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While some researchers have considered commodity chain analysis to be a tool or method that is “innocent of theory,” or can be combined with any theory, this paper argues that it has a specific set of theoretical investments. It argues that commodity chain analysis emerged in response to criticisms of the determinism, economism, and western bias in earlier development paradigms. Drawing on recent scholarship, it argues that researchers have turned to the study of commodity chains to provide situated and contingent accounts of global political economy that are historically specific, sensitive to culture and meaning, and attentive to subaltern perspectives.

Ritual female genital practices, widespread throughout Africa, are essential to gender identification and often are a pre-requisite for marriage. More severe forms of the practice, which are common in parts of Northeastern Africa, are also believed to enhance a woman’s childbearing capacity. Here, we critically review the gender- and class-based theories that explain the origins and persistence of female genital practices and the factors that precipitate social change. We also critically review evidence of the association of certain forms of the practice with various health, demographic, and social consequences. Our review exposes several methodological limitations of existing research that preclude population-based inferences about the medical and social implications of these practices and suggest that existing policies targeting such practices draw more on concerns over human rights than on scientific evidence about their sequelae. This review nevertheless exposes a potential contradiction between local justifications for and consequences of certain forms of the practice. Namely, despite an intended function of female genital practices to enhance a woman’s marital capital, certain forms may ironically lead to marital instability and dissolution through their negative effects on the health and reproductive capacity of women. We conclude with recommendations for research to examine the salience and implications of this potential paradox for women in Northeastern Africa.

This article presents an exploratory, narrative review on job ads research. It aims to explore the key features of job ads that have been investigated in previous researches; the way these features have been investigated; and to draw important lessons that those studies teach us about the impact of job ad features on the target population.

In this study, the scoping-review procedure is applied. Its systematic procedure enables scholars to provide a broad overview of a topic, map the key concepts underpinning a research area, clarify the conceptual boundaries of a topic, and also to incorporate a numerical summary and qualitative thematic analysis. The review was conducted based on a systematic study of 243 peer-reviewed articles and publications in the grey literature.

The findings show that seven job ad features seem to have important impacts on (potential) applicants, which we illustrate as a know-how framework. Eight main theories are used, and a wide array of research methods are applied. However, the study concludes that after more than four decades of research, there is still a limited understanding about the concrete effects of job ad features.

This paper synthesizes the existing knowledge, answers three exploratory questions regarding job ad features and draws theoretical and practical lessons from previous studies. In the interest of conducting future studies and providing a research agenda, a typology of theoretical perspectives for the study of job ads is also presented. The article also presents lessons for practitioners by providing a know-how framework on the usage of job ads.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on logistics and supply chain management (SCM) in Africa over the last few decades. It provides a comprehensive assessment of theory application regarding the research articles published between 1994 and 2016.

In this structured systematic literature review, a set of 110 articles on SCM research in Africa is assessed.

The authors present the state-of-the-art review on logistics and SCM research in Africa. Extant literature shows that most research works focused on operational aspects of logistics and SCM and that papers drew heavily on theories inspired by strategic management, marketing, micro/macroeconomics and organizational behavior theories. Also, most of the papers with theoretical background can be categorized into theory matching and theory dressing and only a minority of theoretical papers belongs to theory suggestion category. Furthermore, based on the findings, the authors present a framework to characterize the peculiar aspects of Africa-based SCM and logistics practices and provide research propositions related to underexplored aspects of logistics and SCM in Africa.

This study has a number of implications. Practitioners and researchers will gain a greater understanding of how logistics and SCM are carried out in Africa and the type of issues that have been addressed. Furthermore, researchers will be able to identify areas that need greater research attention in Africa.

This study is one of the first literature reviews of publications on logistics and SCM in Africa. It presents an overarching map of the research to date and a series of propositions to inform future research.

In order to improve access to resources for smallholder farmers, efforts are being made to promote contract farming in Ghana. This is seen as a strategy to increase agricultural productivity of farmers, give better market access and guarantee adequate supply of raw materials to agro-based industries. However, the challenge is whether contract farming leads to improvement in food security status of farmers. The study therefore seeks to explore to what extent farmers' food security status is influenced by their participation in contract farming activities.

Using Cragg's double-hurdle model to analyse participation in contract farming, the authors control for selection bias using propensity score matching applied to a data set of 336 observations to examine the impact of contract farming on the food security levels of rice farmers in Ghana.

The results of this study show that yield of paddy and the wealth of the farmer are the main factors that influence the quantity of paddy rice to be contracted in contract farming arrangements. This study also finds that participation in contract farming will increase food security by 109%. In conclusion, contract farming has a significant positive impact on the farmers' food security status.

Agricultural policies and rural development initiatives supporting the promotion and expansion of contract farming should be pursued to persuade more farmers to produce under contract farming agreements.

Innovation is a growing topic. The primary sector is also a subject that has great importance in the global economy. However, limited research has been conducted linking these two subjects. This paper aims to start bringing them together.

