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Studies on managers’ awareness level of total quality management (TQM) in the aquaculture industry in Ghana are scarce, if existing at all. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the awareness level of managers in Ghana’s aquaculture industry about TQM practices and how it is applied in their operations.

In this study, simple random sampling technique was used to select 52 respondents from aquaculture companies in Ghana. The respondents were managers and supervisors who have better understanding of organizational operations and quality management issues. Managers and supervisors considered for the study include quality managers, operational/production managers, supervisors, and also top managers.

The findings from the study depict that respondents’ awareness level about TQM practices and concepts in the aquaculture industry are acceptable and they agree to the fact that TQM is a way of guaranteeing high-quality products and services. The institutions’ main areas of concentration are management leadership, continuous process management, and improvement. Again, the companies’ culture depicts more of a control measure than a prophylactic treatment.

The outcome of this paper will help in comprehending the TQM awareness in the aquaculture industry in Ghana. It will also highlight major areas that managers and supervisors in the industry need education on, in other to enhance their quality skills.

This research is among the first ever known attempts to assess the awareness of TQM concepts and practices in the aquaculture industry in Ghana. It will help improve the quality practices in the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shrimp aquaculture export industry in Vietnam can achieve further development in the highly competitive global market particularly in the context of complying with food safety standards set by the markets.

This paper applies two conceptual approaches, local institutions and global value chains. The concept of global value chains helps this paper to understand what extent the external pressures are placed on the industry while the concept of local institutions effectively examines its responses to the external pressures. Applying this conceptual framework this paper examines an empirical case analysing secondary data and literature.

Market requirements on food safety are brought by global buyers through the global value chains governance structure to the local institutional function. It includes local buyer-supplier relationship within the industrial cluster, industrial policy and business institutions, although it is less likely to address the local backwards suppliers to improve the industrial capability of food safety standard compliance.

This paper has a research limitation due to the prioritised research scope that critically examines potential pathway for further development of Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture export industry. Therefore, it needs further comparative in-depth analysis with more vertically organised industrial structure performed by the countries such as Thailand.

The originality of this paper is to critically examine the conceptual limitation of global value chains approach in the context of food safety standard compliance issue, which is likely to be originated in local backward suppliers by applying a complementary concept, local institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to review a number of recent initiatives to promote sustainable aquaculture development through improvements to education and training capacity, and innovations in the use of eLearning.

The authors share their experience in these initiatives and demonstrate how e‐learning has been developed in specific cases to better serve the needs of the aquaculture sector, while addressing the pedagogical issues of distance learning and finding the best use of new internet‐based technologies.

These examples show how to respond to the needs of adult learners who may have a substantially different learner profile to typical campus students and have a more diverse range of needs and background knowledge. Greater focus is needed on defining, enhancing and accrediting knowledge and skills acquired informally and “on the job”, so as to develop more effective formal education interventions.

Adults engaging with job‐related education are not empty vessels requiring to be filled with the correct mix of knowledge and skills by teachers who know all the answers. They are active learners seeking a supportive and enabling structure involving access to appropriate resources, engagement with fellow learners and more expert practitioners, and appropriate challenges and rewards to maximise effort and achievement.

The paper shows that there is substantial social benefit in promoting an innovative and sustainable aquaculture industry that contributes positively to food security and human health. Continued Professional Development involving eLearning and other innovative approaches can make an important contribution throughout the sector.

A flexible decision technology called the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) is applied to a generic aquaculture conflict to illustrate how GMCR can be used to systematically investigate a wide range of conflicts arising in aquaculture in order to obtain meaningful strategic insights and thereby assist in making informed decisions in aquaculture development. To emphasize the importance of being able to resolve aquaculture controversies, a review of the global economic impacts of the aquaculture industry is provided and the key stakeholders who may be involved in aquaculture disputes along with their legitimate interests are identified. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The GMCR methodology comprises two main stages: modeling and analysis. During the modeling stage, key decision makers (DMs), the options under each DM’s control and each DM’s relative preferences over feasible states are identified based on a thorough background investigation to a given dispute. Within the analysis stage, solution concepts that describe key characteristics of human behavior under conflict are utilized to determine resolutions that could occur when DMs interact under pure competition and cooperatively. Interpretation of the equilibrium results provides meaningful strategic insights for better understanding which strategies a given DM could select as the conflict evolves over time.

