This book investigates if and how agricultural market structures and farm constraints affect the development of dynamic food and cash crop sectors and whether these sectors can contribute to economic transformation and poverty reduction in Africa. The authors map the current cash and food crops supply chains in six African countries, characterizing their markets structures and domestic competition policies. At the farm level, the book studies the constraints faced by small holders to increase productivity and break out of a vicious cycle in which low productivity exacerbates vulnerability to poverty. In a series of micro case studies, the project explores how cooperatives and institutions may help overcome these constraints. This book will appeal to scholars and policy makers seeking instruments to promote increased agriculture productivity, resolve food security issues, and promote agribusiness by diversifying exports and increasing trade and competitiveness.
Le choix de successeur est une étape décisive qui influencera le potentiel d'expansion de l'affaire familiale. Le présent article a pour objet de comprendre et identifier les critères du choix du successeur-fille dans les entreprises familiales suisses. Ainsi, une exploration de la littérature interdisciplinaire sera indispensable, visant à dégager les qualités les plus importantes que devraient posséder le successeur-fille afin que le transfert des pouvoirs et le développement de l'entreprise soient une réussite.
Public research organizations (hereinafter, PROs) are a type of knowledge organization with a strong emphasis on contributions by scientists. Although the value of PROs has seldom been questioned, their characteristics and functioning as well as the appropriate amount of funds to be supplied have received considerable attention in the media and from the scientific community. As in the case of other public services, PROs are subject to increasingly severe scrutiny and pressure for accountability forcing them to shift away from their traditional, bureaucratic type of organization. However, there are also limits to the restructuring of PROs guided by private sector models. Radical administrative change is not likely to occur within the boundaries of a formal scientific organization with its restricting rigidities and bureaucracies. Hence, organizational renewal of science organizations is a complex phenomenon of growing relevance. Recent developments in the study of organizational renewal have revealed the potential of organizational innovations for the design and improvement of internal processes and values. This longitudinal study of the evolution of a research center that is part of Spanish CSIC provides insight into the design and implementation of organizational innovations to drive strategic organizational shift from bureaucracy to collaborative and postbureaucracy, in an attempt to overcome external demands and promote higher organizational and financial diversification. The paper shows that innovations in work design and values may facilitate organizational change in, otherwise, highly rigid work settings. Innovation studies have traditionally been linked with technological change, usually related to manufacturing activities, and until recently, organizational innovation has received little systematic attention. This study offers insight into how certain management practices borrowed from private firms can be adopted in public research organizations, setting the base for developing a collaborative organization in science. We conclude that as contribution grows more complex, as it depends on collective endeavor to engage in more interdisciplinary undertakings, the search for alternative models of organization becomes critical for public services of this kind.
Workplace rituals are powerful learning mechanisms for core values that underpin organizational culture in restaurants. Yet, more research is needed to identify different types and how these rituals operate to reinforce core values in different organizational cultures. Drawing on ritual theory, organizational culture and hospitality research, we use 52 semi-structured interviews and 20 observations to study four restaurants representing clan, ad hoc, market, and hierarchy cultures. We identify and unpack eight employee-focused emotional, behavioral, and cognitive workplace rituals linked with owners’ core values such as comradery, creativity, competition and efficiency. Finally, we discuss practical implications of workplace rituals as they relate to business identity, selection, retention and day-to-day management of employees to further strengthen said culture.
Today’s consumers are sharing the use of underutilized goods and services directly with/to other consumers in need, minimizing the need for ownership. Today’s consumers increasingly share underutilized goods and services directly with other consumers, minimizing the need for ownership. For-profit online platforms based on the sharing concept have emerged in the tourism marketplace and their businesses continue to grow at a phenomenal rate. The success stories of Airbnb and Uber have catalysed a vibrant sharing economy discussion among scholars. However, because the sharing business model is still in its infancy, little research on consumer behaviour and experience has been conducted and thus further research is needed on this topic. Therefore, this study aims to identify the effect of the co-creation experience on the relationship between perceived value and consumers’ propensity to participate in peer-to-peer hospitality sharing platforms from a service-dominant logic perspective.
Hotel are increasingly owned by one entity and operated under management agreement by another. The split between owners and operators poses potential agency problems as the two entities are often interested in conflicting objectives and the operator may not always take decisions in the owner’s best interest. The hotel general manager, meanwhile, is tasked with satisfying both parties’ objectives. This study investigated how owner-operator goal alignment, and the ensuing impact on GM autonomy, influences hotel performance. We surveyed matched pairs of owners (or their asset manages) and operators (their GMs). We found that while autonomy and alignment are both highly correlated to hotel performance, autonomy does not moderate or mediate the impact that alignment has on performance. Hotel owners and operators who have found a way to align their goals have thus demonstrated that such alignment can result in better hotel performance.
Amotivation can be considered one of the more important problems faced in hospitality training. This research paper used commitment to reduce amotivation and increase performance in a training program. We used action identification to improve the effectiveness of commitment. Ninety-two students participated in the experiment. Broken down into three experimental conditions, 29 participated in a standard training program and 63 in one of two training programs using commitment (33 participants for the low identification commitment and 30 for the high). Results show that commitment increases performance and reduces amotivation. Furthermore, the link between participants’ commitment and performance appears to be mediated by amotivation. Finally, results are discussed and future avenues of research are suggested.
