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This case is used in Darden's required first-year course, “Strategic Thinking and Action.”

In 2015, Steve and Heidi Crandall, the founders of Devils Backbone Brewing, LLC (DBB), were looking back on eight years of unanticipated success and significant growth. DBB had created a destination, a brand, and beer that drew people from all over, and it was the largest craft brewery in its region. The entire community, not just loyal beer drinkers, had supported DBB. In addition to funding and zoning accommodations, so many local residents had built their own economic lives around what had been their “little brewery that could.”

But the success had brought challenges, specifically in terms of growth. DBB was consistently not meeting demand in its existing markets and was receiving complaints about out-of-stocks. The Crandalls and their team had to figure out how to grow with, or preferably ahead of, demand for DBB's product. Should DBB build further capacity despite an already exhausted line of credit? Should it employ a contract brewer despite the local authenticity concerns such a move might stir up? Or should it just keep trying to manage business within its existing footprint, comfortably serving its loyal customer base?

With increasing wine consumption in Armenia, both residents and inbound tourists have become attractive target groups for wine sales, which are stimulated by wine tourism activities. The objective of this explorative study is to shed light on the potential of wine tourism for rural development in Armenia.

The paper starts with a structured and interdisciplinary literature review. Based on qualitative surveys among local tour operators and wine producers, and complemented by three expert interviews, the offer of wine tourism activities in Armenia will then be analyzed.

Each of the surveyed wine producers offers wine tourism activities. Foreign tourists know little about the Armenian wine industry, however, and are interested in cultural experiences and Armenia’s breathtaking nature. Armenian wine producers need to understand the expectations of their target groups to develop or adapt their offers successfully.

Due to the explorative nature of this study, the sample size of the surveyed wineries and tour operators is small and hence not representative. In addition, only local tour operators were surveyed. The sample should be extended to include foreign tour operators and more wineries in future research projects.

Whereas first studies on the structure and competitiveness of the Armenian wine sector exist, there is no survey on the general wine tourism in Armenia and its potential to foster rural development.

The purpose of this paper is to enrich the knowledge about blockchain (BC) technology implementation in the agri-food industry by providing an interpretive framework of the key marketing opportunities and challenges, related to the adoption of BC for Geographical Indication (GI) products.

The study adopts an explorative qualitative research design through the cognitive mapping technique applied to the cognition of different market players involved in agri-food BC projects: farmers, distributors, companies and consultancies.

This study presents a comprehensive examination of the marketing impacts of BC across various marketing objectives, including product enhancement, brand positioning, consumer relationships, market access and supply chain relationships. It highlights the capability of BC to facilitate data-enabled ecosystems within the agri-food sector, involving supply chain actors and control agencies. Additionally, the study sheds light on the challenges (technological, collaborative, political, financial and organizational) associated with the implementation of BC in the marketing of agri-food products.

This work provides a comprehensive examination of the relevance of BC in the marketing activities of firms, particularly in the context of quality food products. It highlights the main areas of impact and effects and emphasizes the complexity of the phenomenon, which extends beyond its technical issues. Furthermore, it offers a systematic exploration of the challenges associated with the adoption of BC in marketing activities, thus contributing to a broader understanding of the implications of BC adoption in companies' marketing strategies.

The practical implications for this work addresses both GI companies and policy makers. Implications for companies relate to the market benefits associated with the implementation of BC, which allow further strengthening of market positioning, relationships of trust within the supply chain and integration between physical and digital market channels. The study also systematizes the challenges underlying the implementation of BC projects. The implications for policy makers regard the role they have to play in BC projects at regulatory, financial and policy levels.

Studies focusing on BC applications in marketing are still limited and characterized by a very narrow perspective (especially in the food industry). This study contributes to the conceptual design of the marketing applications of BC in the agri-food sector. The value of the study also lies in having framed the marketing impacts of BC in a holistic perspective, along with the technological and non-technological challenges that are related to the integration of BC in marketing strategy and operations.

The qualitative approach was applied the discover the optimum answers to the research objectives, which are (1) to understand the cultural and hedonistic characteristics of the (Lanna) Songkran festival; and (2) to examine the dilemma between cultural rituals and hedonistic activity for tourism.

This study used a case study of the Songkran festival in Chiang Mai to examine the dilemma between cultural rituals and hedonism for tourism, which brings lost or misperceived cultural values and identities. The semi-structured interview (SSI) with senior locals and participant observation during the festival was conducted in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to obtain the in-depth phenomena of the existing celebration pattern at the festival.

The study findings show three crucial phenomena that explain characteristics of unsynchronized cultural rituals and hedonistic activities for tourism: (1) the parallel phenomenon between cultural values and celebration practice, (2) the movement of local culture and(3) the hedonistic characteristics of the festival.

The study extends the knowledge on the interplay phenomena between cultural festivals and tourism; also, the involved stakeholders, such as local communities, public sectors and private sectors, can use the study findings in creating policies for using cultural festivals to promote a destination and urban economic development that will minimise cultural values distort while increase tourism economic values.

This study was conducted qualitatively, including SSIs and participant observation at the Songkran festival in Chiang Mai. The study findings were analysed, based on the empirical data, into significant themes representing the characteristics of dilemma phenomena within the festival.

