Traditional Value Chain Research Articles

The future of banking in the platform economy

Purpose To better understand where the banking industry is heading and how it can thrive in the new environment of converged industries and competition, the IBM Institute for Business Value, in collaboration with Oxford Economics, surveyed 850 banking and financial markets executives across all major geographies and a variety of C-suite roles. Design/methodology/approach The survey sought answers to three key questions: What impacts are the changing currents around ecosystems, business models and business economics having on banking and other financial services organizations? What strategies are likely to be most successful for banks to adopt over the next few years? What steps can banking leaders adopt today to accelerate their progress toward obtaining a leading competitive position? Findings Most senior executives surveyed – 72 percent – agree that platform business models – and the ecosystems that underpin them – are disruptive for the banking industry: 70 percent of executives say that platform business models are driving changes in traditional value chains across the industry. 69 percent acknowledge that platforms are disrupting their organization’s own business and operating models. Practical implications As many as 79 percent of banking executives globally say that adoption of platform business models will help them achieve sustainable differentiation and competitive advantage with benefits across multiple dimensions. They identify profitability, innovation and access to markets as the top-three areas where platform models can drive advantage. Originality/value Visionary banks believe engagement with partners across platforms should increase their commitment to innovation, especially relating to the search for new and more valuable product and service combinations. They realize that radical transformation is required across business and operating models and in the way resources, business processes and technologies are assembled to create value.

A complex adaptive systems agenda for ecosystem research methodology

Ecosystems have recently emerged as a visible stream in organization and management research. The ecosystem concept promises a broader, systems view of organizational and technological phenomena beyond traditional firm, value chain or network boundaries. However, adopting an ecosystem approach presents a range of methodological challenges for researchers, including how to set boundaries for the ecosystems, as well as how to examine their structure and relationships, as well as to explain the inherent dynamics and co-evolution. Based upon on a complex adaptive systems lens, this study proposes a theoretically grounded but pragmatic approach to address these challenges. The proposed methodological framework facilitates exploration of the conceptual, structural and temporal dimensions of ecosystem research design. An illustrative example is also included to showcase the framework's applicability.

Arcs of carbon awareness in the value chain and their antecedents

AbstractThis study examines the patterns and antecedents of firms' value chain greenhouse gas emissions (VCGGE) awareness. Drawing on a sample of 1,322 firms from multiple countries and industries, we use cluster analysis to first evaluate how well firms' VCGGE awareness patterns match traditional value chain integration patterns, identified by prior literature. We then examine how well internal indicators of greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) management predict advanced VCGGE awareness. Our study indicates that VCGGE patterns partially match traditional value chain integration patterns and that firms' VCGGE awareness is much higher for their upstream than downstream activities. Moreover, our findings show that the internal adoption of GGE management is a significant predictor of advanced awareness of VCGGE. Overall, we find that most firms have limited awareness about the magnitude of their VCGGE, suggesting that many opportunities to reduce these emissions, especially in the downstream value chain, remain unexplored.

Review of Biological and Chemical Health Risks Associated with Pork Consumption in Vietnam: Major Pathogens and Hazards Identified in Southeast Asia

Foodborne illness is a difficult public health burden to measure, with accurate incidence data usually evading disease surveillance systems. Yet, the global scope of foodborne disease and its impacts on socioeconomic development make it an important health risk to address, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In Vietnam, rapid development has seen large-scale commercial operations rise to coexist amongst traditional value chains in the food landscape, most of which operates outside of a domestic food safety network. Rapid socioeconomic development has also seen an increase in meat consumption, with pork being the most consumed meat product nationally. Expanding pork value chains, and the increasing diversity of actors within them, facilitates the growth and propagation of hazards which are passed onto Vietnamese consumers. In order to guide illness prevention and governance efforts, this review was conducted to examine health risks associated with pork consumption in Vietnam. Synthesis of the available literature provided evidence that Salmonella spp. bacteria are a major cause of foodborne illness from Vietnamese pork products. However, contaminants of global concern, including Salmonella spp. and Trichinella spiralis, occur alongside those considered neglected tropical diseases, such as Taenia solium. Infections and complications associated with ingestion of Streptococcus suis bacteria are also an issue, with Streptococcus suis infections usually limited to occupational infections amongst meat handlers in modernised value chains. A risk factor underscoring transmission of Trichinella spiralis, Taenia solium, and Streptococcus suis in Vietnam that emerges from the literature is the consumption of dishes containing raw or undercooked pork. Available data indicates that infections associated with raw pork consumption disproportionately affect men and people in regional mountainous areas of northwest Vietnam, where many of Vietnam’s ethnic minority communities reside. In addition, epidemiological data from recorded disease outbreaks that result from raw pork consumption demonstrate that these outbreaks usually follow major sociocultural events such as weddings, funerals, and Lunar New Year celebrations. Potential health impacts resulting from residues of antibiotics and heavy metals are also cause for concern, though the direct links between chemical contaminants in food and the development of disease are difficult to conclusively deduce.