The method selected is a systematic literature review presenting a thorough analysis of the existing discussions and a summary of the findings to identify future research opportunities.

Innovation has played and will continue to play an essential role in the success of fisheries. The fishing industry is in crisis. A decline in wild fish stocks, regulations and quota management are some of the factors that drive the need to innovate. The discussions of innovation in this industry are non-technological, which is an emerging field with opportunities for further research. There is a strong focus on fisheries sustainability. The main theoretical frameworks discussed in the literature are common property theory, cooperation and competition theory and diffusion of innovation. Emerging environmental sustainability frameworks are also becoming an essential element in the primary sector.

This paper focuses on peer-reviewed publications based on the results of the searches from selected keywords, recognizing that the literature evaluated may not cover the full spectrum of themes related to this subject.

Innovation is usually linked to high tech and fast-moving industries. This paper tries to broaden this paradigm and evaluate it from a different perspective, with a focus on the primary sector.

This paper aims to study research performance in halal supply chains. This study identifies the leading scholars, research themes and leading journals.

This study adopts the bibliometric method. A total of 228 research publications indexed by Scopus were analysed. The export data are then processed and analysed using the R Biblioshiny application program to find out the bibliometric map of the halal supply chain.

Research in halal supply chain has experienced fast growth since 2016, dominated by food-centric research by Malaysian universities. Research gaps are topics: halal procurement, halal clusters and halal value chain; industry: non-food; and countries: beyond Malaysia. Future expected halal supply chain trending research areas are: halal blockchains, halal supply chain management, halal performance, halal risk management and sustainability in halal supply chains.

This research paper adopts a bibliometric method based on English publications on the halal supply chain theme from the Scopus database collected on November 1, 2021. Publications in local languages, as well as publications in non-academic journals, are being ignored in this research.

This study shows that halal supply chain management is an emerging requirement, is complex to manage for brand owners and needs new concepts and tools for halal industries to embrace a halal supply chain and value chain approach.

This study provides an objective evaluation of the research progress in halal supply chains; this study highlights the achievements and the research gaps and discusses the contribution to the scientific community.

This paper aims to systematically review the literature on quality management in agri-food supply chains (SCs) and propose an integrated conceptual framework.

A systematic literature review that analyses 93 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals published from 1996 to November 2021 is conducted. A conceptual model is advanced.

Based on a hierarchy of capabilities perspective, the authors develop an integrated conceptual framework in which SC quality (SCQ) management practices promote three levels of SC dynamic capabilities, which in turn lead to agri-food SCQ performance.

The authors propose a hierarchy of capabilities perspective of quality management in agri-food SCs and develop a conceptual framework. Furthermore, a number of propositions based on dynamic capabilities and the review findings are provided. Four future research directions are presented.

This paper is based on three social scientific studies of animal welfare and local food products in Norway, of which two focussed on sheep in particular. It addresses the widespread belief that Norwegian sheep farming is “the best” but is confronted with a meat industry that emphasises economic efficiency. A few years after a new Norwegian law on animal welfare acknowledged animals as sentient beings came into force in 2010 (LOVdata, 2009), the purpose of this paper is to better understand ongoing debates on the welfare of sheep by exploring how sheep welfare is understood and regulated in Norway.

The theoretical framework draws on convention theory, especially referring to the four “possible worlds of production” (Salais and Storper, 1993). The authors argue that animal welfare may be analysed in parallel to product quality, focussing on three major perspectives of sheep welfare: animal treatment, product quality, and an abstract conceptualisation in public discourse. The empirical analysis is based on interviews with key players in the sector and central documents.

Convention theory points to several general difficulties in reaching an agreement on what is “good quality” and welfare. First, the authors find difficulty in how to implement new regulatory conceptualisations with dominant ways of understanding welfare within the industry. Second, the idealised images of sheep welfare of an immaterial possible world dominating public discourse have very little interaction with the real world of farms and abattoirs.

This paper suggests that rather than addressing and handling the potential tension between the legal recognition of animal as sentient being and the economic demands of the industry, key actors keep the potentially conflicting understandings apart in different “worlds of production” (Salais and Storper, 1993). Nevertheless, the authors observe that interactions between possible worlds, as well as translation from one possible world to another, not only could be promising but would be fundamental to concretise improvements in the real world.

This chapter conducts a systematic comparison of behavioral economics’s challenges to the standard accounts of economic behaviors within three dimensions: under risk, over time, and regarding other people. A new perspective on two underlying methodological issues, i.e., inter-disciplinarity and the positive/normative distinction, is proposed by following the entanglement thesis of Hilary Putnam, Vivian Walsh, and Amartya Sen. This thesis holds that facts, values, and conventions have inter-dependent meanings in science which can be understood by scrutinizing formal and ordinary language uses. The goal is to provide a broad and self-contained picture of how behavioral economics is changing the mainstream of economics.