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Book part
Publication date: 24 August 2011

Morten H. Abrahamsen

The study here examines how business actors adapt to changes in networks by analyzing their perceptions or their network pictures. The study is exploratory or iterative in the…

Abstract

The study here examines how business actors adapt to changes in networks by analyzing their perceptions or their network pictures. The study is exploratory or iterative in the sense that revisions occur to the research question, method, theory, and context as an integral part of the research process.

Changes within networks receive less research attention, although considerable research exists on explaining business network structures in different research traditions. This study analyzes changes in networks in terms of the industrial network approach. This approach sees networks as connected relationships between actors, where interdependent companies interact based on their sensemaking of their relevant network environment. The study develops a concept of network change as well as an operationalization for comparing perceptions of change, where the study introduces a template model of dottograms to systematically analyze differences in perceptions. The study then applies the model to analyze findings from a case study of Norwegian/Japanese seafood distribution, and the chapter provides a rich description of a complex system facing considerable pressure to change. In-depth personal interviews and cognitive mapping techniques are the main research tools applied, in addition to tracer studies and personal observation.

The dottogram method represents a valuable contribution to case study research as it enables systematic within-case and across-case analyses. A further theoretical contribution of the study is the suggestion that network change is about actors seeking to change their network position to gain access to resources. Thereby, the study also implies a close relationship between the concepts network position and the network change that has not been discussed within the network approach in great detail.

Another major contribution of the study is the analysis of the role that network pictures play in actors' efforts to change their network position. The study develops seven propositions in an attempt to describe the role of network pictures in network change. So far, the relevant literature discusses network pictures mainly as a theoretical concept. Finally, the chapter concludes with important implications for management practice.

Details

Interfirm Networks: Theory, Strategy, and Behavior
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-024-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 April 2023

Larelle Bossi

This chapter is a journey into the ontological significance of place in consideration of the Atlantic Tasmanian salmon industry and its challenges to the ethical discourse around…

Abstract

This chapter is a journey into the ontological significance of place in consideration of the Atlantic Tasmanian salmon industry and its challenges to the ethical discourse around the social license to operate (SLO) beyond the oxymoron of a name. It centres the discourse around the salmon itself. A once totem animal, responsible for the balance of Canada’s abundant ecosystem, now reduced to a mere source of protein, manipulated, and commodified by Tasmania’s ‘big business’ and against the SLO of Flanagan’s ‘Toxic’. It applies Ortega y Gasset’s mid-twentieth century solution to the problem of our western disconnection from place to the current neoliberal political framework. This welcomes an inclusive dialogue with kinship structures of the Mi’kmaq peoples reflected also in the ontological narrative of the First Nations people of Tasmania. This multidisciplinary journey necessitates a concept of the SLO founded upon ethical responsibility and a cultural license if it is to genuinely hold to account the corporate sovereign.

Details

Social Licence and Ethical Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-074-8

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Article
Publication date: 7 October 2014

Christian Felzensztein and Eli Gimmon

This study aims to focus on how companies operating in international food commodity markets can improve their long-term competitiveness and profitability upon financial pressure…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to focus on how companies operating in international food commodity markets can improve their long-term competitiveness and profitability upon financial pressure. Management can choose between generic strategies of either cost leadership or enhanced value adding by differentiation and innovative marketing strategies. The aim of the paper is to highlight key findings from a case study perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is set within the farmed salmon sector in the world’s second largest producing country, Chile, which is also a fast growing emerging economy in Latin America. Semi-structured personal interviews were conducted with General Managers of this global industry.

Findings

Unexpectedly, our findings show that executives preferred competitive strategy of cost reduction rather than differentiation. Based on previous research, we recommend managers of individual firms and trade associations to play down commoditisation and to pursue differentiation strategies with particular attention to emergent environmental attributes.

Originality/value

Practitioners from Latin America may learn on empirical considerations of international marketing strategies taking this competitive global industry as an example. An overall cost leadership strategy is not sufficient in a mature industry, and customer-oriented strategies are needed more than production-oriented strategies. Clustered firms are recommended to benefit from differentiation strategies with particular attention to emergent environmental attributes.

Details

European Business Review, vol. 26 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-534X

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Article
Publication date: 12 March 2021

Leanne J. Morrison and Alan Lowe

Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis…

1959

Abstract

Purpose

Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis provided aims to reveal the narrative messaging which is implicit in corporate reporting, to contrast corporate and stakeholder narratives and to bring attention to the ubiquity of storytelling in corporate communications.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines a series of events in which a single case company plays the central role. The environmental section of the case company's sustainability report is examined through the lens of fairytale analysis. Next, two counter accounts are constructed which foreground multiple stakeholder accounts and retold as fairytales.