The Innovation of Online Music Business Model From the Perspective of Industrial Value Chain Theory

The emergence and development of online music have brought a great update to traditional music industrial value chain. As consumers know, record sales, media dissemination, and peripheral income like concerts are three major sources of income of traditional music industry. Compared with that, the music industry now possesses an extensive consumer group, a new growth point, and a new development direction. Meanwhile, as laws and business rules of online music industry improving, the new online music business model need to be established. Based on value chain theory, this article sets up a brand new online music business model and analyzes the operation strategy, and services mode of the business model applying internet thinking.

Airline Value Chain Capabilities and CSR Performance: The Connection Between CSR Leadership and CSR Culture with CSR Performance, Customer Satisfaction and Financial Performance

This research examines Corporate Social Responsibility in Leadership (CSRL) and Culture (CSRC) as valuable resources of the value chain capabilities, and its influence on CSR Performance (CSRP), as well as its resulting effect on Customer Satisfaction (CS) and Financial Performance (FP) in the context of the airline industry. CSR entails the practice of social and environmental activities. These activities mainly concentrate on improving the relationships of a firm with its stakeholders, which consist of shareholders, charitable and community organisations, employees, suppliers, customers, and the environment (Sprinkle and Maines, 2010). It is therefore in this context that this research adopts the concept of CSR which consists of two aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Based on the traditional value chain model by Porter of the mid 1980's, this research however also focuses on other robust and contemporary business thinking such as culture and leadership within the CSR setting. Three carriers in the aviation industry within the US and Asia Pacific markets are analysed and some resulting academic and managerial implications are discussed. Findings from this research highlights the importance of cultivating and promoting CSR culture and leadership so as to positively influence CSR performance, which can in turn enhance other aspects of firm performance specifically customer satisfaction and financial performance. Hence, this research provides incentives for managers to invest in CSR in their quest for sustainable performance. Building on the hypothesis that firms achieve sustainable performance and ultimately financial performance through the identification of value chain capabilities such as CSRL and CSRC, the findings of this research indicate that there is a strong requirement for sustainable firm performance in the current environment but this can only be achieved where the approach is embedded in the core business, by CSR leaders who can apply the concepts of value creation through a strong CSR culture. This research is original as it is perhaps one of the first studies which examine the linkage between CSR-related constructs of leadership, culture and performance.

Impact of traditional versus modern dairy value chains on food security: Evidence from India’s dairy sector

The Indian government has made significant efforts to promote dairy cooperatives to link the milk producers with consumers. Despite this, milk marketing is still dominated by traditional outlets. This paper examines the impact of modern dairy value chains on food security indicators such as net returns from dairying and consumption expenditures. Using a large, national, farm-level dataset from India and a multinomial endogenous switching regression model, results reveal that Indian dairy farmers’ integration with the modern dairy value chain has a positive and significant impact on their food security (measured by net returns and household consumption expenditures). Participation in modern milk-marketing outlets significantly increases net returns per year, regardless of whether farmers choose one outlet or a combination.

Measuring the fragility of agribusiness value chains: a case study of the South African lamb chain

The ability to determine the fragility of agribusiness value chains is valuable to agribusines management practitioners and scholars in a context where risk and uncertainty are increasingly pervasive, consequential and unpredictable. The paper argues for determining the fragility of a chain to adverse events rather than trying to predict the probability and impact of such events. The paper specifically proposes a framework to detect and quantify non-linear consequences in response to progressively deteriorating chain fragility factors. The paper’s approach is a novel alternative to the traditional value chain ‘risk assessment’. Application of the framework to the South African lamb chain reveals that a number of specific factors, like quality and safety performance and cash flow position, have consistently high fragility scores throughout the chain while some factors are uniquely localized to a specific role-player or activity, which highlights the techno-economic uniqueness of individual activities in a chain.

