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Academic spin-off facilitators support high-tech academic spin-offs and help them to navigate various barriers and critical junctures during their growth stages. In this article we draw on stage-gate models, the path-dependency, and resource based view to identify start-ups' resource needs as perceived by both facilitators and by entrepreneurs. Using qualitative data based on in-depth interviews with 18 academic spin-off facilitators and nine spin-off founders, from three technical universities in the Netherlands, we explore the critical junctures and key support activities. The results show that founders appreciate milestones and direct interface regarding business support, business plan development, and legal support during the early growth stages. In all stages, in particular during the later stages, founders appreciate different type of network support (e.g., start-up network and industry) and when facilitators act as intermediaries to guide them in the network. This helps spin-offs to gain credibility and reach out to the market. This article adds to current research on academic facilitators and in particular incubators by providing a more comprehensive explanation for the low usage of the incubator's resources. By matching key resources and support activities that can navigate particular critical junctures, we try to promote the successful transition from one stage to the other. Our findings offer significant implications, both theoretical and practical, for academic entrepreneurship literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of modern agrifood markets, especially in Indonesia, has stimulated entrepreneurially oriented farmers to seize business opportunities through innovation. This paper aims to investigate in a dynamic agrifood market if entrepreneurial orientation enhances innovation adoption and generation and if both of these actions enhance product innovation and, eventually, farm revenues of vegetable farmers in West Java, Indonesia. The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurial orientation enhances innovation adoption and generation, which in turn enhance product innovation. Finally, product innovation enhances farm revenues. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of innovation in facilitating entrepreneurially oriented farmers to perform better when facing a dynamic market. Entrepreneurial orientation enables farmers to innovate by taking risks to anticipate future demand, through either adoption of available innovations or generation of their own innovations, and both options result in new or improved products and eventually enhanced farm revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cocoa multinationals have committed themselves to source and use close to 100 percent sustainable certified cocoa beans, aiming to improve farmers' livelihoods. As their current sourcing strategy is aimed mainly at environmental sustainability, they need a different one. This study seeks to amend this by providing an inclusive sourcing indicator, representing the integral costs of certified cocoa beans, to leverage values to impact farmers business model in high value-adding supply chains. Because this indicator is explorative indicator the applicability has been explored in four cases in Ghana and the Ivory Coast from the literature. This study's findings call for a review of conventional sourcing models and certification schemes to anticipate the mainstreaming of sustainable sourcing and the improvement of farmers' livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementing a supply chain information system (SCIS) incurs organizational and technical complexities. For managing these complexities, information system researchers have identified generic critical success factors. However, CSFs are abstract and, therefore, difficult to use in practice. To maximize the chances of successfully implementing a SCIS in the food industry, we aim to identify "actions" linked to CSFs. We, consequently, investigated four German pork supply chains that implemented a SCIS. Fourteen critical success factors were made "actionable"; most actions were identified for the CSFs "manage change and deliver training" and "select standards, vendor, and software package", indicating their relative importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that entrepreneurship is a critical factor in expanding employment, creating wealth and contributing to poverty alleviation at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in developing countries has led to the development of many initiatives to strengthen the entrepreneurial activities of poor people. Despite the fact that entrepreneurship is seen as a strategy in combatting poverty, the process that leads to entrepreneurial action in a BoP context is still unclear. In this paper, we illustrate the possibilities a multi-layered perspective offers to understand the complexity of entrepreneurship in poverty settings. Based on five focus group discussions and 36 in-depth interviews with vegetable farmers in Benin, we examined the entrepreneurship of poor people. We learned that entrepreneurial action is the nexus of individual and exogenous factors in complex relationships. Based on this, we elaborate on the characteristics of the process model of entrepreneurial action. We provide a process-based view of entrepreneurship at the BoP, suggesting a need for consistency between individual, behavioural strategies and contextual elements. We discuss the implications of our findings for BoP practice and provide a framing perspective that we hope will encourage