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This research analyses the impact of customers and government regulations on the implementation of socio-environmental practices in certifying organic agricultural products. It explores the dyad’s relationship between the focal company and its suppliers in the application of socio-environmental practices.

This study uses a quantitative methodology through a survey approach, with a sample of 206 agro-extractivists from the acai berry supply chain. The data are evaluated using regression analysis.

The main results reveal that customer pressure positively influences the implementation of social and environmental practices, but suggest a non-significant relationship between government regulations and the impact on environmental practices implementation. Social and environmental practices are positively related to operational performance. A moderating effect of organic certification is found in the relationship between customer pressure and the application of environmental practices.

The main contributions are exploring the use of socio-environmental practices in an emerging economy and organic certification as a moderating variable, revealing an “institutional void” that may hamper the enforcement of government regulations.

This paper aims to consider the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, examining the narrative strategies hybrids use in responding to these challenges and offering a framework for managers to consider in their choice of narratives.

A narrative analysis of texts addressing the legitimacy of the business models used by four hybrid organizations is conducted.

The results of the analysis suggest that the nature of conflicting stakeholder demands – centered on goals or means – is an integral factor influencing hybrids’ choice of narrative strategies to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity.

This paper adds to extant research examining the challenges hybrid organizations face and emphasizes that the choice of narrative strategies is an important factor hybrids must consider when managing legitimacy. Generalizability is a notable limitation of the case approach; the authors suggest areas for future research to address this limitation.

The research offers a practical framework for hybrids’ leaders, as they manage legitimacy, choosing to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity in the face of conflicts regarding goals or means.

By studying the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, this study can form a more complete view of legitimation, encompassing different types of enterprises offering distinct value propositions.

Due to the rapid increase in environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources, there has been a recent shift in global focus from economic concerns to environmental ones. The purpose of this research is to examine the relevant literature on the use of blockchain technology to promote environmental sustainability through customer integration.

The proposed framework is based on the theoretical lens of systems theory (ST) and knowledge-based view (KBV) theory, and is developed by conducting a systematic literature review of 51 articles, (16) from 2022, (17) from 2021, (10) 2020, (5) 2019, (2) 2018 and (1) from 2017 on blockchain technology (BCT), environmental supply chain performance (ESCP) and customer integration.

Three main propositions are formulated and demonstrated using the developed framework, which shows that BCT has the potential to revolutionize the supply chain from an environmental sustainability perspective through facilitating waste management, reduction of energy consumption and reduction of carbon emissions/pollution. The technology will not only enhance the environmental sustainability but also facilitate customer integration through resolving transparency issues, protecting data/enhancing security, database decentralization, promoting trust and immutability.

The effects of blockchain on supply chain performance has been studied in the past; however, no studies were found which shed light on how BCT can affect ESCP through the mediation of customer integration.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the impacts that the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards is having in the trade of agricultural products from developing countries.

In a first stage industry experts in the Chilean fresh fruit trading industry were interviewed to understand the perceived impact that private standards are imposing in the industry. These interviews allowed to identify the market case study, table grapes, the landscape of private standards and their prevalence in different countries. In a second stage, a gravity trade model for trade in table grapes was estimated, with a focus on the more stringent countries identified by experts in the first stage.

We show evidence that the proliferation of private standards required by large European retailers has diverted trade away from more stringent countries that require more certifications (and into less stringent European markets). We also show that the costs of these additional certifications have been shared by trading partners, via an increase in direct sales, as opposed to consignment (the traditional marketing mode), which is associated with higher prices.

The impacts of the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards in international trade needs to be better understood both by the legal and economic literature. While the use of private standards has been growing since the 1990s, there is a recent trend of large European retailers imposing their own and overlapping standards that needs to be better understood to inform policy.

While there is a thin literature on the impact of private standards on trade, most of this has studied the effects of the now de facto mandatory GlobalGAP certification. However, there is a recent trend by large European retailers of demanding their own private certifications, together with other already existing overlapping private standards. This study describes and analyzes the impacts of this rather new trend.

In spite of the merits of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and social media, harm to consumers has prompted calls for AI auditing/certification. Understanding consumers’ approval of AI certification entities is vital for its effectiveness and companies’ choice of certification. This study aims to generate important insights into the consumer perspective of AI certifications and stimulate future research.

A literature and status-quo-driven search of the AI certification landscape identifies entities and related concepts. This study empirically explores consumer approval of the most discussed entities in four AI decision domains using an online experiment and outline a research agenda for AI certification in marketing/social media.

Trust in AI certification is complex. The empirical findings show that consumers seem to approve more of non-profit entities than for-profit entities, with the government approving the most.

The introduction of AI certification to marketing/social media contributes to work on consumer trust and AI acceptance and structures AI certification research from outside marketing to facilitate future research on AI certification for marketing/social media scholars.

