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While many studies have discussed the regulatory constraints that hinder industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa, little attention has been paid to the behavior of those firms that succeed despite a challenging business environment. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by focusing on specific strategies of a subset of successful industrial firms in Kenya.

The paper draws on two data sets. First, a quantitative data set based on a survey of food processing firms provides an overall profile of the sub-sector and the strategies employed by successful Kenyan firms. Second, qualitative in-depth case studies unpack the concept of strategy from the perspective of the firm, with the aim of showing the links between vision and strategy and the adaptive nature of firm strategy.

The quantitative data set reveals that the most important strategies used by agri-processing firms are differentiation strategies (selling at a premium), cost reduction strategies and niche strategies. A second major finding, based on the case study interviews, is that Kenyan firms adopt a combination of strategies to cope with the volatile business environment and grow their market. Furthermore, the qualitative interviews reveal that the vision of the leader is linked to firm strategy and firms follow an adaptive approach to strategy development.

The paper’s original contribution is the conclusion that while the existing typologies of strategy were acknowledged by respondents, their actual strategies were composites resulting from adaptive strategy development. This conclusion was made possible by the paper’s mixed methods approach.

This study aims to explore the mediating role of digital technologies-based supply chain integrating (SCI) strategies on the agri-supply chain performance (SCP) and firm performance (FP). This research has introduced recently emerged digital technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT). Further, based on theoretical support and an extensive literature review, this research has proposed some hypotheses, which have been quantitatively validated for their significance.

A conceptual model was formulated based on an extensive literature review. Data for this research were gathered from a survey completed by 119 respondents from different departments of agri-firms. Further, partial least square (PLS)-based structured equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the proposed hypothetical model.

The results confirm that IoT-based digital technologies and supply chain processes (organization integration [OI], information sharing and customer integration [CI]) have a significant positive correlation. Furthermore, supply chain practices are positively associated with SCP. Finally, it has been found that FP is positively impacted by SCP.

This research is used to analyse the mediating impacts of digital supply chain processes as a linking strategy for SCP and FP. For practical purposes, this research provides investment decisions for implementing digital technologies in SC strategies. The findings have proposed implications for managers and practitioners in agri-firms based on existing theories: contingency theory (CT) and relational view theory. Also, this study suggests the deployment of smarter electronically based tags and readers, which improve the data analytics capabilities based on auto-captured data. Thus, the availability of quality information improves the data-driven decisional capabilities of managers at company level.

This is a unique and original study exploring the relationship between digitalization, resilient agri-food supply chain (AFSC) management practices and firm performance. This research may be extended to other industries in view of the results from SCP and impact of digitalization.

The major uncertainties about the eventual success of macroeconomic stabilization measures, the eventual ownership and control of privatized enterprises, the viability of certain enterprises and sectors can have significant influence on the market economy of Armenia during the transition period. In the face of these uncertainties, inadequate transport and access to markets remain major obstacles to economic development and employment. After liberalization in 1991, consumer subsidies were eliminated and consequently food prices rose. Local price increases combined with the decline in real income and out migration led to a fall in domestic demand for food products as well as significant changes in food consumption patterns. Possibly the chief obstacle to increasing farm income and the most difficult problem for food processing companies to overcome are the marketing constraints. There is no appropriate scale marketing and transport infrastructure for small farmers. The lack of market information system is another problem, resulting in many farmers producing the same crops which were previously profitable, causing a glut. The break‐up of collective agriculture in Armenia resulted in over 300,000 small diversified farms which grow five or more crops and have two or more animal species. With limited export markets, the country lacks adequate markets for much of its agricultural production, as well as the economies of scale for the investments in agri‐processing and manufacturing industry which are necessary to stimulate employment and farm income. Armenia is in a prime position to take advantage of the organic market opportunities. If the developed world is going to subsidize organic food production, Armenia may have competitive advantage with low cost production and very little use of fertilizers, pesticides and other restricted materials for the last ten years.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate current practices of water governance disclosure in the food, beverage and tobacco industry and to determine whether the quality of disclosure has a positive association with integrated reporting (IR).

A water governance disclosure index was developed that used content analysis to code the latest standalone social, environmental and sustainability reports or integrated reports of 49 companies in the food, beverage and tobacco industry. The selected companies are listed on three indices, the ASX, JSE and DJSI. This was followed by quantitatively testing the association between IR and the quality of water governance disclosure, as measured against the qualitatively developed index.

It was found that the 18 IR companies’ water governance disclosure quality significantly outperformed the 31 companies in the non-IR group, with a calculated index score of 71.67% and 40.97%, respectively.

The evidence indicates that IR is superior to non-IR water governance disclosure, and the study, therefore, contributes to the literature around the legitimacy theory by concluding that IR is supportive to companies to legitimise their being.