a greater focus on the complexity of entrepreneurship phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Convergence processes are based on the activity of distinct industry sectors showing crossindustry collaborations. The aim of this paper is to analyze cross-industry collaborations between the food and pharmaceutical sectors in the convergence area of functional foods. Selected companies from food (Nestlé/Danone) and pharmaceutical (Martek/Bayer HealthCare) sectors are analyzed using the determinants of motivation and industrial scope. The analysis shows that food companies are more active in cross-industry collaborations than pharmaceutical companies. The latter are more active at the front-end of the value chain focusing on research and development, and delivering their ingredients to food companies that due to their higher expertise in consumer marketing launch the products. While the first cross-industry collaborations were based on an exploration motivation, those that follow focus on exploitation. Acquisitions and licensing agreements are dominant in inside-out and outside-in processes, whereas strategic alliances and joint ventures are based on a coupled process between the food and pharmaceutical sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bio-based businesses are often considered to be sustainable. However, they are also linked to sustainability challenges such as deforestation and soil erosion. Encouraged to exploit innovative solutions and enhance sustainability, organizations engaged in bio-based activities extensively explore collaboration possibilities with external partners. The objective of this paper is to integrate the available knowledge on sustainability of inter-organisational collaborations in bio-based businesses, while considering the three aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. We collected data from three academic sources--Web of Science, Scopus, and EconLit--and conducted a systematic literature review. The results show the importance of geographical proximity and complementarity in creating sustainability benefits such as reduced emissions, reduced waste, economic synergies, and socio-economic activities. Based on the findings, we have developed a framework that illustrates sustainability benefits and challenges. Interestingly, the studies emphasize sustainability benefits more in emerging than in industrialised economies, especially relating to the social aspects of sustainability. In conclusion, although the scholars have not discussed mitigation of several sustainability challenges in bio-based businesses, such as land use conflicts, they have found evidence of vital sustainability benefits, such as energy availability, lower emissions, improved socio-economic life, and poverty reduction, which are essential in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food and Agribusiness Multinational Enterprises (F&A MNEs) increasingly wish to source from smallholders to secure and stabilize the supply of agricultural commodities in high value-adding supply chains, while contributing positively to smallholder livelihood. In the literature we found that many F&A MNEs have been involved in supporting smallholder farming systems in developing countries for a long time. However, these projects have principally been driven by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. Moreover, despite many pilots to include smallholders in high value-adding supply chains, scaling or scaling up successful pilots has so far proven elusive. The aim of the present article is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) that can help F&A MNEs to design and implement sourcing strategies for sustainable smallholder supply from a business perspective, and to scale up successful pilot projects from a business perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vegetable breeding industry is generally recognized as an innovation-driven industry. However, innovation is costly, time-consuming and uncertain. This study aims to identify the key success factors of innovation project performance of vegetable breeding companies (VBCs) in China. Based on empirical data that was collected from 53 innovation projects in 38 VBCs, it was found that integrative capabilities play an important role in the novelty and newness of the innovation to enhance product potential (superiority) and also in improving functional capabilities and in gaining market potential. Furthermore, market competition is a positive factor for inspiring innovation in the breeding industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ele Agbe is a Ghanaian phrase meaning "God is alive." Founded as a small and medium enterprise (SME), in Ghana in 1996, Ele Agbe Company is currently a dynamic business operating in the downstream shea export sector. Demand for shea is increasing for skin and hair products on the foreign market. Ele Agbe's artisans use traditional Ghanaian tools and methods, and the highest quality materials available, including unique scents. The protected knowledge build up of unique scents in its shea product mix has given Ele Agbe its trade secret. At Ele Agbe, artisans pass on their skills to younger generations, conducting workshops for school groups and accepting apprentices from throughout Ghana. The business is confronted with challenges partly as a result of non-existent working policy for shea and breaks or gaps in the shea supply chain preventing it from achieving full potential. The company needs to consider how to improve on its' firm and business networks given its internal and external environment in order to