerships including farmers and foresters, drawn from an integrated database of several thousand such examples, assessed the types of innovation challenges tackled, solutions proposed, innovation supported, parameters of actor participation and the expectations of success in each example. Findings All the reviewed policy instruments, not just those funded in the frame of the EIP-AGRI, can be used to involve users in co-innovation in agriculture, forestry and related value chains. Practical implications The EIP-AGRI is just one part of a complex matrix of multi-actor co-innovation activities involving farmers and foresters in Europe. Interlinking of innovation programmes and more effective targeting of these programmes at groups of actors, especially users, who are currently not sufficiently engaged are worthy aspirations. Theoretical implications Any analysis of co-innovation involving users must recognise the existence of a multiplicity (projects, non-project activities, formal and informal) of multi-actor approaches. Originality/value This research used a common methodology to review several forms of multi-actor partnerships involving users and other actors. Our data suggest that many of these are effective methods of supporting co-innovation and are, therefore, ‘sharing the space’ within the AKIS.

Manufacturing location decisions and organizational agility

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the strategic consequences of manufacturing location decisions, with a focus on understanding the link between collocating manufacturing with other value chain activities, via reshoring or retaining and organizational agility.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses qualitative data from 115 interviews with executives from UK high value manufacturing companies to explore the recent phenomenon of reshoring and the strategic effects of manufacturing location.FindingsThe location of manufacturing is operationally and strategically important for multinational companies. The spatial dispersion of manufacturing is determined by firm-specific and external factors, both of which are subject to constant change. The analysis shows that concentrating on manufacturing in their home countries enables firms to increase organizational agility and stimulate innovation. Better integration with and more extensive collaboration between related value chain activities, such as research and development, sales and marketing, leads to higher flexibility, speed and responsiveness to customer requirements. However, under certain conditions, firms also continue to benefit from the known advantages of offshoring.Originality/valueThis research sheds light on possible strategic downsides of global value chains, characterized by dispersed activities and intermitted processes. The results provide evidence that retaining manufacturing or bringing back manufacturing operations to a company’s home country can increase organizational flexibility, speed, adaptability, innovativeness and responsiveness to customer requirements. As these capabilities are critical for long-term survival, especially in dynamic environments, firms need to review their global factory configurations and determine whether the short-term advantages of foreign locations continue to justify offshoring practices.

Regional Animal Feed Action Plan for East Africa: why, what, for whom, how used and benefits

Abstract Livestock are a crucial source of food, employment, and income for much of East Africa’s rural population. The sector contributes substantially to export revenues, national GDPs, and thus the region’s broader socioeconomic development. Livestock production and related value chains, can be the foundation of resilience and sustainable development for pastoral, agro-pastoral, and mixed crop livestock systems in East Africa. Yet, livestock face a wide range of challenges, particularly in terms of ensuring sustainable access to and use of water and feeds for livestock. Inadequate availability and supply of quality feed and water critically limit the efficiency of livestock in terms of production, reproduction, animal health and welfare, human health, and the economic benefits derived from livestock-based livelihoods in the region. Countries in East Africa identified lack of animal feed policy, strategy, and institutional framework to support the animal feed sector as a major constraint hindering subsector growth, livestock productivity, resilience, and trade. In order to address this, the first Animal Feed Action Plan was developed for East Africa through a consultative and participatory process. The Action Plan captures experiences and lessons learned by a wide spectrum of stakeholders. It provides a means to collectively address some of the constraints in accessing and using animal feed and provides a guided approach to establish partnership by countries, communities, the private sector, and stakeholders to enhance sustainable production of quality livestock and products. The Action Plan is believed to set a good example for other regions to develop their feed action plan.

Relational Contracts and Smallholder Farmers’ Entry, Stay and Exit, in Kenyan Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Export Value Chain

Buyer-driven governance systems and the related value chain entry and stay barriers are known to have led to smallholder farmers exiting the Kenyan fresh fruits and vegetables export value chain. This paper addresses two gaps in this literature. First, the paper addresses the question of how the fresh fruits and vegetable export smallholder farmers have managed to secure their stay in this value chain known for its high entry barriers. Second, the paper addresses the question of what happens to the smallholders known to have exited the value chain. To explore the two gaps, transaction costs theory was applied. The results show that smallholders entry and stay in the value chain was underpinned by relational contract enforcement mechanism of supply reliability. Second, smallholders were found to occasionally exit and re-enter the value chain, depending on the prevailing risks. In conclusion, the paper argues that contemporary African value chain scholarship should consider the analysis of relational contracts and their enforcement mechanism as well as the totality of smallholders’ farming, in order to understand the motives behind smallholder value chain entry and stay decisions.