The originality of this paper stems from the comparison of water governance disclosures between IR and non-IR firms. Considering that IR preparers outperformed companies in the non-IR group could provide insights to academics, regulators and reporting organisations that IR could be used to enhance water governance disclosure.

The variety and change of organization forms in the agri-business industry are analyzed, extending available comparative economic organization approach (most notably transaction cost economics) with negotiation analysis and organization design theory. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Three extensions are proposed and argued to be particularly useful for analyzing economic organization in conditions such as those prevailing in agri-food industries. First, more consideration is given to horizontal structures and associational contracts as a particularly important response to transactional problems in this field. Second, it is acknowledged that different conditions of substitutability in different stages of the chain make it likely that transaction costs are different for different parties, bringing them to have different preferences over governance solutions, whereby a negotiation problem on efficient arrangements has to be solved. Third, the very process of integrating different parties’ interests contributes in explaining the emergence of “hybrids” and in designing more efficient and more fair forms within the (very) large class of hybrids, and even within any sub-type of hybrid, such as sub-contracting, licensing, franchising, consortia, etc.

New Pareto-improving and Nash-improving solutions are specified, and shown to provide indications for organizational change that differ from those predicted and prescribed by standard organizational economics. Those solutions are also shown to be realistic (possible in reality) through case studies on actual non-main-stream experiences approximating those arrangements. Both the analytic method proposed, and the solutions found, provide useful and currently missing tools to private and public policy makers for improving the organization of the sector.

The study specify pre-conditions for reaching superior agreements, that suggest hypotheses for empirical further research on the factors that may favor or hinder those changes.

A “trend” for change is recommended for the agri-food sector, toward more associational and horizontal arrangements, rather than either toward market or hierarchical governance or any hybrid intermediate point between them. It has been shown that this prescription should hold not only across stages of the value chain, but also among firms within the same stage (in the case, the farming stage).

The proposed changes should improve the fairness of economic organization in the sector. Re-equilibrating negotiation power is an alternative way of reducing transaction costs across stages and a pre-condition for reaching more efficient and fair agreements across stages.

Both the analytic method proposed, and the solutions found, extend economic organization theory, and provide useful and currently missing tools to private and public policy makers for designing and assessing the organization of the sector.

This paper discusses the experience gained in the application of Micro‐CDS/ISIS as authoring software and HEURISKO as a user search interface for in‐house production of CDROMs at FAO. It identifies the functions requiring improvement and some additional features that would make retrieval more user‐friendly. Most of these improvements, taking also into consideration feedback from users, were subsequently implemented resulting in a new version of HEURISKO. The paper supports the suitability of Micro‐CDS/ISIS and the new HEURISKO for low‐cost production and distribution of CDROMs, particularly for small and medium size databases. It invites sharing of experience with other CDROM producers using p‐5Xthe same software in view of the further improvement of HEURISKO. Although the forthcoming Micro‐CDS/ISIS Windows version will provide an alternative user search interface, HEURISKO will still be needed for DOS users

What started as a FMCG distributor in 1967 in Kenya as Export Finance Company, is now a dynamic global conglomerate across 48 countries and 5 continents — Export Trading Group. ETG was taken over by the then CFO Mahesh Patel after exit of the founding stakeholders. It was then when the company shifted its focus to being a key regional player. In the next 35 years, the company grew systematically. Business focus evolved when Patel saw an opportunity in logistics in remote sub-Saharan Africa. This was followed by business expansion with supply chain diversification and significant infrastructure investments. All the different businesses amalgamated under a single group for better operations and ease of scaling up. They were later divided into six separate verticals for better management. Vamara (FMCG vertical) was launched in 2018 as the company moved towards digitalisation — externally and internally. ETG plans to focus on new business opportunities and continue to diversify across geographies and portfolios.

The prime aim of this paper is the identification and prioritization of performance indicators, which motivate the development of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based traceability system for the agriculture supply chain (ASC). Also, this research aims for checking the robustness of obtained results.

Ten performance indicators have been identified based on the five “criteria in the IoT-based traceable system”. Further, based on five criteria, performance indicators were ranked by using grey-based “Additive Ratio Assessment”.

Sustainable practices obtained first rank, and certification of agri-products obtained worst ranking. Further, based on sensitivity analysis, tracking of agri-products and stakeholders' behavior have found high sensitivity. Also, information sharing and global distribution networks have found the least sensitive performance indicators.

This research has some limitations of taking only a few criteria and alternatives. This study may also contribute as a practical insight to the practitioners and managers in decision-making in the adoption of an IoT-based traceable system within the ASC.

This research may motivate the implementation of an IoT-based efficient traceability mechanism that improved the sustainability and consumer's trust in the ASC during different types of hazardous activities and other outbreaks (COVID-19). Also, this research has provided a theoretical insight based on the dynamic capability theory (DCT).