Findings

The dialogic nature of accounts plays a critical role in how stakeholders understand the environmental impacts of a company. Storytelling mechanisms have been used to shape the perspective and sympathies of the report reader in favour of the company. We use these same mechanisms to create two collective counter accounts which display different sympathies.

Research limitations/implications

This research reveals how the narrative nature of corporate reports may be used to fabricate a particular perspective through storytelling. By doing so, it challenges the authority of the version of events provided by the company and gives voice to collective counter accounts which are shared by and can be disseminated to other stakeholders.

Originality/value

This paper provides a unique perspective to understanding corporate environmental reporting and the stories shared by and with external stakeholders by drawing from a novel link between fairytale, storytelling and counter accounting.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 34 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 5 January 2015

Kristian Ellingsen, Kristine Grimsrud, Hanne Marie Nielsen, Cecilie Mejdell, Ingrid Olesen, Pirjo Honkanen, Ståle Navrud, Christian Gamborg and Peter Sandøe

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to assess how concerned Norwegians are about fish welfare; second, to investigate Norwegians’ willingness to pay for salmon filet…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to assess how concerned Norwegians are about fish welfare; second, to investigate Norwegians’ willingness to pay for salmon filet made from welfare-assured farmed fish with high levels of welfare; and third, to examine Norwegian opinions about the appropriate way to pay for better welfare standards in fish production.

Design/methodology/approach

On the basis of two focus group sessions, a survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to a representative sample of 2,147 Norwegian households via e-mail.

Findings

Results showed that the Norwegian public is concerned about fish welfare and is willing to pay a price premium for products made from welfare-assured fish. Norwegian consumers do not, however, want to be the only ones paying for fish welfare, as the main responsibility for fish welfare lies with producers and the Government.

Research limitations/implications

In this study willingness to pay is measured using a hypothetical choice experiment. Values people express as citizens, however, may not accurately predict true consumer behaviour. This is generally referred to as “citizen-consumer duality” and may have affected the results.

Practical implications

The study shows that there is a national market for welfare-assured fish products, but education initiatives focusing on fish farming and fish welfare issues would further influence the attitudes and purchasing habits of Norwegian consumers.

Originality/value

Although concern about animal welfare is growing in the western world, very little attention has been given to the welfare of fish. This paper aims to make up for this by presenting a study of how Norwegians view the welfare of farmed salmon.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 117 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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Article
Publication date: 1 October 1915

Merchants and manufacturers have it in their power to minimise in some degree the extent to which we are becoming indebted to foreign countries in respect of the large excess of…

Abstract

Merchants and manufacturers have it in their power to minimise in some degree the extent to which we are becoming indebted to foreign countries in respect of the large excess of imports over exports, by obtaining, as far as possible, their imported supplies of food products and raw materials for industries from countries within the Empire. Take, for example, meat and cheese. The prevailing high prices are no doubt encouraging the home production of these commodities. Nevertheless a large quantity must necessarily be imported. In 1914 meat to the value of 62 million pounds was imported, and cheese to the value of 8 million pounds. Of the imports of meat 26 per cent. came from within the Empire, and of cheese 82 per cent. Clearly it is better under existing circumstances that we should buy meat from Australia and New Zealand than from Argentina, and cheese from Canada and New Zealand rather than from Holland and the United States. Many other examples may be mentioned of products which can equally as well be obtained within the Empire as from foreign countries, such as maize from South Africa, where a large increase of production is expected this year; oats from Canada rather than from Argentina and the United States; barley from Canada; peas from New Zealand; butter from Australia and New Zealand; canned salmon, of which 2½ million pounds' worth was imported in 1914, from Canada rather than from the United States; apples from Canada and Australia; wine from Australia; tea from India and Ceylon rather than from China and Java; cocoa from the Gold Coast and the West Indies; copra from Malaya, India and Australia; rubber from Malaya and Ceylon; fibres from New Zealand, Mauritius, Ceylon, etc.; wood pulp from Canada and Newfoundland; wool from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Falkland Islands rather than from Argentina, Chile and other foreign sources; tanning materials from India, Natal, Australia and British East Africa; dyewoods from the West Indies; timber from Canada; hardwoods from India, West Africa, the West Indies and Australia; copper and copper ore from Australia and South Africa; tin and tin ore from Malaya, Nigeria, South Africa and Australia; manganese from India; plumbago from Ceylon; hides from India, Africa and Australia, and so forth. It has been stated that the result of the war may ultimately depend largely on financial strength. In that case the country which is to the greatest extent self‐supporting as regards supplies of the necessaries of life and materials for the manufacture of munitions of war will be in a position to carry on the longest. Undoubtedly the British Empire contains within itself the power to produce all such materials, and the Dominions, Colonies and Dependencies are in fact already supplying a large proportion of the food products and raw materials for industries, which are imported into the United Kingdom. There are a few notable exceptions, e.g., for our supplies of cotton and sugar we have always been largely dependent on foreign countries, but Uganda and the Soudan are capable of producing in the future very large quantities of cotton of the quality required by Lancashire spinners, and sugar production in our Colonies could, with proper encouragement, be expanded so as to meet the whole of the requirements of the Mother Country. If the British capital and energy which have in the past gone every year to the development of enterprises in foreign countries had been devoted for a tew years exclusively to exploiting the resources of the Dominions and Colonies, the British Empire would, by this time, have become practically self‐supporting, and the bulk of our imported foodstuffs and raw products required for our manufacturing industries would now be obtained from within the Empire and paid for by increased quantities of our own manufactures. It may be hoped that one of the lessons which we shall learn from the war will be definitely to encourage the development of the vast resources of our overseas Empire. — The Chamber of Commerce Journal.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 17 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Article
Publication date: 14 March 2016

