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David Hartstein started KaBloom in 1998 with the goal of creating “the Starbucks of Flowers.” He successfully built brand recognition for the gardenlike shops, but problems plagued the young organization. Nearly three years and one recession later, KaBloom failed to live up to Hartsteinʼs forecast of exponential growth. This case has been designed for a graduate-level course in entrepreneurship/innovation. Students can compare franchising with other business models, examine the impact of organizational structure and leadership styles on business effectiveness, relate issues of supply chain management and logistics to environmental changes, and recognize the impact of innovation on business sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for flower retailers, horticultural practitioners and marketing managers into the prioritisation of cut flower attributes by German residents.

Applying a best–worst scaling approach, this analysis identified the relative ranking of importance amongst product attributes relevant to German consumers when buying fresh cut flowers. A latent class analysis determined four flower consumer segments for further study. The study builds on a sample of 978 consumers and is consistent with the most recent German census in terms of age, gender, income and federal state.

The best-worst analysis showed that intrinsic flower attributes, in particular appearance, freshness and scent were found to be more important to German consumers than the extrinsic attributes studied, namely, price, country of origin and a certification indicating fair trade. The latent class analysis determined four consumer segments that desire either budget, luxury or ethical flowers or more information about flowers. For all identified consumer segments, appearance was the attribute of greatest importance. The segments that desired luxury or ethical flowers, as well as the segment that desires more information were interested in appearance, but also had relatively large shares of preferences dedicated to flower freshness guarantees. The preference for freshness guarantees in addition to appearance may be interpreted jointly as a desire for not only beautiful and aesthetically pleasing flowers, but for sustained beauty.

Internationally, the study fills a research gap by exploring consumer’s relative preference for cut flower attributes. In contrast to existing studies on consumer preferences for flowers in Germany, the present study builds on a sample that was targeted in terms of age, gender, net household income and federal state to the most recent German census.

Fresh vegetables contain advantageous phytochemical components, making them one of the most significant sources of nutrition. The threat of harmful bacteria still exists because these vegetables are not heated in restaurants before being consumed. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the microbial quality of fresh vegetables in restaurants of different levels.

A total of 499 fresh vegetable samples (from sandwiches and fresh-cut vegetable salads) were collected from 3 different types of food service establishment: 201 from international restaurants (IRs), 210 from national restaurants (NRs), and 88 from cafeterias (CAs). The samples were prepared and inoculated on specific growth media. The aerobic mesophilic bacteria (AMB) Campylobacter spp., Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and yeast and molds were counted, and Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli O157 were detected using specialized medium.

High counts of S. aureus, above 3 log cfu/g, suggested that 71.5% of samples collected from NRs and 77.3% from CA were not accepted, whereas 81.6% of samples collected from IRs were accepted. The low population of E. coli, less than 2 log cfu/g, suggested that 99.0, 97 and 92.0 % of samples collected from IRs, NRs and CA, respectively, were accepted. Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157 were absent from every sample. One sample was positive for Salmonella spp. in each of the NR and CA sample groups.

RIs adhere to health and hygiene standards better than NRs and CAs, according to the findings of vegetable contamination tests.

The present study aims at analysing consumer preferences for the pomegranate fruit, focussing on the effect of ready-to-eat format (i.e. packaged arils) on the purchasing choice, together with several products’ attributes as the origin, the packaging typology and the price.

The paper presents a choice experiment (CE) among 626 Italian consumers from Veneto region through an online survey. The study estimates both a conditional logit (CL) and a latent class logit model (LCM).

By segmenting the sample based on the heterogeneous preferences of consumers, it can distinguish “eco-friendly consumers”, “time-saving lovers”, “nationalists” and “price sensitive” subjects. Interestingly, the marginal willingness to pay for ready-to-eat arils is positive for the “time-saving lovers” that are mainly young consumers. The Italian origin has always a positive effect on the choice, whereas a negative effect is found for the price. Finally, the eco-friendly package has both a negative and a positive effect.

The sample of this study is not representative of the population and the CE has a hypothetical nature. It follows that further research will link the economic analysis to a consumer test on a more representative sample.

This study can be useful for the pomegranate producers and the industry because it provides original evidence that could drive their business and marketing strategies, for instance, the preference for ready-to-eat arils.

This study is one of the first seeking to determine the factors that affect consumers' preferences for pomegranate arils.

The purpose of this paper is to review the food supply chain management (FSCM) in terms of systems and implementations so that observations and lessons from this research could be useful for academia and industrial practitioners in the future.

A systematical and hierarchical framework is proposed in this paper to review the literature. Categorizations and classifications are identified to organize this paper.

This paper reviews total 192 articles related to the data-driven systems for FSCM. Currently, there is a dramatic increase of research papers related to this topic. Looking at the general interests on FSCM, research on this topic can be expected to increase in the future.

This paper only selected limited number of papers which are published in leading journals or with high citations. For simplicity without generality, key findings and observations are significant from this research.

Some ideas from this paper could be expanded into other possible domains so that involved parties are able to be inspired for enriching the FSCM. Future implementations are useful for practitioners to conduct IT-based solutions for FSCM.

As the increasing of digital devices in FSCM, large number of data will be used for decision-makings. Data-driven systems for FSCM will be the future for a more sustainable food supply chain.

This is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive review on FSCM from the view of data-driven IT systems.

Research on the intersection of start-ups and digital transformation is still in its infancy, but it is gathering speed and has entered a period of ferment that may lead to discoveries and deeper understandings. From a purely descriptive standpoint, the topic has only recently entered an exponential development phase. This study aims to provide an overview of the digital transformation in start-ups.

The research only looked into account papers that mentioned the ((“Digital transformation”) AND (“Startups”) OR (“Entrepreneurship”) OR (“Entrepreneur”)) for the title, abstract and keywords. The R programming language's Biblioshiny package was considered for thoroughly examining the papers.

This study evaluated the overview of digital transformation in start-ups between 2016−2022 using the articles from the Dimension database. The study of digital transformation is increasingly popular, but there needs to be more research focused specifically on the digital transformation of start-up companies. While the overall trend shows a rise in the interest and investigation of digital transformation, the number of studies explicitly addressing start-up digital transformation still needs to be higher. The highest publication and citation related to digital transformation is of Andreja Pucihar. The findings also show that the Sustainability journal has the highest network with other citations. Also, it has been found that the focus on digital transformation addresses the need for more research based on various theoretical perspectives. Based on the prominence percentile, the top three future research topics that can be explored are Product Innovation; Sustainability; Frugality, Digital Transformation; Strategic Alignment, and Cybersecurity; Strategies; Digital Transformation.

The current study may serve as a general guideline for future investigation into this topic.

Regarding the practical ramifications, this study’s findings can help entrepreneurs prepare to launch a business or are already doing so. This study’s results provide a comprehensive framework of success variables that must be considered to improve the venture's performance.

This study’s originality is from presenting a structured and in-depth literature review that describes the current state of the art for digital transformation in start-ups. A complete analysis of the data gathered on its digital transformation in start-ups is offered to establish that it is sustainable.