This article focuses on the assessment of entrepreneurship competence by selected vocational teachers in Italy. The exploratory research question addresses the extent to which entrepreneurship assessments are competence based, and the research seeks to identify fully fledged assessment programmes with both a formative and summative component, and the use of assessment rubrics. It also explores the extent to which entrepreneurship competence is referred to in school documentation and later assessed, and the tools and strategies used for such assessment.

This case study is part of a larger European research project promoted by Cedefop; in Italy it focused on six selected vocational IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeship schemes. It used a wide range of instruments to ensure triangulation and multiple perspectives: analysed policy documents and undertook online interviews with experts and policy makers. At VET providers' premises it deployed: analysis of school documents; observations of learning environments; interviews and focus groups with (in schools) teachers, directors and vice directors, learners and alumni (in companies) instructors, company tutors and employers, apprentices and alumni.

Assessment tasks were rarely embedded within fully fledged assessment programmes involving both formative and summative tasks, and assessment rubric for grading. Most of the time, entrepreneurship programmes lacked self-assessment, peer assessment and structured feedback and did not involve learners in the assessment process. Some instructors coached the students, but undertook no clear formative assessment. These findings suggest institutions have a testing culture with regard to assessment, at the level of both policy and practice. In most cases, entrepreneurship competence was not directly assessed, and learning outcomes were only loosely related to entrepreneurship.

One limitation concerned the selection of the VET providers: these were chosen not on a casual basis, but because they ran programmes that were relevant to the development of entrepreneurship competence.

At the policy level, there is a need for new guidelines on competence development and assessment in VET, guidelines that are more aligned with educational research on competence development. To ensure the development of entrepreneurship competence, educators need in-service training and a community of practice.

So far, the literature has concentrated on entrepreneurship education at the tertiary level. Little is known about how VET instructors assess entrepreneurship competence. This study updates the picture of policy and practice in Italy, illustrating how entrepreneurship competence is developed in selected IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeships.

This largely conceptual study aims to draw from the author’s experience of conversations with Svalbard’s educators, lessons for international higher education institutions’ engagement with climate change education and thinking for non-specialists.

In situ discussions with Svalbard’s educators informed the theoretical work of the author towards the development of conceptual conclusions. The theoretical frame used – “Red Biocentrism” – draws on both radical left and green thought to posit an emplaced, materialist understanding of author’s, participants’ and place’s intra-related contributions.

That, insofar as universities represent nodes in an ethical ecology, they have a capacity to realise that which is obvious in Svalbard – their role as embassies for their learning places, generative of spokespeople or ambassadors.

There is sparse published research into the work of Svalbard’s climate educators, as a pedagogical project undertaken under such extreme and rapidly changing environmental conditions. This study represents the first to reflect on what can be learnt from the educators of Svalbard by Universities elsewhere.

This study aimed to detect the relationships between mindfulness and events participation, and then between the later and psychological empowerment.

The proposed model's underlying hypotheses were empirically tested with data collected through an online survey addressed to a convenience sample of frequent leisure participants (n = 199). The authors applied the structural equation model (SEM) to confirm the aforementioned relationships. To assess the adequacy of the psychometric properties of the measures, the authors performed a confirmatory factor analysis of the measurement model, with a maximum likelihood estimation method.

Under the effects of the lockdown period environment, the results express a positive relationship between a mindful state of mind – related to observation/attention – and the yearnings and perceptions about the participation in events. This relationship for consistency was proven to be moderated by the perception of the participation importance to the individual subjective well-being/mental health. Due to participation insights, there was a positive effect on psychological empowerment, supporting the relationship that had been hypothesized.

The authors propose and test a new model that contributes to the theory and examines how mindfulness behavior can effect more alluring and intense participation in events and what are the anticipated outcomes in terms of psychological empowerment.

This study aims to investigate the impact of consumer ethnocentrism on consumers' evaluation of blockchain-based traceability information. It also examined how the use of quick response (QR) codes for traceability affects consumers' evaluation of traceable food products.

An online choice experiment was conducted to determine consumers' evaluation of the blockchain-based traceability of Feta cheese with a quota sample of 715 Greek consumers. Pearson bivariate correlation and mean comparison were used to examine the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and QR use behaviour. Random parameter logit models were employed to examine consumers’ valuation of the examined attributes and interaction terms.

The results show that ethnocentric consumers are willing to pay more for blockchain-based traceability information. Ethnocentric consumers tend to scan QR codes with traceability information. Spending more time reading traceability information embedded in QR codes does not lead to a higher willingness-to-pay (WTP) for traceable food products.

The findings suggest that patriotic marketing messages can draw consumers' attention to blockchain-based traceability information. The modest WTP for and low familiarity with blockchain-based traceability systems raise the need for educating consumers regarding the benefits of blockchain in traceability systems.

This is the first study to provide timely empirical evidence of a positive WTP for blockchain-based traceability information for a processed dairy product. This study is the first to attempt to distinguish the effects of the intention to scan QR codes and reading information embedded in QR codes on consumers’ valuation of food attributes.