Search results

This chapter offers novel insights into how global corporations can innovate to tackle the global waste crisis and gain sustainable competitive positions. Using two of the most prominent types of global waste crises – food and plastic wastes – we discuss the dilemma of food and plastic waste, why innovations in global firms are needed to address them, and argue that a different perspective among those firms is needed, one which conceptualizes the development, dissemination and use of innovations in waste management, and one which recognizes that innovations, thus, created contribute to advancing the creation of economic, environmental and social value. We conclude using an overarching conceptual framework that depicts the complexity of the new perspective.

The study aims to define a research agenda for creating resource-efficient supply chains (RESCs) by identifying and analysing their key characteristics as well as future research opportunities.

We follow a systematic review method to analyse the literature and to understand RESC, taking a substantive theory approach. Our approach is grounded in a specific domain, the agri-food sector, because it is an intensive user of an extensive range of resources.

The review shows that works of literature has looked at the use of resources primarily from the environmental impact perspective. There is a need to explore whether or not and how logistics/supply chain decisions will affect the overall configuration of future food supply chains in an era of resource scarcity and depletion and what the trade-offs will be.

The paper proposes an agenda for future research in the area of RESC. The framework proposed along with the key characteristics identified for RESC can be applied to other sectors.

Our research should facilitate further understanding of the implications and trade-offs of supply chain decisions taken on the use of resources by supply chain managers.

The paper explores the interaction between supply chains and natural resources and defines the key characteristics of RESC.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between food preservation and reducing consumer waste is of value in developing sustainable meal options. The research reports insights into Austrian marketplace for frozen and fresh foods that have been obtained from a consumer survey.

The consumer survey methodologies indicate how preservation can change meal planning and lower food waste across frozen and fresh and ambient food purchases using freezing preservation methods.

The results show food waste can be reduced by six-fold when frozen foods are compared with fresh foods.

This study highlights the requirement for a greater understanding of the probability that specific foods will be wasted with respect to the frequency of purchase. This is a limitation of the current study that has been investigated by other researchers.

This research has enabled the identification of different food waste amounts for different food product categories. The data presented could be used to guide food product development so that less consumer waste is produced.

The research suggests a decision matrix approach can be used to can guide new product development and a model of this matrix is presented so that it may provide fit-for-purpose food preservation options for consumers.

This paper will continue to highlight the overlooked value of food preservation during processing and manufacturing of foods and their preparation in households.

The purpose of this paper is to present a quantitatively supported explanation of the intellectual development, the schools of thought and the sub-areas of the food cold chain (FCC) research to derive meaningful avenues for future research.

This study builds on bibliometric analysis and network analysis to systematically evaluate a sample of 1,189 FCC articles published over the past 25 years. The descriptive statistics and science mapping approaches using co-citation analysis were performed with VOSviewer software.

The findings reveal a state-of-the-art overview of the top contributing and influential countries, authors, institutions and articles in the area of FCC research. A co-citation analysis, coupled with content analysis of most co-cited articles, uncovered four underlying research streams including: application of RFID technologies; production and operation planning models; postharvest waste, causes of postharvest wastage and perishable inventory ordering polices and models; and critical issues in FCC. Current research streams, clusters and their sub-themes provided meaningful discussions and insights into key areas for future research in FCC.

This study might reshape practitioners’, researchers’ and policy-makers’ views on the multifaceted areas and themes in the FCC research field, to harness FCC’s benefits at both strategic and tactical level. Finally, the research findings offer a roadmap for additional research to yield more practical and modeling insights that are much needed to enrich the field.

Food waste occurs in every stage of the supply chain, but the value-added lost to waste is the highest when consumers waste food. The purpose of this paper is to understand the food waste behaviour of consumers to support policies for minimising food waste.

Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a theoretical lens, the authors design a questionnaire that incorporates contextual factors to explain food waste behaviour. The authors test two models: base (four constructs of TPB) and extended (four constructs of TPB plus six contextual factors). The authors build partial least squares structural equation models to test the hypotheses.

The data confirm significant relationships between food waste and contextual factors such as motives, financial attitudes, planning routines, food surplus, social relationships and Ramadan.

The data comes from an agriculturally resource-constrained country: Qatar.

Food waste originating from various causes means more food should flow through the supply chains to reach consumers’ homes. Contextual factors identified in this work increase the explanatory power of the base model by 75 per cent.

Changing eating habits during certain periods of the year and food surplus have a strong impact on food waste behaviour.

A country is considered to be food secure if it can provide its citizens with stable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. The findings and conclusions inform and impact upon the development of food waste and food security policies.

This study aims to explore the calculations and valuations that unfold in everyday practices within social care settings. Specifically, the paper concerns the role of accounting in dealing with multiple calculable and non-calculable spaces within the case management process. The study sheds light on the multiplicity produced in constructing the client as an object through the calculations and valuations embedded in the costing and caring practices in social work.

This is a qualitative case study in a Swedish social care organisation, with a specific focus on the calculations and valuations within the case management process. The data have been gathered from 20 interviews with social workers, team leaders, managers and a management accountant, along with more than 36 h of on-site observations and internal organisational documents, including policy documents, guidelines and procedural lists.

The case management process involves interconnected practices in constructing the client as an object. While monetary calculations and those associated with worth are embedded in costing and caring practices, they interact and proliferate in various ways. Three elements are found: transforming service units into centres of calculation, constructing the accounts of calculation and establishing the cost-value calculations. Calculations and valuations are actuated in these elements in describing the need, matching the case with the unit and caseworker and deciding on the measure. The objectification of the client entails the construction of accounts, for example, ongoing qualifications, categorisations and groupings of units, juridical frameworks, case types, needs and measures. As an object multiple, the client becomes different objects at different stages, challenging the establishment accounts, and thus producing a range of calculations and valuations. Such diversity in calculations concomitantly produces more calculations to represent the present and absent multiple facets of the client, resulting in a multiplicity of costing and caring.