Supermarket-Led Development and the Neglect of Traditional Food Value Chains: Reflections on Indonesia’s Agri-Food System Transformation

The rapid expansion of modern food retail encapsulated in the so-called ‘supermarket revolution’ is often portrayed as a pivotal driving force in the modernization of agri-food systems in the Global South. Based on fieldwork conducted on horticulture value chains in West Java and South Sulawesi, this paper explores this phenomenon and the concerted efforts that government and corporate actors undertake with regard to agri-food value chain interventions and market modernization in Indonesia. The paper argues that after more than 15 years of ‘supermarket revolution’ in Indonesia, traditional food retail appears not to be in complete demise, but rather adaptive and resilient to its modern competitors. The analysis of local manifestations of supermarket-led agricultural development suggests that traditional markets can offer certain advantages for farmers over supermarket-driven value chains. The paper further identifies and discusses two areas that have so far been neglected by research and policymaking and which warrant further investigation: (i) the simultaneous transformations in traditional food value chains and their relation to modern markets, and (ii) the social and environmental performances of modern vis-à-vis traditional food value chains.

ОРГАНІЗАЦІЯ ТУРИЗМУ ІСПАНІЇ В УМОВАХ ПЕРІОДИЧНИХ КОНФЛІКТІВ

The current state of tourism organization in Spain is investigated. Methods of analysis, synthesis, historical, statistical, comparative- geographical, political marketing are used. The features of the influence of the Catalan conflict on the tourist activity of Spain are considered. It was found that the Catalan conflict reduces the intensity of tourism activities in the region, but is not a deterrent for tourists. The mechanism of the organization of tourist activity in the conditions of periodic conflicts is revealed. It was found that the tourism sector in Spain for the first time faced with the change of a long cycle, which suggests a new era in which digitization is the catalyst for this. This entails breaking the traditional value chain, conferring, on the one hand, a Central role to the tourist, with a more demanding and critical profile and perhaps more decision-making power. The market has clearly turned into a market of demand, forcing an in-depth rethinking of the tourism marketing strategy, which should be based on the tourist. Six strategic objectives have been identified that meet the relevant tactical objectives depending on the geographical area and the purpose of the strategic marketing plan, attracting quality and sustainable tourism demand. It is established that positive changes in tourism activity in Spain are due to the development of a new strategic plan for the development of tourism. It is indicated that the Catalan conflict is of concern in the organization of tourism activities, so it involved some steps that will contribute to the aggravation of the conflict, reduce its impact. It was found that the strategic goal involves taking risks, namely external phenomena such as political instability, lack of security or other international events that are very difficult to predict. The positive components of marketing activities, which are proposed to be implemented in Ukraine in order to overcome the negative consequences of the conflict in the post-conflict period, are obtained.

Caractéristiques des élevages avicoles et évaluation de leur niveau de contamination par Salmonella spp. et Escherichia coli dans les villes de N’Djaména et Doba au Tchad

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the characteristics of poultry farm sand the level of contamination of chickens farmed in the towns of N'Djamena and Doba by Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli. Information, based on both formal and informal surveys, was collected from ten broiler chicken farms in N'Djamena and 16 traditional farms in Doba, mainly small establishments with low levels of investment. A total of 1,090 samples were taken from these farms over three periods, each of three months, from June to August 2014 then from March to May 2015 for Doba, and from November 2014 to January 2015 for N'Djamena. The NF EN ISO 6579 method and the seeding of a specific eosin methylene blue (EMB) agar were used to isolate 105 bacteria strains, including 65 (5.96%) strains of E. coli on five farms, giving a contamination level of 19.23%, and 40 (3.67%) strains of Salmonella on ten farms, with a contamination level of 38.46%. These high prevalences highlight, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, the contamination levels of the broiler chicken and traditional chicken value chains by Salmonella and E. coli in N'Djamena and Doba.

Short Communications: Transforming rural livelihoods through cassava value addition, a case study of Cassava Adding Value for Africa Project (C:AVA)

With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cassava Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA) project is transforming the lives of cassava small holder farmers in the five countries of Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. The C:AVA project has encouraged good agronomic practices and provided farmers with higher yielding and disease tolerant cassava varieties. These have resulted in higher yields (ranging from about 16 percent in Ghana to over 100 percent in Uganda), which have contributed to an increase in the incomes of the small holder farmers and community processors through their participation in profitable and sustainable value-added cassava chains. Rather than rely solely on income from processing fresh roots into traditional products, community groups and large industries have shifted focus to adding value to the roots through processing into new chains being promoted by the Project. These new value chains include high quality cassava flour and grits for bakery, confectionery and brewery industries as well as chips and grits as feed mix into the livestock industry including poultry. Other chains being promoted include starch and ethanol. Mobilisation into new value chains ranged from just over 2 percent in Tanzania to a 100 percent in Malawi in the first year of project operations. By the third year, mobilisation into the new chains has significantly increased to about 70 percent and above in all countries; 69 percent in Nigeria and 100 percent in Uganda. Collectively, the five countries have mobilised close to a million tons of fresh cassava roots that have been processed into both traditional and new value chains. Over 70 percent of these volumes have gone into the new chains. These value chains have generated an income of over USD 57 million into these rural communities assisting to raise the living standards of the resource poor households and providing employment opportunities in the participating countries. Keywords: smallholder farmer, transformation, value chains, cassava value addition