Optimizing for Video Storage Networking With Recommender Systems

Driven mainly by its adoption as a new media distribution platform for content providers and its ubiquitous availability for the end user's media production and consumption, the Internet is rapidly reshaping. In particular, the stakeholders in the content distribution market are considering exploiting content delivery networks (CDNs) to play a key enabling role allowing them to become part of related value chains. In this paper we discuss how such CDNs rely on autonomous algorithms to optimally use the storage resources, i.e., reducing bandwidth on feeder links, while providing quality of experience (QoE) to the end user. A model is presented to allow the comparison of algorithms that rely on measuring content popularity versus new recommender based algorithms that base caching decisions on predictions of individual end user behavior. The performance and the dynamics of these algorithmic components are assessed based on a theoretical demand model for a cache deployed at one of the various levels in a tree-based access network, inclusive of a single user cache. This scientific analysis allows to carefully pitch some considerations towards infrastructure network providers that deploy such storage networking. © 2012 Alcatel-Lucent.

PENGEMBANGAN HUTAN PINUS MASYARAKAT BERBASIS KEMITRAAN SEBAGAI MODEL PEMBERDAYAAN MASYARAKAT SEKITAR HUTAN

CV. Corning Sidoarjo is a home furnishings industry, one product is kitchen furniture Pekalongan Regency is one regency in the region of Central Java Province has a forest area isrelatively large, including public forests. Public forest for several years has been planted by pine trees, pine trees and even the population in the region has reached 400,000 trees. Suchlarge populations have not utilized optimally by the public, so the effort required to implement a development of that potential. One development that can be done is by processing the sap of pine into Gondorukem products, which Gondorukem is one of several types of raw materials industries, including batik industry is an important industrial sector in Pekalongan Regency. By doing this research is expected to be identified ways and strategies to develop the potential of public of pine forests and streng then the competitiveness of commodities produced Gondorukem, both on the regional market, national, and international. In addition, also to be identified new opportunities (in this case another potential can still be developed) and developing the competi tiveness of Pekalongan Regency through industrial products, such as batik and otherindustry related value chain. In an attempt to resolve the problem in this research, use industry cluster approach. This approach uses several instruments and data processing devices, including analysis of internal and external environment pine forest community, SWOT analysis, decision making with Analitycal Network Process (ANP), analysis of the competitiveness diamond approach and strategy formulation model taking into account some previous analysis and analysis supporters. Of some devices is expected to obtain an appropriate strategy formulation and implementation of the development potential of the public pine forest in PekalonganRegency in order to support increased competitiveness of Pekalongan Regency.

Toward service innovation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the business potential of mobile video services in China via the case study of M‐Vzone.com. It answers two research questions: what are the important factors that affect the adoption of mobile video services for individuals and enterprises? How much the value was added along the mobile video service chain and how were the benefits are realized?Design/methodology/approachGrounded in traditional technology adoption and information diffusion theories, the paper uses an exploratory research approach, including interviews and further analysis from published sources.FindingsThe authors' analysis suggests that three key factors contributed to the success of m‐commerce in the Chinese context: stronger customer relationship management; enhanced video/operation performance; and easier access to resources. From post‐investigation of the results, the authors also found that small‐ to mid‐sized Chinese owners showed a shift from an imitative to an incremental innovative mode of business thinking and practice.Originality/valueThis is the first study that examines mobile video commerce from a business and innovation perspective in China, to the best of the authors' knowledge. The paper investigates opinions from stakeholders directly involved in a mobile video web site and conducts a detailed analysis on the related value chain network. The findings will be of interest to decision makers in the mobile industry, especially those from small‐ to medium‐sized companies searching for an effective way toward service innovation. The paper can serve as a good foundation for future research into mobile service adoption and service innovation topics.

The Community Context of Evolving Industry Architecture

The transformation of industries and industry architectures is approached through a community evolution analysis of two closely related value chains. A longitudinal multilevel data set on the consumer food value chains in Britain and Ireland is analyzed. The analysis highlights the central role of coevolution between members of the value-chain communities, including the related institutional context. Commensalism is explored through its constituent processes of competition and cooperation. Both are seen to act powerfully in shaping change and transformation. The divergence between the two value chains studied bears out the basic evolutionary premise that evolution is constructed, not determined by generic processes.