The results demonstrate how difficult it can be to balance the interests of different key stakeholders in aquaculture development. In all possible resolutions identified in the generic aquaculture conflict, at least two DMs among First Nations, environmental group and residents (Res) would object to the expansion of aquaculture activities due to the assumption that the government would choose to appease one stakeholder at a time. They also reflect the need for a useful tool box of decision technologies for addressing the vast range of challenges that could arise in the important area of marine economics and management.

The GMCR methodology possesses several unique and key original capabilities in comparison to other conflict analysis models. First, it only requires limited information to calibrate a conflict model. Second, it contains a number of solution concepts that describe how a DM could think and behave under conflict. Third, it furnishes a range of informative output, follow-up analyses and advice for use in real-life decision support. Finally, all of the foregoing advantages of GMCR can be contained within decision support systems that permit practitioners and researchers to readily apply the GMCR methodology to real-life conflicts.

Marron farming in Western Australia has existed for decades. However, to what extent do marron growers see potential in this industry in ways that include expanding into hospitality and tourism? The purpose of this paper is to examine this dimension from a group of 26 marron growers.

The limited knowledge on marron farming from an academic, industry, as well as from operators' perspective is a critical factor in choosing a qualitative approach in this paper in the form of telephone and face‐to‐face interviews.

Overall, there is an agreement among respondents about the significant commercial potential of marron farming. However, the dilemma of satisfying increasing demand for marron is acknowledged, as well as resulting problems, for instance, in the form of greed and lack of unity among some growers.

While the low number of respondents may not be sufficient to make generalisations of the marron farming industry, this paper proposes an overview into an unexplored industry, and provides useful insights into a niche market.

Increased demand for marron in both national and international markets presents opportunities for local operators and the future of marron farming. At the same time, a balance must be maintained in order to preserve natural resources and the industry's sustainability.

Despite its demand and potential, to date very limited research has been conducted on marron farming, particularly studying the links between marron, hospitality and tourism, as well as marron growers' points of views on this industry. This exploratory paper contributes to narrowing the existing knowledge gap on these dimensions.

Summary The increasing interest in aquaculture by corporate groups outside the industry and the rapid pace of technological change in culture techniques combine to cause longterm planning to be an increasingly important management function. A planning matrix is presented to assess identification of alternative strategy paths. Diversification is also discussed and examples provided of opportunities available for corporate expansion by this route.

This article extends the literature on agricultural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial failure in Ghana, a country in sub-Saharan Africa by exploring failure in a cohort of firms. As engines of economic growth, the performance of micro, small, and medium-sized firms is important. Agro-based enterprises, in particular, are vital because entrepreneurial failure in agribusiness affects food security, and is disruptive to social and economic stability.

Using qualitative data from interviews, we identified reasons for the failure of a group of entrepreneurs associated with a novel agribusiness activity in an otherwise economically attractive market in an emerging economy. The data for the study came from 69 respondents who started and exited aquaculture, a form of agribusiness within a period.

The results of this study show that there can be negative effects of social structure on entrepreneurial behavior and outcomes. The strong social ties that emerged among the farmer-entrepreneurs led to excessive peer-to-peer copying and knowledge sharing, leading to premature closure of the search for nonredundant ideas. One consequence of that was the narrowing of the pool of available knowledge, which if broadened, may have improved the chances of success of these businesses. Also, the results demonstrate that a lack of institutional support in the form of training in the appropriate management of a new technology adversely affected the farmer-entrepreneurs and their businesses. It is important for governments that introduce a new economic activity to provide the scaffolding, including an understanding of the value chain, to enhance the chances of the economic success of ventures. Entrepreneurs for their part need to broaden their search for new ideas outside their peer groups to increase their chances of accessing non-redundant knowledge.