Sherazede Bouderbala and Malika Bouchenak

– The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of olive or salmon oil on the hepatic storage and transport of fatty acids by very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL).

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of olive or salmon oil on the hepatic storage and transport of fatty acids by very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL).

Design/methodology/approach

In all, 24 male Wistar rats (80 ± 5 g) were fed a 0.5 per cent cholesterol-enriched diet with either 20 per cent casein (C) or chickpea (CP) proteins with 10 per cent olive (O) or salmon (S) oil for 28 days.

Findings

In VLDL-triacyglycerols fatty acids, oleic acid content was higher in CPS as compared to that in CS or CPO and lower in CS and CPO than that in CO; linoleic acid content was higher in all groups; arachidonic acid content was higher in CS and CPO as compared to that in CO. In the liver, TG fatty acids content was lower in CPO or CPS as compared to that in CO or CS; oleic and arachidonic acid contents were lower in CPS than that in CPO; linoleic acid content was lower in CS, CPS and CPO than that in CO, CPO and CO. In liver, phospholipid fatty acid, oleic and arachidonic acid contents were lower in CPS than that in CS; oleic, linoleic and arachidonic acid contents were lower in CPO compared to that in CO. In liver, cholesteryl esters fatty acids, oleic, linoleic and arachidonic acids contents were higher in CPS as compared to that in CS; oleic, linoleic and arachidonic acid contents were lower in CS as compared to that in CO; linoleic and arachidonic acid contents were lower in CPS than that in CPO.

Originality/value

A cholesterol-enriched diet containing casein or chickpea proteins combined with olive or salmon oil affects the hepatic storage and transport of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids by VLDL.

Details

Nutrition & Food Science, vol. 46 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0034-6659

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Food in a Changing Climate
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-725-9

Article
Publication date: 23 March 2010

S. David Brazer, William Rich and Susan A. Ross

The dual purpose of this paper is to determine how superintendents in US school districts work with stakeholders in the decision‐making process and to learn how different choices…

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Abstract

Purpose

The dual purpose of this paper is to determine how superintendents in US school districts work with stakeholders in the decision‐making process and to learn how different choices superintendents make affect decision outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

This multiple case study of three school districts employs qualitative methodology to address specific research questions. Interview and observation data are analyzed using data codes applied to text through NVivo8.

Findings

The paper finds that superintendents respond to accountability pressure by working with committees in different ways, yet all three tend to achieve the strategic decision outcomes they favor. Despite superintendents' substantial efforts to engage in collaborative strategic decision making, collaboration virtually ends once the decision is made and these districts shift into implementation.

Research limitations/implications

The multiple case study approach employed here is useful for understanding the details of strategic decision making, but the results are specific to the school districts studied. Rather than generalizing from these school districts, researchers could generalize to them based on the degree to which they are typical.

Practical implications

Empirical results reported here fill in gaps in the education leadership literature regarding how decisions are made. The tendency of committees to engage in collaborative processes for their own decision making and to issue directives to the wider school district likely places implementation at risk.

Originality/value

Very few studies of decision making address the process from a real‐time perspective, and the handful that do were not conducted in educational settings. This article examines school district decision making as it occurs.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 48 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2003

Ingrid Jeacle

Georgian architecture dominates much of the urban vista of the British Isles and is also evident in many former British colonies. A product of the eighteenth century, it is an…

2944

Abstract

Georgian architecture dominates much of the urban vista of the British Isles and is also evident in many former British colonies. A product of the eighteenth century, it is an architectural style richly embedded in its social and political context. The defining feature of a Georgian building: a perfectly proportioned, standardized and symmetrical façade echoes the balance inherent in Pacioli’s double entry treatise. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of accounting in the construction and widespread adoption of the standard Georgian house. It finds that eighteenth century builders’ price books (“estimators”), disseminating detailed materials and labour costing information on all components of house construction, inherently acted as norms or standards of cost behaviour. Essentially, it is argued, they constituted a form of human accountability which, located within a broader network of diverse actors, culminated in the diffusion of Georgian Classicism.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 3000