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This is an exploratory study on consumer information and behaviour towards green, health, local, social and environmental credentials on labels. It focusses on many dimensions of sustainability in the food products that affect consumer choices with a dual purpose: to identify and define “sustainable consumption” behaviour in broad sense and to investigate empirically the factors affecting the real consumption behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on consumers’ understanding, motivation and use of sustainable labelling in order to understand the role sustainability information plays in the food products market.

Two focus groups in order to investigate consumer motivation and behaviour in-depth and to prepare the questionnaire. Identification of the outcomes that could summarize sustainable consumption combining: purchase of local products, consume only seasonal fruit, prefer products with recyclable packaging, attention to the fat content in foods, give importance to traceability and purchase products only in the place of origin. Identification of the “at risk” virtuous consumer, using a binary logistic regression approach, taking into account demographic characteristics, the food and nutrition value system, experience, knowledge, institutional factors and marketing.

Results from the focus groups are mainly in line with the empirical analysis, highlighting the key role of education in influencing consumer attitude and behaviour. Consumers give little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection and have little knowledge of environmental problems. The virtuous consumer appears to give importance to a better food nutrition value system, to pay more attention to ingredients and instructions on the label, to be more attentive to environmental and sustainable attributes, to be concerned about product quality and to be slightly influenced by brands and special offers.

The findings from the empirical analysis confirm the results from focus groups even if it was not possible from the empirical analysis to investigate in-depth the marketing aspects concerning the food choice. This limit probably comes from the low number of observations. Further research will focus on these marketing aspects.

Products with sustainable attributes can become a strategic variable and allow companies to gain a competitive advantage, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. This may encourage the development of new marketing channels based on the direct relationship between producer and the new consumer demand, increasingly sensitive to the food security issues.

There is a potential interest and sensitiveness to having sustainable behaviour in a broad sense, but there is a lack of knowledge about how to behave to be sustainable. In the absence of binding rules, it is necessary that government promote information and campaigns to generate greater awareness on sustainability, aiming at increasing knowledge to drive the consumer’s choices. This may lead to virtuous results in terms of reducing social costs related to an unhealthy diet, food waste and unsustainable consumption.

The results show that despite the appearance of attention to the environment and to healthy food which is associated with this emerging critical consumer in the literature, there remains the problem of the consumer giving little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection. This is the problem of “rules of thumb” in purchasing decisions that prevail in the following situations: when consumers have an overload of information that exceeds their processing limits; when they tend to base their decision making on heuristics, focussing their choices on brands as a proxy for high-quality, product-related characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a cereal bar supplemented with coffee beverage that has health benefits.

Six types of cereal bars containing raisins or prunes with different concentrations of coffee were developed. Acceptability tests and physicochemical characterizations were performed by analysis of moisture, ash, protein, lipids, fibres and carbohydrates. Moreover, the levels of phenolic compounds, the fatty acid profile and the in vitro antioxidant activity were evaluated by the DPPH free radical scavenging and iron-chelating activity methods. The bars were assessed using the check-all-that-apply (CATA) methodology. The phenolic compound and antioxidant activity data were evaluated by analysis of variance. Averages were compared by the Scott–Knott test. To verify the characteristics of the food bar per the attributes cited in CATA, main component analysis was performed using the SensoMaker software.

The concentration of coffee did not affect the centesimal composition values. The highest percentage of scavenging activity of free radicals was observed in the food bar containing raisins, with a maximum concentration of coffee beverage equivalent to 10 mL. These values were higher in cereal bars containing raisins than in bars containing prunes with the same concentrations of coffee. The acceptance sensory test showed good acceptability ratios, ranging from 74.33 to 85.22 among different food bar formulations.

The bar consisting raisins and 100 per cent coffee presented high values of protection against oxidative stress, phenolic content and satisfying acceptability, thereby making it a novel possible alternative as a differentiated product with possible health-beneficial effects.

This paper provides a differentiated product, through healthy ingredients, with convenience of purchase, besides having added value and possible health beneficial effects.

The bar consisting of raisins and 100 per cent coffee presented high values of phenolic content and protection against oxidative stress, as well as satisfying acceptability, thereby making it a novel possible alternative as a differentiated product with possible health-beneficial effects.