The sample size is small, limiting the generalization of findings and the recollection of events may fade with the passage of time, especially since most of the farmers did not keep written records.

First, entrepreneurship and economic development, long held as a panacea for moving developing countries out of poverty, may require consistent government support. Second, entrepreneurs venturing into business need to understand the particular challenges associated with a novel activity. Finally, entrepreneurs need to recognize that interconnectedness should not necessarily lead to the convergence of ideas and behavior.

The study extends and contextualizes the literature on agricultural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial failure. Besides, the study focuses on entrepreneurial failure in Sub-Saharan Africa, an under-researched setting.

This paper aims to assess and empirically analyze the impact of marine production manufacturing on gross domestic product (GDP) indicators as a comparative study in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

This study used analytical quantitative approaches to assess the impact of marine production manufacturing on GDP between GCC countries over the period from 2007 to 2015. The data were collected from Global Competitiveness Reports during 2006-2016 and from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO 2015 reports.

The results show that Saudi Arabia country has the highest production of marine while Bahrain country is the lowest in GCC. The results of ordinary least squares test show that marine production has a statistical significance on GDP indicators as Pearson correlation matrix shows a strong relationship between all variables.

The main conclusion is that GCC countries must adopt a regional strategy to support maritime activities, especially in the light of green environmental fluctuations. Integrated management plans are also needed to protect vital coastal ecosystems while allowing economic growth and ensuring a better quality of life for all coastal populations. Comprehensive and collaborative leadership provides effective long-term management of coastal ecosystems in the GCC. In addition, GCC countries have high competition with each other for their market share in the global export-based marine production manufacturing.

This paper is the first to present most wealthy GCC countries in terms of marine production manufacturing. Marine production manufacturing introduces to create a new competitive market that generates distinctive internal capabilities for survival and growth in international markets.

Marron growing is practiced in some regions of Western Australia where this crustacean is a native species, and offers potential opportunities to be marketed as a delicacy and also to blend with other industries, including tourism, contributing to the marketing of a region. While these opportunities exist, to date little is known about the extent to which marron growing is meaningful to local entrepreneurs in commercial terms, their level of involvement with this industry, or constraints they may face. This paper aims to examine these dimensions to illustrate marron's importance for the areas where they are grown.

A total of 26 small marron growers accepted the invitation to participate in semi‐structured face‐to‐face and telephone interviews.

Operators' comments illustrate the significant potential for marron to become both a niche market product as well as a rural niche market that helps promote the area where they are grown. However, growing marron as a full‐time activity is still very limited; in fact, many respondents grow marron marginally and as an extra income stream because of the crustacean's current high commercial value, thus suggesting the industry's current developmental stage.

With some 200 marron growers in Western Australia, the number of participating operations is limited to make generalisations of the industry.

With growing consumer sophistication, knowledge and interest in gourmet foods, the findings not only have implications for the marron growing industry, but also for hospitality and tourism, particularly in view of marron growing's potential to blend with these industries.

The study provides several insights into an unexplored area, marron growing and provides several areas for future research.

The rapid transition from a command to market‐based economy in China has required the development of a food safety system for aquatic products where one did not previously exist. The pace of change has meant that food safety systems have struggled to keep up. In 2007 food safety incidents damaged the reputation of aquatic products in export markets. The Chinese Government has moved quickly to strengthen the safety regime for aquatic products. The purpose of this paper is to assess these initiatives in the context of their potential to regain international acceptance of Chinese aquatic products.

A regulatory assessment approach is used.

The findings are that increased government oversight alone is not likely to lead to a fully effective food safety system for aquatic products. The development of private sector‐based incentives to encourage investment in food safety is an essential co‐requisite to increased government oversight if China's access to international markets is to be assured.

The value of this study lies in the light it sheds on the efforts of a major player in the international market for aquatic products to improve the efficacy of its food safety system. China's regulatory regimes are often opaque, limiting the ability of those wishing to assess the advisability of importing food products from China.