expand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy makers are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that R&D intensive SMEs play a pivotal role in providing sustainable economic growth by maintaining a high rate of innovation. To compensate for their financial vulnerability, these SMEs increasingly conduct innovation in alliances. This paper aims to explore the impact of different alliance characteristics on the performance of Dutch biotechnology SMEs. The conceptual model was tested using a sample of 18 biotech SMEs reporting about 40 alliances. The main findings indicate that alliance performance is positively related to the level of complementarity, the cognitive distance and tacit knowledge transfer by the human resources exchanges. Policy makers are recommended to support innovation alliances by providing the infrastructure in which alliances can flourish, e.g. through stimulating the foundation of duster organizations that can function as innovation brokers. These cluster organizations can provide network formation, demand articulation, internationalization and innovation process support to their member companies and can act as a go-between among alliance partners. As part of the innovation process support activities, they can organize special workshops for biotech SMEs on how to successfully behave in an innovation alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the relationships between information exchange benefits and company performance, and the mediating effect of supply chain compliance on this relationship. A sample of 165 buying companies and of 96 suppliers were analyzed by partial least square (PLS) path modeling. Five company characteristics, including company size, company age, company type, quality standard implemented, and administrative level of a location, were added as control variables in the model. The paper extends our understanding on the relationships between perceived communication benefits, supply chain compliance, performance and company characteristics. Managerial implications are generalized for buyers and suppliers respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to answer the question of how farmers' networking behaviour and their ability to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge is related to their level of innovativeness and profitability. These relations were tested on the basis of structural equation modeling using 444 questionnaires completed by large-scale pig farmers in the Netherlands. Previous studies on the relation between network structure and innovativeness retained the absorptive capacity 'black box' by using proxies for absorption of knowledge. The present study addresses this shortcoming by studying absorptive capacity in terms of organizational capacities (routines and processes) of farmers to use their networks and absorb external knowledge. The findings show that frequency of contact in a specific network range affects innovativeness positively, but also indirectly through acquisition and assimilation capacity. Assimilation capacity turns out to be the most important dimension of absorptive capacity for the innovativeness of pig farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims at answering the question how cluster organization functions are implemented in a high-tech, a medium to high-tech and a low to medium-tech cluster. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews from three clusters in the Netherlands, an agri-food cluster (as an example of a low to medium-tech cluster), a green biotech cluster (medium to high-tech) and a high-tech cluster. Concerning the cluster organization functions a number of similarities were found. For all three clusters it can be concluded that the network support function is considered to be very important. Sector independence can further be found concerning the innovation process support function, specifically regarding the promotion of the region as an attractive living and working area for highly qualified employees. The results also show a number of clear differences among the investigated clusters. Only in the low-to-medium tech agri-food cluster there was a clear need for internationalization support for SMEs to reach foreign markets. Only in the green biotech cluster the demand articulation was focused on the region where the cluster is based, which stands in contrast to the highly international orientation of the member companies. Only in the high-tech innovation cluster technology road mapping was extensively used. This powerful tool, developed to align the innovation process at the company and sector level, impacted further on the execution of the demand articulation/network formation support functions, and could also be helpful for the green biotech and the agri-food clusters. Throughout the paper different cluster categorization schemes are besides the tech level are applied and give insights on their limitations and how to possibly deal with them in inter sectorial cluster comparison research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a decision-making framework for outsourcing levels of logistics activities. These are: execution level of basic activities (such as transportation, warehousing); value-added activities; planning and control level of activities (such as transportation and inventory management); and strategic decision-making level of activities (distribution network design). Design/methodology/approach - The research design comprises three stages. Literature review was undertaken to study outsourcing theories. Successively, case studies on three food manufacturers were conducted resulting in a framework for make-or-buy