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After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand the challenges faced by cocoa farmers in developing countries and their impact on the cocoa value chain, describe the need for a business to create a business model that offers social impact in small developing economies, explore innovative business models, such as vertical integration, for addressing transparency and fair compensation issues in agricultural supply chains, analyze the role that start-ups can play in disrupting the commodities supply chain and building a national competitive advantage and examine how a values-driven business can gain the trust of stakeholders and create a profitable ecosystem.

This case study describes the innovative business model of Inaru Corporation, a pioneering venture founded by two sisters, Janett Liriano and Erika, aimed at revolutionizing the cocoa industry in the Dominican Republic. This case study outlines the challenges faced by cocoa farmers in the country, including low productivity, exploitation by middlemen and lack of value addition. Inaru’s innovative business model aimed to disrupt the traditional supply chains by prioritizing fair compensation for farmers, investing in sustainable practices and vertically integrating cocoa production from farming to manufacturing. Through direct relationships with producers, profit-sharing agreements, and a commitment to ethical business practices, Inaru sought to empower cocoa farmers and cultivate a more equitable and sustainable cocoa industry. Inaru was a model for ethical and caring business practices where it shared the profits with its farmers. By operating a profit-sharing model and sharing its fortune with other women, Inaru was helping create gender equity in the cocoa sector. Inaru planned to scale its business model to other cocoa-producing countries and even transfer its business model strategy to other commodities beginning with the coffee segment in Dominican Republic. By exploring Inaru’s case study, students gain a deep understanding of how businesses can drive positive change, create value for stakeholders and contribute to sustainable development goals.

This case was written for use in teaching graduate and postgraduate management courses in entrepreneurship and economics, politics and business environment.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to assess how cocoa supply chain companies disclose sustainable development goals (SDGs) information in their sustainability reports. This assessment highlights strategic aspects of sustainable supply chain management and reveals leveraging sustainability points in the cocoa industry.

The two-step qualitative approach relies on text-mining company reports and subsequent content analysis that identifies the topics disclosed and relates them to SDG targets.

This study distinguishes 18 SDG targets connected to cocoa traders and 30 SDG targets to chocolate manufacturers. The following topics represent the main nexuses of connections: decent labour promotion and gender equity (social), empowering local communities and supply chain monitoring (economic) and agroforestry and climate action (environmental).

By highlighting the interconnections between the SDGs targeted by companies in the cocoa supply chain, this paper sheds light on the strategic SDGs for this industry and their relationships, which can help to improve sustainability disclosure and transparency. One interesting input for companies is the improvement of climate crisis prevention, focusing on non-renewable sources minimisation, carbon footprint and clear indicators of ecologic materiality.

This study contributes to policymakers to enhance governance and accountability of global supply chains that are submitted to different regulation regimes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has framed the cocoa industry from a broader SDG perspective. The interconnections identified reveal the key goals of the cocoa supply chain and point to strategic sustainability choices for companies in an important global industry.

The Waorani are an Amazonian indigenous nationality with a population of 4,000. They inhabit three provinces of Ecuador: Pastaza, Napo and Orellana, and their ancestral lands contain a wealth of natural resources, which attracts the onslaught of the processes of extractivism. Significant social and economic asymmetries have also arisen in the decades since first contact. It is in this context that the Waorani Women's Association was created in 2005. Its main purpose is to end deforestation and illegal hunting of species in Waorani territory by promoting initiatives such as the cultivation of organic cocoa and handicrafts to improve the economy of families and to diminish the reliance on the preponderant economic system of use and abuse of non-renewable resources. This chapter analyzes how the spirituality of the Waorani nationality, manifested by the women who work in cocoa farms and chambira palm crafts, combine syncretism and ancestral knowledge in their daily work. It also analyzes the change of spiritual identity from the first contact with the Summer Language Institute missionaries, and subsequent evangelical, Catholic, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Church of Latter-day Saints missions to their lands.

The authors investigated cocoa farmers' access to subsidized fertilizer in Ghana and implications on productivity.

Primary data were sourced from 435 cocoa farmers. Cragg hurdle and two-step Tobit model with continuous endogenous regressors/covariates were applied for the drivers of cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme and productivity. Propensity score matching (PSM), inverse-probability weights (IPW) and augmented inverse-probability weights (AIPW) were applied for productivity impact assessment of fertilizer subsidy.

All the farmers were aware of fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana. Farmers became aware of fertilizer subsidy through extension officers, media and other farmers. Half of cocoa farmers benefitted from fertilizer subsidy. Averagely, cocoa farmers purchased 292 kg of subsidized fertilizer. Many socio-economic, farm-level characteristics and institutional factors determine cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme, quantity of subsidized fertilizer obtained and productivity. Beneficiaries of fertilizer subsidy recorded higher cocoa productivity than non-beneficiaries. Hence, fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana leads to a gain in productivity.