For businesses, the authors provide a first insight into consumer preferences for AI-certifying entities, guiding the choice of which entity to use. For policymakers, this work guides their ongoing discussion on “who should certify AI” from a consumer perspective.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to introduce the topic of AI certification to the marketing/social media literature, provide a novel guideline to scholars and offer the first set of empirical studies examining consumer approval of AI certifications.

This paper aims to identify the antecedents and postcedents of customer satisfaction, including utilitarian, social and emotional factors, in a fair trade (FT) coffee consumption context.

This paper is based on a broad range of 177 consumers of FT coffee in Spain, the data analysis used structural equation modeling (SEM) with SPSS/AMOS 26.0 software.

This paper supports that both customer social value and quality affect perceived value (PV). PV in turn has effects on customer satisfaction and the latter influences loyalty. Conversely, both customer emotional value and customer expectations were not confirmed as antecedents of PV.

The consumer satisfaction analysis conducted differs substantially from those of conventionally traded coffee, as social and emotional factors were considered along with utilitarian factors.

Practitioners, retailers and relevant institutions should design strategies to manage efficiently channel efforts to improve the consumer satisfaction and its loyalty.

This paper contributes to a substantial improvement in the understanding of consumer satisfaction and its consequences, in FT coffee consumption contexts. A new integrated theoretical model on customer satisfaction has been provided, which includes social and emotional perception factors, along with cognitive perception (quality and expectations) factors.

研究旨在確認在公平貿易咖啡消費的課題上，顧客滿意的誘因及其後因，這包括實用的因素，社會的因素和情感的因素。

研究之數據廣泛來自在西班牙177名公平貿易咖啡消費者; 分析則以結構方程模型，並以SPSS Amos 26軟件來進行。

研究結果證實，顧客社會價值和質量是會影響認知價值的;認知價值繼而影響顧客滿意度，而顧客滿意度又進而影響他們的忠誠。相反的，顧客情緒價值或他們的期望、均未能證實是認知價值的先決條件。

本研究所進行的消費者滿意度分析，與其它以傳統方法銷售的咖啡之相關研究有很大的分別，這是因為本研究除了考慮實用的因素外，還納入了社會因素和情感因素。

從業人員、零售商和有關的機構應制訂適切的策略，以能有效地管理各個管道，來提升消費者的滿意度和忠誠。

本研究的貢獻在於它幫助我們在公平貿易咖啡消費的課題上，對消費者滿意及其效果有更深入的認識。研究亦提供了一個探討顧客滿意度的嶄新、綜合的理論模型，而這個理論模型，除了涵蓋知覺認知 (質量和期望) 的因素外，還納入了社會的和情感的知覺因素。

This study explores the link between ISO 9001 certification, personal data protection and firm performance using financial balance sheet and survey data. The security aspect of data protection is analyzed based on the major requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and mapped to the relevant controls of the ISO/IEC 27001/27002 standards.

The research analysis is based on 96 ISO 9001–certified and non-certified publicly traded manufacturing and service firms that responded to a structured questionnaire. The authors develop and empirically test their theoretical model using the structural equation modeling technique and follow a difference-in-differences econometric modeling approach to estimate financial performance differences between certified and non-certified firms accounting for the level of data protection.

The estimates indicate three core dimensions in the areas of “policies, procedures and responsibilities,” “access control management” and “risk-reduction techniques” as desirable components in establishing the concept of data security. The estimates also suggest that the data protection level has significantly impacted the performance of certified firms relative to the non-certified. Controlling for the effect of industry-level factors reveals a positive relationship between data security and high-technological intensity.

The results imply that improving the level of compliance to data protection enhances the link between certification and firm performance.

This study fills a gap in the literature by empirically testing the influence of data protection on the relationship between quality certification and firm performance.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.

The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of operation. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations.

We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation in this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audits.

The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both a trainer and an auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides for itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.

The authors analysed fairness as an antecedent of trust to understand how trust building can be actively managed to facilitate collaboration in buyer–supplier relationships.

A case study was employed to buyer–supplier relationships of five organic food companies from three different sectors. The research was developed with data collected in 2022 through qualitative research interviews and analysed using a structured content analysis. A practitioner workshop served to complement findings and confirm the interpretation of data by discussing interview results from a managerial perspective.

A conceptual model based on organisational trust and justice theory was developed to examine causal relations between fairness and trust. Findings show that perceived distributional, procedural and interactional fairness mutually interact with the perceived trustworthiness of business partners and that both contribute to building personal, organisational and institutional trust. Qualitative data support the conceptual model and show that trust is a valuable relational resource that affects relationship quality and the willingness to collaborate and to take risks in times of uncertainty.

High trust levels developed through positive fairness perceptions can lower risk perceptions whilst increasing the willingness to collaborate in supply chain relationships. This can help deal with market uncertainties.

Through the lens of organisational trust and justice theory, this study extends the literature on collaboration in supply chains by including a comprehensive view on the formation of trust in business-to-business (B2B) relationships.