decision. Finally, an exploratory survey was undertaken to examine the determinant factors for outsourcing the different activities. Findings - Results indicate that logistics activities at different levels are outsourced for different reasons. Three main determinant factors are identified: asset specificity, core closeness and supply chain complexity. This implies that the evaluation of outsourcing different activities requires insights of three theories, namely transaction cost, resource-based and supply chain management theory. Research limitations/implications - The research and resulting framework are based on three small cases. Furthermore, there are few companies that outsource higher levels of activities, which limits the statistical assessment of the survey results. Practical implications - The framework can support the decision-making process for outsourcing different logistics activities in food industry. Originality/value - The key contribution of this paper is that it creates a comprehensive framework for outsourcing of both basic and advanced logistics activities specifically for the food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate the joint effects of small-scale farmers' guanxi networks and buyer-seller relationships on their marketing behavior in China. A survey of 167 vegetable farmers shows that farmers' guanxi networks have significant effect on trusting relationship building with buyers and on their investment behavior for transactional specific assets. Guanxi networks also help to improve farmers' participation in modern high-value markets (e.g., supermarkets and international markets) and encourage relational transactions. Farmers' modern market participation will be further enhanced by trusting buyer-seller relationships with buyers and complying with buyers' quality requirements. The application of formal contracts, on the other hand, is closely related to farmers' trusting relationships with buyers and transactional specific assets for vegetable transactions. Some policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to empirically investigate how the concepts of relationship marketing affect market performance in Chinese vegetable sector. We interviewed 167 vegetable farmers and 84 processing and exporting companies to test our conceptual relationship model. Results demonstrate that personal relationships (called guanxi in China) significantly improve interpersonal trust and transaction-specific investments, which eventually show a significant impact on market performance. Results imply that the impact of guanxi networks differ on farmers and on companies. The study also reveals that transaction-related attributes (such as risk, channel requirements, and transaction conditions) influence trust, investment behavior, and market performance together with guanxi networks. The article ends with several managerial implications regarding the development of relationship marketing in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guanxi is the lifeblood of the Chinese society. It also becomes a hot topic for achieving business success in China. The primary goal of this exploratory study is to empirically investigate the effect of guanxi networks on buyer–seller relationships and market performance for the Chinese vegetable sector. We interviewed 167 vegetable farmers (i.e., sellers) and 84 vegetable processing and exporting companies (i.e., buyers) in Jiangsu Province, P.R. China. The path analysis results reveal that guanxi networks in China directly and indirectly affect buyer–seller relationships and market performance; however, guanxi networks have different effects for vegetable sellers and buyers. Results demonstrate that vegetable sellers and buyers follow different approaches to achieve superior market performance. [EconLit citations: L100, Q130]. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In large technology-based firms, especially in long life cycle industries, often a tension exists between corporate R&D and the business unit (BU) customers. The long term R&D orientation needed to come to the more radical (even disruptive) innovations for the long term survival of the prospector firm being at odds with the need of the BUs for more incremental "sustaining" innovations for their day-to-day activities. This paper takes a new approach to this problem by analyzing the corporate R&D to business relationship from a customer value perspective by identifying R&D flexibility, R&D communication, strategic alignment and R&D performance as the main attributes of the value map of the BU customers of corporate R&D. We then present the Cusvalin instrument (Customer Value Learning in INnovation) that was constructed to overcome the R&D to business incongruence by providing feedback on the gaps between the value maps of R&D and their BU customers. This instrument has been tested in a longitudinal survey from 1997 through 2002 (696 respondents) in a large technology-based supplier company (±30 000 employees world wide). It is concluded that the Cusvalin model is an effective instrument to monitor the strategic alignment of R&D and the BUs, and ultimately leads to better R&D performance, as perceived by the BU customers. From the longitudinal analysis it is concluded that a system that balances radical innovation (via Technology Board-funding, in which R&D management, headquarters, and BU directors jointly decide on long-term radical R&D projects) and incremental innovation (via BU unit-funding) is effective in providing strategic alignment between R&D and business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wageningen Innovation Assessment