There should be more investments in fertilizer subsidy so that all cocoa farmers benefit and obtain the required quantities.

The authors provide new evidence on cocoa productivity gain or loss emanating from fertilizer subsidy by combining different impact assessment techniques for deeper analysis: PSM, IPW and AIPW.

This study aims to develop an entrepreneurial business model capable of addressing and preventing the exploitation and inequality that traditionally have resulted from entrepreneurship, particularly in emerging economies.

The research uses systems thinking, the first law of cybernetics, and the principles of harmony to formulate a systemic solution to the problem, which it exemplifies via six purposefully selected short cases drawn from diverse industry sectors and economies.

This paper demonstrates how the conventional model of entrepreneurship, often associated with colonial exploitation and resultant inequalities, can be transformed into a triple bottom line model—harmonious entrepreneurship – that integrates the traditional economic, eco-, humane, and social approaches and creates a synergy where profit, planet, and people are in harmony. The model challenges the profit maximisation/shareholder value doctrine of business success.

Only six cases are presented here, and there is a need for further research in different political-economic contexts and industry sectors. Also, the way entrepreneurship is taught needs to change so that it addresses the sustainability challenge in general and the problem of inequality in particular.

There needs to be a change in the entrepreneurial mindset and the way entrepreneurship is taught and potential entrepreneurs are trained if entrepreneurship is to address the sustainability challenge in general and the problem of inequality in particular.

This is a novel approach to the study of entrepreneurship and its impact on inequality that shows how it can ameliorate and/or prevent inequality, particularly in emerging economies, by adopting a more holistic approach to business success and supplanting “having and needing” with “being and caring”.

Although microfinance (MF) has been established as an effective approach to provide access to financial services for people in low income countries, close to one-third of adults worldwide, about 2 billion people, are still without access. The purpose of this study is therefore to provide knowledge on how MF institutions (MFIs) can innovate and scale their services to improve financial inclusion for more people in need, particularly small holder farmers.

Recent research suggests that Grameen Foundation builds on well-established MF models and focuses on continuously improving the design and increasing the reach of its services. Based on a retrospective longitudinal design, this study draws on dynamic capability theory to identify important lessons in MF innovation at Grameen through analyses of seven key agricultural MF programs.

This study finds that Grameen innovated these programs by sensing country-specific needs; seizing opportunities to use existing technology; creating linkages across multisector partners; adopting a business model that enabled replicability and sustainability of innovation transfer; and 5 integrating solutions that enabled process automation and scaling of outcomes. A key theoretical finding in applying dynamic capabilities theory to studies of innovation in MF revealed the core concepts to be transferrable, valuable, imitable and nonsubstitutable resources.

Using these insights, this study discusses theoretical, practical and policy implications of MF innovation to improve financial inclusion in low-income countries. Practitioners and researchers should assess the transferability of our findings to other MFIs and economic development contexts.

This paper aims to test the impact of remittances receipt on agricultural productivity. The paper empirically assesses whether heterogeneity in economic activity of farming households affects the effects of remittances on productivity of tradable and nontradable crop farming households in Ghana.

The authors employ propensity score matching (PSM) methods to address potential endogeneity issues that could arise from the estimation due to selection bias. This paper uses the seventh round of Ghana living standard survey dataset for Ghana.

The authors find that, the involvement of farming households in other economic activities alters the impact of remittances on crop yield. This differential impact also varies according whether the crop is tradeable or not.

Policy can reduce the cost of sending remittances and include financial literacy modules in the farmer training modules to increase farmers' knowledge on investment of remittance in agricultural production.

The authors distinguish the paper from others by controlling for crop types (particularly tradeable or otherwise and gestation period), farming of a second or more crops and engagement of smallholder farmers in nonfarm economic activities.

The purpose of this study was to development of a new chocolate-flavored powdered food supplement enriched with mesquite pod flour, oak extract and agave fructans, with proper sensory characteristics as well as its physicochemical and glycemic quality.

A powdered shake was formulated using experimental design (23) with mesquite (Prosopis laevigata) pod flour, oak (Quercus convallata) extracts, nonalkalinized cocoa, agave fructans, milk protein and xanthan gum. Sensory analysis (choice profile method, ranking test, focus group, quantitative descriptive analysis), moisture, ash, fiber, protein and lipids, pH, color, wettability, dispersibility and rheological tests were done. Phenolic profiling analysis to samples was done by ultraperformance liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode array detection and electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry, antioxidant activity was measured by 2,2’-Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt radical cation, ferric reducing antioxidant power and oxygen radical absorbance capacity, glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load were evaluated.

The main sensory attributes in the powders were chocolate, bitter, astringent, grass/linseed flavors (p < 0.05). The product has protein [66.9%], carbohydrates [22.0%], lipids [1.6%], ash [2.7%] and moisture [6.8%], with wettability (23 s), and dispersibility of 77.9%. Catechin, epicatechin, gallocatechin, procyanidin B2, chlorogenic, coumaric and ferulic acids were identified. GI and caloric load not show differences between men (73.3±2.4, 4.4±0.1) and women (67.0±2.1, 4.1±0.1) (p > 0.05).

