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Most EU policy documents highlight the need to ensure and contribute to the achievement of the multifaceted goal of social sustainability. In this framework, the paper investigates tokenism, a common phenomenon of crucial importance for rural development, although not widely studied. The paper focuses on a scoping literature review to analyse the forms of tokenism affecting the territorial development practices and which factors can prevent this phenomenon. More specifically, recent scientific papers dealing with tokenism, social capital, rural areas, and decision processes were analysed to shed light on the various underhand practices in which tokenism occurs and possible limiting factors. The results show the role played by adopting participatory approaches and by some variables (e. g., trust, influence, involvement, civic engagement, information) in reducing the phenomenon of tokenism. It is important to highlight how improving the local amount of social capital represents a key factor positively affecting the success of territorial development strategies. The originality and the value of the present study lie in the fact that notwithstanding tokenism is analysed by several authors, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies focusing on the relationship between tokenism and territorial development.

In the literature on innovation and organizational learning, there is a wide consensus about the relevance of learning activities. Specifically, they occur both individually (as producers will increase their knowledge simply “by doing”) and collectively (as producers and other stakeholders involved will learn “by interacting”). Therefore, in these studies, the focus on informal learning has become increasingly evident with recognition that informal learning predominates in smaller and locally-operating firms, and large corporations alike. The aim of the study is twofold; firstly to understand the link between formal networks and informal learning and secondly to investigate if the information exchanged in the network between firms and institutions is altered by content. Through a case study in Foggia, southern Italy, we have investigated how knowledge flows among small organic food firms and related supporting institutions. The core finding of the study was that the existence of networks is necessary to promote informal knowledge flows, yet not sufficient by itself. In conclusion, several obstacles had to be removed before producers gained from the positive effects of geographical clustering and proximity.

Ever increasingly more, all the actors directly or indirectly involved in the planning processes express the need to know the effects deriving from the implementation of rural development policy. In this direction, evaluation can make an important contribution, fostering the development of a ‘good policy’ as underlined by EU regulations. Among the specific evaluation questions developed by the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, one of them relates to the improvement of governance. Considering the Adaptive Co-Management (ACM) approach’s capacity as a proxy of the quality of network governance, the study aims to propose the ACM theoretical framework as a suitable model with which to study the social interactions between actors in the smallest unit of the LEADER process (i.e., the local action group’s (LAG’s) partnership governance). The proposed methodology is subsequently tested on a specific case study through the evaluation of the partnership governance of two case studies in the South of Italy. The empirical evidence supports the idea that ACM approach may represent a new model to assess the quality of the implementation process of the LEADER Programme. In addition, the ACM approach can lead to a new organizational and self-evaluation model of LAGs which places an emphasis on the importance of the relational process among its members.

This paper focuses on the introduction of a suitable method for the measurement of social capital in the context of rural development policies. We present an empirical application of the method to four case studies from the south of Italy. In order to overcome some limits affecting previous empirical research, we have grounded the measurement framework upon a clear decomposition of the concept of social capital characterizing three main dimensions: structural, relational and cognitive. This has allowed us to build five direct indicators for the core components of social capital created within the EU local agencies for rural development (the Local Action Groups). Moreover we have set a synthetic measure capturing the specific configuration of the internal social capital of the groups as a whole. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

An emerging segment of tourism demand is represented by accessible tourism, i.e. tourism activated in public spaces in the absence of any kind of barrier (architectural, cultural, sensorial, attitudinal, communicational and informational barriers) and, from a business competitiveness point of view, accessibility represents the precondition of any sustainable tourism policy and strategy. In this paper, we concentrate on tourism accessibility for people with disabilities. In particular, to better understand and overcome all obstacles that could impede travellers with special needs from enjoying their tourism experience, in literature is argued that the entire process of defining guidelines to improve tourism accessibility should follow a participatory approach from drafting to implementation. Therefore, to plan services for disabled people in addition to the mandatory requirements, our aim for the present paper is to apply a participatory approach involving stakeholders in the definition of a trademark specification. The experiment was applied to a protected natural area, namely the Gargano National Park (Southern Italy). Results confirm the relevance of adopting a participatory approach to involve stakeholders in the definition of a trademark specification granting disabled tourists with a wider accessibility to protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of contemporary agrifood supply chains is very complex and consists of material and immaterial relations. In addition to internal ties and flows between each production stage and its immediate suppliers and customers, some authors argue as it is very important to investigate the network between firms and institutions supporting their production activity. Therefore, this study aims to propose a combined approach to the investigation of local agrifood supply chains. Specifically, the proposed approach merges the indexes adopted to study the economic structure of the supply-chain with Social Network Analysis. A direct survey was carried out in the area of Foggia, to study the organic durum wheat supply chain either for its material or immaterial relations. Their study shows as, notwithstanding the good structure of the institutional network, there is still little integration between the phases of the material supply chain hindering the valorization of the supply chain itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecotourism is one of the tourism variants with more annual growth. Motivation has become a fundamental criterion for travel behavior. Segmentation is used to identify the market niches of different tourism products and services. This study collects these three elements and is designed to examine demand segmentation and motivations in ecotourism. The analysis was carried out in the Albufera and Serranía de Cuenca Natural Parks, both located in the Mediterranean area in Spain. The analysis sample consists in 349 surveys obtained in situ. For the data analysis, a factor analysis and nonhierarchical K-media segmentation were performed. The results show eight motivational dimensions: "Interpersonal relationships", "Self-development", "Escape", "Building personal relationships", "Nature", "Ego-defensive function", "Rewards", and "Fun". According to tourists' motivations, three ecotourist segments are obtained: "Nature", "Multiple motives", and "Reward and Escape". This research can assist companies and institutions to improve tourism service offers and perform efficient marketing planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsible tourism provides a particular lens by which to consider how to improve the sustainability of tourism with the ambition to enhance the positive impacts of mainstream tourism, while reducing the negative ones. In this view, facilitating travel for people with disabilities represents an exceptional opportunity, and the idea that what is accessible to one traveler may be very difficult to access to another one with a different type of disability, makes inclusive tourism a relevant part of the global sustainable tourism agenda. The present study aims to provide empirical evidence on the adoption of the principles of responsible and inclusive tourism within a national park area. To this end, the paper discusses the case of the "E-Parks" research project which investigated the area of the Gargano National Park (Italy) with a special focus on the problems faced by tourists with disabilities, and on the improvements to enable all tourists to have the full enjoyment of their tourism experience. The study contributes, therefore, to enriching the empirical literature on inclusive and responsible tourism that has its application in the design of trademark procedural guidelines enabling tourists with different disabilities to access a protected natural area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]