Digital platforms for smallholder credit access: The mediation of trust for cooperation in maize value chain financing

Maize production is of critical importance to smallholder farmers in Ghana. Various factors limit the productivity of smallholder maize farming systems undergirded by the lack of capital for critical investments both at the farm and at national policy levels. Using a value chain approach, this diagnostic study explains how a complex configuration of actor interaction within an institutionally and agro-ecologically challenged value chain leads to the enduring absence of maize farming credit support. We find a cycle of credit rationing resulting from value chain challenges such as agro-ecological uncertainties, inadequate GAPs training, weak farmer groups and market insecurity. This condition is sustained by an interplay between mistrust, insufficient information across the value chain and inadequate control strategies in the maize credit system. We argue that Digital Platforms (DPs) show potential to help overcome some information and communication gaps and related uncertainties that impede traditional value chain credit arrangements. This is promising in terms of aiding awareness and coordinated responsiveness to agro-ecological farm conditions and the development of farming records databases. Thus, DPs could generate new networks and forms of cooperation in the maize value chain in this regard. As a tool for mediating trust in value chain credit cooperation, strategic use of these DP contributions could help initiate an entry point for recalibration of trust perceptions. Significant considerations and improvements are however needed to harness DPs effectively in mediating trust for maize credit provision, not least being farmer digital inclusion in DP implementation, effective intermediation and network governance arrangements and digital contributions towards cost-effective agro-ecological controls in the erratic maize farming context. This approach to trust building should therefore not be viewed as a quick fix but as a process of trial and error, and learning by doing.

Global value chains and traditional supply chains: Evidence from Guatemala

Global value chains have been at the centre of recent research, but traditional supply chains have been given much less attention. However, quantitative data on both chain types is scarce. Therefore, it remains unclear how much smallholders, formal and informal sectors in traditional and global value chains contribute to gross domestic product (GDP), employment generation and income distribution. This article, by using a broad primary data set of 28 value chains in Guatemala, evidences that traditional chains contribute substantially to the national economy and that the income generated is much more equally distributed than in global value chains.

The Commercialization of Open Source Software: Do Property Rights Still Matter?

A major shift toward open source software is underway as companies are more critically evaluating the cost effectiveness of their IT investments, seeing the benefits of collaborative development, and looking for ways to avoid vendor lock-in. At the same time, academics and industry visionaries are criticizing the use of a traditional appropriation mechanism for innovation - the patent - by bemoaning the decisions of U.S. and foreign governments to permit software patents, the rising numbers of patents on software-related innovations (the so-called arms race build-up), and the cost and frequency of patent litigation in the software industry. The critics generally have applauded the shift towards open source, albeit for somewhat varying reasons. This paper responds to those trends by analyzing the role of property rights in the open source development model, with a particular focus on the effectiveness of the appropriation mechanisms that the open source model uses in lieu of intellectual property rights. I make two main points. First, I argue that open source's commercial success is intertwined with its incorporation into traditional commercial value chains. What that means is that open source cannot continue to grow in commercial importance without the property rights that are necessary for profit at other points of the value chain. Second, I argue that despite open source's distributed development process, open source in the real world is likely to support an increasing concentration in the software industry. The reason is that the proprietary firms best situated to exploit commercial interactions with open source will be large firms, particularly large service firms. Smaller firms will be less successful as services firms, and far less successful at exploiting the value-chain interactions that have driven commercial open source.