The use of mesquite pods, oak and agave fructans in powder food supplement is an alternative to obtain a product high in protein, with good sensory properties, antioxidant activity and moderate GI.

This study aims to examine the blockchain landscape in supply chain management by drawing insights from academic and industry literature. It identifies the key drivers, categorizes the products involved and highlights the business values achieved by early adopters of blockchain technology within the supply chain domain. Additionally, it explores fingerprinting techniques to establish a robust connection between physical products and the blockchain ledger.

The authors combined the interpretive sensemaking systematic literature review to offer insights into how organizations interpreted their business challenges and adopted blockchain technology in their specific supply chain context; content analysis (using Leximancer automated text mining software) for concept mapping visualization, facilitating the identification of key themes, trends and relationships, and qualitative thematic analysis (NVivo) for data organization, coding and enhancing the depth and efficiency of analysis.

The findings highlight the transformative potential of blockchain technology and offer valuable insights into its implementation in optimizing supply chain operations. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of product provenance information to consumers, with blockchain technology offering certainty and increasing customer loyalty toward brands that prioritize transparency.

This research has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, there is a possibility that some relevant investigations may have been missed or omitted, which could impact the findings. In addition, the limited availability of literature on blockchain adoption in supply chains may restrict the scope of the conclusions. The evolving nature of blockchain adoption in supply chains also poses a limitation. As the technology is in its infancy, the authors expect that a rapidly emerging body of literature will provide more extensive evidence-based general conclusions in the future. Another limitation is the lack of information contrasting academic and industry research, which could have provided more balanced insights into the technology’s advancement. The authors attributed this limitation to the narrow collaborations between academia and industry in the field of blockchain for supply chain management.

Practitioners recognize the potential of blockchain in addressing industry-specific challenges, such as ensuring transparency and data provenance. Understanding the benefits achieved by early adopters can serve as a starting point for companies considering blockchain adoption. Blockchain technology can verify product origin, enable truthful certifications and comply with established standards, reinforcing trust among stakeholders and customers. Thus, implementing blockchain solutions can enhance brand reputation and consumer confidence by ensuring product authenticity and quality. Based on the results, companies can align their strategies and initiatives with their needs and expectations.

In essence, the integration of blockchain technology within supply chain provenance initiatives not only influences economic aspects but also brings substantial social impacts by reinforcing consumer trust, encouraging sustainable and ethical practices, combating product counterfeiting, empowering stakeholders and contributing to a more responsible, transparent and progressive socioeconomic environment.

This study consolidates current knowledge on blockchain’s capacity and identifies the specific drivers and business values associated with early blockchain adoption in supply chain provenance. Furthermore, it underscores the critical role of product fingerprinting techniques in supporting blockchain for supply chain provenance, facilitating more robust and efficient supply chain operations.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the functionalities, safety regulations and product applications of herb Stevia rebaudiana extract. This plant material is embedded with multiple functionalities such as antioxidant, antidiabetics, anti-inflammation and antimicrobial. The regulations released from global authorities are covered to ensure the safety premise of stevia. Besides, the product applications of the extract of aerial parts of the herb S. rebaudiana helps us to recognize its value from commercial side.

Relevant literatures are selected and obtained from main scientific databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed and trade magazines published between 2000 and 2023. The keywords and their possible combinations such as sweetening, antioxidant, antidiabetics, anti-inflammation, safety and product development were used to ensure the preciseness and completeness of literature searching. Major data such as sweetness, total phenolic content and dose together with latter critical conclusions from searched publications were appropriately used and discussed. In this review, approximately 150 scientific literatures were meticulously ordered and analyzed. In applications, it is the first time that sentiment analysis was used to obtain a market assessment of the stevia-containing products.

This review paper helps rearrange the scientific affairs of those stevia extract’s functions like sweetening, antioxidant, antidiabetics and inflammation. Sweetness indexes of steviol glycosides were summarized together for comparison while various in vitro and in vivo approaches were reviewed to quantify those functions’ capacities and to depict the related mechanism. The regulation of steviol glycoside compounds such as rebaudioside A was established by global authorities such as US Food and Drug Administration and Joint FAO/World Health Organization Expert Committee to ensure the safety endorsement before commercialization. Then, this study discussed about the market performance of stevia ingredients or products with the self-developed data analytics. This study also investigated the product development progress of stevia-containing food products in the categories of beverage, bakery, dairy and confectionery. Those stevia-containing food consumer goods can be acceptable by certain consumers.

This review paper precisely presents the evidential information about the stevia’s multiple functionalities with mechanisms and global regulation milestones. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is then the first time to probe the stevia-containing products’ market performance through data analytics.