The study might flag up for practitioners the possible risks and unintended consequences of depending too much on fixed guidelines and (performance) indicators since social work involves object multiples, which are always in diversity and changeable in situ. Considering the multiple dimensions within the specific contexts could thus be helpful to mitigate such risks in the evaluation of social care processes and the design of (performance) metrics.

This study contributes to the literature on accountingisation by extending the concept as a part of ongoing organisational practices, materialised within the calculations of money and worth in everyday social care. Besides demonstrating their reconsolidation, this study shows a multiplicity of costing and caring practices depending on the way the client is constructed, resulting in the proliferation of accounting(s) and ultimately accountingisation of social work.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what consumers think about food waste, best before date (BBD) and appreciation of food in the context of a model project in the food-retailing sector. The focus was on the following key questions: How is the issue of food waste itself perceived by consumers? What understanding of the BBD was present in the sample and what do consumers imagine under the term appreciation in the context of food? The study also included an evaluation of the acceptance of the model project by customers. In this project, food no longer suitable for sale was distributed free of charge to visitors of a supermarket via a freely accessible refrigerator.

The research design was based on a mixed methods approach in an explorative sequential design. First a qualitative survey was conducted via interviews (n = 8) with customers, and the results were used for a subsequent quantitative survey (n = 88) in the supermarket.

The majority of those questioned were sensitized to the topics of food waste, BBD and appreciation of food. The results of the interviews and the questionnaires revealed a consistently positive opinion about the model project. These results indicate potential for reducing food losses among consumers and in food retailing and for improving appreciation.

This was the first study conducted as part of a model project in the retail sector in the context of food waste. The study also investigated within in the project what people think about the BBD, food losses and appreciation. At the same time, the acceptance of the project was assessed.

Service robots can offer benefits to consumers (e.g. convenience, flexibility, availability, efficiency) and service providers (e.g. cost savings), but a lack of trust hinders consumer adoption. To enhance trust, firms add human-like features to robots; yet, anthropomorphism theory is ambiguous about their appropriate implementation. This study therefore aims to investigate what is more effective for fostering trust: appearance features that are more human-like or social functioning features that are more human-like.

In an experimental field study, a humanoid service robot displayed gaze cues in the form of changing eye colour in one condition and static eye colour in the other. Thus, the robot was more human-like in its social functioning in one condition (displaying gaze cues, but not in the way that humans do) and more human-like in its appearance in the other (static eye colour, but no gaze cues). Self-reported data from 114 participants revealing their perceptions of trust, anthropomorphism, interaction comfort, enjoyment and intention to use were analysed using partial least squares path modelling.

Interaction comfort moderates the effect of gaze cues on anthropomorphism, insofar as gaze cues increase anthropomorphism when comfort is low and decrease it when comfort is high. Anthropomorphism drives trust, intention to use and enjoyment.

To extend human–robot interaction literature, the findings provide novel theoretical understanding of anthropomorphism directed towards humanoid robots.

By investigating which features influence trust, this study gives managers insights into reasons for selecting or optimizing humanoid robots for service interactions.

This study examines the difference between appearance and social functioning features as drivers of anthropomorphism and trust, which can benefit research on self-service technology adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to measure food loss and waste by material flow analysis (MFA) tool. Applying this methodology, the authors estimate wastage-related losses and discuss opportunities for more circular and sustainable practices in the Italian potato industry.

MFA is applied to two specific typologies as follows: ready-to-eat (chips) and dried potato products produced in Italy. The analysis refers to the year 2017 as the complete dataset useful for this study includes measurements until this year. A bottom-up and top-down mixed approach is applied, and functional unit refers to 1 t of potatoes consumed as final product.

MFA is applied to quantify and qualify material balance associated with 1 t of potatoes consumed as final product. In Italy, in 2017, more than 22,000 t of fresh tubers were lost, including 3,500–4,800 t of starch, equivalent to 52,800–72,600 GJs. Moreover, fewer than 23,000 t of skins and scraps were produced within industrial plants, not available for food but suitable for animal feed (dry skins are an excellent carbohydrates source in cattle and poultry feed), starch industry and bioenergy production (biogas and/or bioethanol).

This research is one of the few studies proposing MFA methodology as a tool to measure food waste. This analysis shows its utility in terms of food waste quality/quantity evaluation, supporting both company management and policymakers.

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change seeks to legislate diverse waste streams (including food waste) by implementing Bill 151, known colloquially as the Waste Free Ontario Act. The purpose of this study is to investigate how stakeholders in Ontario’s food and waste systems perceive the prospective legislation.

The paper is based on interviews with stakeholders across the food value chain in Ontario, as well as an analysis of legislation and related documents.

The paper argues that Bill 151 represents the Province’s commitment to an ecological modernization paradigm. This research uncovers the lines of tension that may exist in the implementation of food waste policy. These lines of tension represent stakeholders’ ideological perspectives on food waste, including whether it signals an efficient or inefficient economy, whether legislation should prioritize economic or environmental goals and whether it is more appropriate for legislation to incentivize desired food waste treatments or penalize/prohibit undesired activities.

The analysis reveals potential allies in the regulatory process, likely points of contention and areas where greater consensus may be forged, depending on government efforts to reframe the issues at stake.