Zouhair Bouhsina

Innovation and the Quality of Labour Factor: An Empirical Investigation in the French Food Industry

The aim of our paper is to analyse the determinants of the innovation propensity of the firm. Among the numerous works devoted to this subject, the interest of our research is, firstly, to use a direct measurement of innovation, instead of the usual proxies, as R&D expenditures and patents statistics, secondly, to emphasise the role of labour factor quality as a major determinant of innovation. We first build a definition of labour factor quality, based on a double dimension: individual skill level and functional distribution of jobs inside the firm. At the end we consider that each job category can be involved in the innovation process, at the different steps of it: conception, decision, implementation. To explain the innovation propensity at the firm level, our logit model takes into account four explanatory dimensions: the quality of labour factor employed inside the firm, the firm structural characteristics (as size, for instance), the sectoral market structures and, finally, the quality of labour factor employed inside the firm sector, as a proxy for the R&D spillover effect. We use some individual firms data, including a direct measurement of innovation, that distinguished between several types: radical vs. incremental and product vs. process vs. organisational innovation. The French food industries with its 500.000 employees and 42 sectors, mostly composed of small firms, are our empirical field. The results emphasise the influence of the usual firm structure variables. Firm size, particularly, is very clearly positively related to the innovation propensity. At the same time, some more original facts appears, such as the influence of firm status: after controlling the sectoral influence, co-operative firms seem to innovate less than private ones. Labour factor quality appears to play a very significant role by itself, but mostly, helps us to analyse and specify the influence of other variables on innovation. At the end, it shows that innovation is a multiphase process, and that the relative importance of each phase greatly depends on the kind of innovation that is considered. Conception is the most important phase in the radical innovation case, which greatly involves formally high-skilled job categories as R&D employees or engineers. At the same time, the implementation phase, which seems to be particularly important in the incremental innovation case, emphasises the role of the intermediate categories know-how.At the end we can say that small industrial firms appear to be less innovative for two reasons: the usual scale effect argument is correct only in the process innovation case in relation to the capital intensity level. In some other cases as radical innovation, small firms are less innovative because of their job structure and particularly because of the lack of formal scientific capabilities (as the R&D personnels one).

Food Safety Management Through the Lens of Hybrids: The Case of Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Shippers

Managing the pesticide safety risk to provide end markets with safe fruit and vegetables raises complex issues due to the diversity and stringent nature of public and private safety requirements and the high cost of controlling the product and the production process. More often than not, this leads to the development of diversified and more integrated relationships between growers and their buyers. Our paper is a case study of the hybrid forms underlying such relationships. It begins by developing the analytical framework, drawing on transaction cost, positive agency, and property rights theories with a special focus on the model proposed by Menard (The Handbook of Organizational Economics, Princeton, 1066–1108, 2013), positioning the hybrid forms along the two dimensions of decision rights and strategic resources. It then presents a selection of quantitative and qualitative findings obtained from data collected through face-to-face interviews with managers of fresh produce shipping firms in France and Chile. Both case studies confirm that the level of centralization increases with the buyer’s commercial reputation, the level of customer safety requirements (a key component in the marketing strategy of the buyer), and the level of asset specificity which is mostly embedded in the technical assistance and training provided by the buyer to the growers. Moreover, our paper establishes a clear divide between firms that only control product safety at the delivery stage and firms that also control safety throughout the production process and may take decisions on behalf of the grower before harvesting.

Effects of the transaction characteristics on the side of dependence in a context of vertical coordination: The case of fresh produce exports from Chile to Europe

Abstract While organization theories acknowledge the influence of specific assets on dependence and increasingly represent the latter as a structure of mutual dependence (dependence of A on B and dependence of B on A), there is, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical test concerning the impact of specific assets on a structure of dependence. Our chapter aims to fill this gap. It is all the more original in that it considers a case study where dependence changes sides according to the characteristics of the transaction. We examine the dependence between Chilean exporters and European importers when trading fresh produce. Such dependence originates with the need for just-in-time coordination and compliance with a compelling demand in a context of high price uncertainty. Using a unique dataset from international trade in fresh produce between Chile and the rest of the world, we justify the use of a concentration sales ratio as a proxy for dependence and test the influence of a variety of specific assets on the side of dependence by using both categorical and dimensional approaches. Original findings show that certain transaction attributes have a strong influence on the side of dependence. In particular, the higher the frequency and the level of specific assets such as volume, niche varieties, and joint sales with other products, in the transaction, the greater the likelihood of a higher ratio of dependence for the importer rather than the exporter. Conversely, in the event of low levels of specific assets and less frequent operations, dependence tends to be greater on the side of the exporter.