Melanie Fritz

Towards a cross‐cultural typology of trust in B2B food trade

Purpose – This paper aims to develop a hierarchical typology of trust elements for business‐to‐business trade among European companies in the food sector.Design/methodology/approach – The paper integrates desk research literature study and a qualitative survey of food industry companies. An extensive literature review about inter‐organizational trust lays a foundation for designing a draft typology based on previous studies, with special attention paid to the influence of culture. Fine‐tuning and validation of the typology is achieved through an exploratory field study based on 18 qualitative in‐depth interviews with key informants in five EU countries, involving practitioners from the fresh fruit and vegetable, grain, meat and olive supply chains.Findings – A detailed typology of trust is developed. Although it is highly specific to the food industry, it is designed to be neutral to culture and sector, thus allowing the identification of differences in culture when dealing with trust building elements in...

Labelling and sustainability in food supply networks : a comparison between the German and Italian markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on two aspects. First, to analyse the spread of labelled environmental certification in food products, considering both private labels and producer brands with reference to the Italian and German markets. Second, to outline how environmental certification can affect the vertical organisation of food supply chains.Design/methodology/approach – The method used is based on an empirical analysis carried out in two sample cities: Milan for Italy and Bonn for Germany, examining ten and seven retailers, respectively, using the case studies approach, through an ad hoc questionnaire. The authors analysed two cases related to fruit and vegetables and ichthyic products, in order to assess the effect of the standards provided by the sustainability certification on the vertical organisation of the supply chains.Findings – The certifications focus on three main areas: ichthyic products; tropical products; and fruits and vegetables. They are much more widespread on private...

E-commerce partnering due diligence: A methodology for trust in e-commerce in food networks

Abstract Trust is one of the key facilitators for transactions in food networks. Recent developments in electronic transaction support such as e-commerce allow for efficiency improvements in exchange processes along food supply chains. However, the communication of trust between transaction partners is not sufficiently realized in existing e-commerce offers for food networks. To enable food networks to exploit efficiency potentials from electronic commerce, appropriate generation of trust and confidence at the transaction partners in the sense of an e-commerce partnering due diligence is necessary. This paper presents a methodology for a systematic identification of trust generation for electronic transactions in food networks. The methodology builds on three central elements: transaction decisions, the four phases of the transaction process, and the information and communication processes as mediating links. The transaction decision portfolio builds the central element of the methodology and contains criteria for the assessment of the reliability of transaction situations.

A multi-level cost–benefit approach for regulatory decision support in food safety and quality assurance scenarios

In complex policy decision situations where policy objectives cannot be reached alone through the aggregate actions of individual actors, the classical approaches for measuring the effects of regulatory initiatives such as cost–benefit analysis do not provide the information necessary for decision support. This paper discusses a framework for a multi-level analysis approach that could provide decision support in multi-level policy decision situations.

Food supply networks: trust and e-business.

1: Trust in the agri-food sector: A typology with a cultural perspective2: The main cross-border food trade streams within and to Europe3: The analysis of procurement risk perceptions within traditional cross-border transactions in food supply networks4: Trust building elements in traditional cross-border transactions in food supply networks5: The role of social networks to build inter-organizational trust in the agri-food sector6: The introduction of ICT in the agricultural supply chain: an overview7: An analysis of the role of e-market places in food networks8: A typology of trust when we introduce information technology9: The creation of trust in e-business cross-border transactions in food supply networks

Editorial: Food System Dynamics

The food system involves all actors, activities, resources, and environments that produce and provide food to people wherever they are. It serves basic human needs and is as such of core relevance for human survival. It is global in production, consumption, and environmental impacts. But it is also deeply rooted in the social, cultural, natural, political, and legal environments of society. It needs to serve a diversity of consumer needs and lifestyles and has to cope with an organizational complexity where, a.o. small scale farms or enterprises interact with globally active industry or retail groups and where rural sites of production are remote from the urban and ever growing centers of consumption.

Modeling External Information Needs of Food Business Networks

Awareness of threats and opportunities in the business and competitive environment is crucial for sustainable economic success of every company. It becomes even more important in the food sector where companies are parts of interdependent business networks. Scanning and monitoring the business environment for competitive intelligence has received a substantial push by the emergence of the Internet and the information provided there. Efficiency considerations favor joint, industry-wide market and competition monitoring systems for companies in food networks. Therefore, a crucial prerequisite is modeling the network’s external information needs. Modeling external information needs of agrifood networks is difficult because not all areas of the business environment are equally relevant to all companies, and every company has its own and distinct perspective on it. This chapter presents a guideline for modeling the differentiated external information needs in food networks and their transfer to a monitoring system infrastructure. The guideline consists of two phases: organizing the tasks and activities to perform and results to obtain. The first phase regards the analysis and differentiation of the external information needs in the business network; the second phase deals with the transfer of the differentiated information need to the processes and structure of a supporting software system and includes the design of a categorization scheme and appropriate personalization filters.

Introduction to this special issue on “trust and risk in business networks”

Business networks are interorganizational structures where companies are interlinked and interdependent. The food sector constitutes a network of companies involved in the production of food on different stages of the food production value chain. Food networks are particularly complex due to the difficulty of scrutinizing food quality, the global scope of food cultivation, production and trade, and the impact of food consumption on consumers’ quality of life. In recent years, the issue of food quality and safety has become one of the major factors for the stability of the global food sector and deeply affected consumer confidence in food. As food quality is difficult to examine upfront, trade and exchange of food across the production chain creates high levels of information asymmetry, (perceived) risks and uncertainties for companies. This is particularly true for trade and exchange processes supported by information and communication technology (ICT) where the perception of risks is even more increased. Trade and transactions across the production stages involve human decision-making and market dynamics. There is no doubt that information, control and safeguard mechanisms are necessary to enable the transfer of food across stages. These include quality signs, third party auditing, or guarantees. However, control and safeguard mechanisms are not sufficient to enable transactions across the stages. Trust between transaction partners in the food sector is an essential supplement and sometimes substitute to more formal control and safeguards. Trust in food networks has been recognized as one of the key facilitators of the stability of the food sector. It is a prerequisite for exploiting the potentials from ICT for coordination and transaction process efficiency. The economic relevance of trust for transactions becomes apparent as it is less costly than control and safeguards in transactions. Trust is a multifaceted concept describing a generalized expectancy towards the behavior of others reducing the complexity of a decision situation. With regard to transactions across a value chain, trust is one party’s belief that the other party will not exploit its vulnerabilities. It is known that, e.g. positive experience and personal relationships create trust, but unambiguous cause-and-effect relationships in the emergence of trust remain unclear. With regard to transaction processes in food networks supported by e-business solutions, rules for the emergence of trust and the communication of trustworthiness are not yet known. Research is needed to contribute to the understanding of the multidimensional concept of trust in food networks and the success factors for its application to the stabilization of food networks. The large potential impact of trust and confidence of consumers and companies alike on the stability of the food sector makes the study of trust in food networks important. Research on trust and risk in food networks focuses on a fundamental set of questions. How does trust in food networks emerge? How is trust incorporated in the structure of food networks? What are the effects of trust on food networks structures? Are there differences in trust in food networks in different countries? How does trust emergence and generation depend on the food product type? How to communicate trustworthiness in electronic transaction processes in food networks?