Tool (WIAT) assesses a company's drivers and barriers to innovation and benchmarks the critical success and failure factors of its innovation projects with data of agrifood prospector companies around the world. The present paper discusses its application in 12 multinational agrifood prospector companies in the Netherlands and France. It is concluded that WIAT by uncovering the tacit knowledge of the innovation project team creates opportunities for substantial improvement of the innovation process, and that agrifood companies should specifically pay attention to market and product related up-front activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely acknowledged that competition is no longer between individual firms, but between supply chains. A number of studies have indicated that supply chain integration and quality management have become essential to obtain competitive advantage. The present study tests the relationships among supply chain integration, quality management practices and firm performance in 229 Chinese pork slaughterhouses and processors using structural equation modeling. The most important results are that quality management is positively linked with firm performance. As managers put it "Quality is the life of the enterprise". Pork processing managers that wish to improve their performance are therefore advised to invest in quality management. Equally interesting is the indirect link of supply chain integration through quality management with firm performance. To improve quality of their products and reduce uncertainty in hog supply chains, companies are advised to develop more integrated relationships with their suppliers. However, in contrast to earlier studies, the direct link of supply chain integration and firm performance was not significant. This result may indicate that the Chinese pork processing industry is still in an early stage of SC integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a gaming simulation, the Trust and Tracing game, for learning about the relation between social structure and the co-ordination of transactions in a trade network. This paper describes experiences from 15 sessions with the game. Its model allows the use of network and market coordination mechanisms by participating groups. During debriefing participants typically indicated they learned that prior relationships were more important to the course of the session than economic theory predicts. Number of participants, language barriers, nationality, perceived group membership, and prior experience determined which transaction governance mechanism emerged in the game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to identify those network subgroups that enhance the collaborative governance in a focal buyer-supplier relationship. We argue, that partners in a focal buyer-supplier relationship can be seen as embedded in a broader network of business relationships with network subgroups, (e.g. other buyers, buyers customers), which pro-vide information that can support the collaborative governance, assessed by flexibility, joint planning and joint problem solving, by lowering the level of information asymmetry between the partners. Empirical evidence was gathered through a mailed questionnaire returned by 175 Dutch suppliers of potted plants and flowers. Our results show the importance of the information provided by the network subgroups to manage the focal buyersupplier relationships and ultimately the impact on performance. Interestingly, although five network subgroups were mentioned in the questionnaire, suppliers only obtained reliable information for their focal relationship from the downstream subgroups of other buyers (i.e. merchant-distributors) and buyer's customers (i.e. supermarkets and flower shops). In order to avoid redundancy, managers in seeking information in their business network should not consider the network as a whole, but rather the downstream subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a research agenda on innovation through (international) food supply chains and networks in developing countries. It derives major topics from a multi-perspective view on international food chains (economic, technology, social/legal and environment) and from different theoretical streams dealing with chains and networks (Supply Chain Management, Industrial Organization theory and Network Theory). Three agri-supply chain projects in developing countries (Thailand, South-Africa, Ghana) are analyzed to identify focus areas in supply chain development projects and important gaps. These projects were collaborative actions between companies and research institutes to initiate international supply chain development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper focuses on the perceived quality of information exchange between government and business (G2B) in the field of environmental reporting in the Dutch agrifood industry. It seems most important for environmental performance enhancement (a concept that includes the quality of information given to stakeholders in our view) that companies are entangled in a network of intermediary institutions (branch organizations, covenants, existence of chain leaders etc.). It seems that that these mediating institutions are very instrumental in translating the governmental message to the companies. The companies choose the (related to the development of internal care) improvement of electronic reporting as the most promising innovation for the G2B communication. This shows that the companies still have a long way to go towards chain oriented care systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]