In this paper we provide estimates of the short-run elasticity of substitution between male and female workers, using data from Italian provinces for the period 1993–2006. Our identification strategy relies on a natural experiment. In 2000, the Italian Parliament passed a law to abolish compulsory military service. The reform was implemented through a gradual reduction in the number of draftees; compulsory drafting was eventually terminated in 2004. We use data on the (planned) maximum number of draftees at the national level (as stated in the annual budgetary law), interacted with sex-ratios at births at the provincial level, as instruments for (relative) female labor supply. Our results suggest that young males and females (who are those mainly affected by the reform) are imperfect substitutes, with an implied elasticity of substitution ranging between 1.0 and 1.4. Our results have important implications for the evaluation of policies aimed at increasing female labor market participation.

The paper provides a new definition of healthy and functional food considering the case of sorghum, which is dealing with environmental challenges, calling for exploration of eco-conscious consumers' behavior in the free-from food innovative market.

Through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, this article offers a deep and broad outlook on a sustainable open innovations approach for agri-food systems. The bibliometric analysis includes a total of 198 scientific papers, deeply analyzed through Bibliometrix package.

Results show increasing academic interest in sustainable innovations for the agri-food system, where the relevance of the food-grade sorghum is noticed. An open innovation approach is called for to deal with environmental challenges.

Theoretically, the research offers a new definition of healthy and functional food in line with current environmental challenges. It also provides a deep literature review on eco-conscious consumers and food-grade sorghum as functional food in the context of the free-from food market.

This qualitative study examines the influence of media development in Iraqi Kurdistan after nearly a decade and a half of donor country-funded professional journalism training in a period following an oil boom and bust, influence of a transnational terror organization, and a recent vote to secede from the rest of Iraq. The study builds out a typology of economic, political, bureaucratic, legal, cultural, and societal capture, and applies it in an analysis of data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted in the two largest cities in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In Uganda, smallholder farmers produce about 70% of the food but receive very low prices on the sales channels they use. To improve farmers' livelihoods, other innovative sales channels such as farmers' markets (FMs) have to be explored. Therefore, the study aimed to determine the potential of establishing farmers' markets in Uganda, focusing on Kampala district.

A qualitative methodology was used to understand farmers' perceptions and the factors that could influence the success of the farmers' markets. In addition, the potential of FMs has been analyzed through the components of the Localized Agri-Food System (LAFS).

The respondents had a positive perception of the farmers' markets, and farmers have an urgent need for other sales channels that could be profitable for them. Factors that could influence the success of the FMs were highlighted, including infrastructure in the marketplace, transportation and taxation by the government.

The study had a limited sample size of the farmers, and it was carried out in 3 divisions of Kampala district, an urban area; thus, the findings cannot be generalized to fit the other regions of Uganda.

The LAFS showed that the foundation for establishing FMs is available; however, it has to be strengthened through the coordination of different stakeholders that work with the farmers.

Coaches from both the professional and college ranks are often put forth as archetypal examples of effective leaders – individuals’ whose behaviors, styles, and wisdom provide the ever elusive playbook for how to successfully lead others. While numerous books and articles in the popular press put forth advice from leaders in the sports world, numerous empirical studies of the drivers of successful sports leadership and the factors that contribute to leader success in the context of sports have also been conducted. In this chapter, we first provide a broad review of empirical leadership research conducted within the sports world and examine how research within the sports context provides a suitable and advantageous setting for leadership research in general. Second, we offer a road map of opportunities for future leadership studies within the context of sports. The goal of this chapter is to stimulate and rally more thought-provoking research related to leadership in sports that generates insights for organizational leadership across contexts.

Football, or soccer as it is known in the United States, is one area in which managerial positions are hugely volatile with what is often called a ‘merry-go-round’ of managers sacked for poor performance at their club and reemployed by another club. Not only does this practice often not increase performance but it is also very costly. Considering the nature of football, that is, the relatively high impact of chance on the rare events that goals are, and the high correlation between success and the wage bill, the influence of managers on performance is often over-estimated. However, potentially better preparation of future managers might help to increase competitive advantages. In this chapter, we are looking in depth at leadership in the context of football and the lessons we can draw for other contexts.