Mapping cassava food value chains in Tanzania's smallholder farming sector: The implications of intra-household gender dynamics

A gendered mapping of the structure and coordination (functioning) of traditional cassava value chains is important for marginalized groups such as women in rural development. In contrast to global high value chains, traditional food value chains and associated gender relations as well as power dynamics within households have received little attention. We conducted a cross sectional study in Kigoma, Mwanza, the coastal region, and Zanzibar Island in Tanzania. Data were collected through structured interviews conducted with 228 farmers, combined with key informant interviews, direct observations, repeated household visits, and literature review. The results of the study revealed that there are weak linkages within the cassava value chain, which is highly gendered. While production and processing nodes of the chain, which commenced from villages, were dominated by women and children, women were not well-integrated within high value nodes such as marketing in urban areas and cross-border trading, which were dominated by men. Transportation of cassava to highly lucrative markets was also dominated by men. Cassava processing was conducted at the household level as well as within small-scale cooperatives, with the major portion of this work being done by women. Supporting institutions were found to be involved in the supply of planting material, training, and the provision of processing equipment. In general, men played a prominent role in the control of resources, marketing, and income. In conclusion, the mapping of cassava value chains could help to identify avenues for understanding of poverty, enhancing food security, upgrading capacities, reducing gender inequality, and enhancing women's participation in marketing and income control in the cassava value chains.

New framework for value chain thinking

The competitiveness of a commercial enterprise has long been defined as its ability to achieve cost or differentiation advantage. When companies possess the same capabilities, value creation is imperative as a new source of competitive advantage whose evolution relies on cycles of value creation, value delivery, and value capture. However, previous studies of the value chain concept differ in their definition of various types of chains. This paper proposes a new framework for value chain thinking (hereafter VCT) based on appreciative inquiry and service-dominant logic. The new framework is represented in four cells, or lenses, of VCT used to map and improve a company's value chain. The four lenses include: the traditional value chain, the innovation value chain, the shared value chain and the design-driven innovation value chain. Empirical evidence for the four lenses of VCT is provided by applying the framework to a quartet of companies that are known to implement value-innovation through their commercial practices. The results show that each of the four commercial enterprises matched VCT cells using value chain mapping, with its deficiencies being successfully diagnosed and its subsequent performance enhanced by means of its specific VCT cell.

Value Chain Management Through Cloud-based Platforms

The transformation of traditional value chain processes towards a digital value chain management enables companies to sustainably establish and retain a competitive market position. Digitisation offers the opportunity to design and operate expansive process chains with efficient process operations via co-operative platforms. Increased customer loyalty („lock-in”) via integrated measures at the front-end raises utilization and planning certainty for the technological recovery systems.

Panorama e tendências da indústria de conteúdos digitais e do livro eletrônico

Apresenta a alta taxa de digitalização da indústria de conteúdos devido ao crescimento do varejo online e desencadeamento de novos modelos de negócio que determinam mudanças na tradicional cadeia de valor desta indústria, produtordistribuidor-consumidor. Caracteriza a indústria de conteúdos digitais e do livro eletrônico apresentando suas tendências. Aborda os fatores que determinam a procura dos consumidores por conteúdos digitais. Objetiva discorrer sobre os indicadores de mudanças associadas à evoluçao do livro físico ao digital. Utliza como metodologia pesquisa bibliográfica e pesquisa eletrônica com uso de fontes de informação pertinentes ao assunto. Conclui que o livro vai se incorporar também ao mundo digital, porém não se tem certeza de quanto tempo tardará o surgimento de um novo modelo de negócio no mundo do livro.Palavras-chave: Indústria de conteúdos. Indústria de conteúdos digitais. Livro eletrônico.Link: https://periodicos.ufrn.br/informacao/article/view/6464/4996

Understanding the timber value chain in community-based forestry in Indonesia: Analysis of sengon in central Java

ABSTRACTThe commercial opportunities for sengon (Paraserianthes falcataria L. Nielsen) are expanding rapidly in Indonesia, but there remains a lack of supply for the processing industry of the desired volume and quality of timber for processing from this fast-grown tree. This article discusses recent analysis of the value chain of sengon in Indonesia to determine (i) who the stakeholders were and how each added value, and (ii) how the benefits were distributed among stakeholders. Information was collected from a mix of farmers (as tree growers) and other actors involved in the value chain. The research revealed two broad types of value chains for sengon–‘direct’ and ‘traditional’, with the potential increased income for farmers being as high as 35% when they use the direct approach, compared to the traditional approach. As expected, the further ‘downstream’ the position of the stakeholder in the value chain, the greater the monetary value added to the sengon timber and subsequent products. If farmers were to acquire a greater understanding of the market dynamics for sengon, they could better target the sale of their forest products to specific market segments and make forestry a more profitable enterprise. While village traders in the traditional value chain play an important role connecting small-scale tree growers to commercial markets, the sustained viability of their role is uncertain if more farmers adopt the ‘direct’ approach.