In order to manage supply chain relationships effectively both aspects - the need to align the actions in order to coordinate the network and the alignment of interests of cooperating actors – are important. Therefore, the coexistence of both cooperative and competitive constructs should be...

Power plays a key role in any chain relationship. In the past large manufacturers such as Unilever and Nestle were the most dominant players in the chain. However, as a result of consolidation among retailers, power has shifted towards retailers. Nowadays such retailers as Wal-Mart, Carrefour,...

Nowadays food products are produced in vertically collaborating networks. The questions of how such chain networks have to be designed and which governance structure fits best have been addressed in several well known articles. However, questions dealing with chain strategy and management are...

As in the agri-food business supply chain networks are evolving in our paper we want to elaborate on managerial questions regarding them. In this context our first aim is to advance the concept of chain management by introducing a more differentiated view. Since many articles highlight the...

Nowadays food products are increasingly produced in supply chain networks that involve numerous firms. Due to their pyramidal-hierarchical structure, such networks possess a focal company that coordinates the network. The managerial task of the focal company is to work out collective strategy...

By referring to Means-End-Chain-Theory, we identified personal values as the actual buying motive. Since these values vary according to the consumer’s cultural background, it is expected that culture-specific values lead to culture-specific consumption patterns. To verify this proposition, we...

This paper investigates the different types of vertical coordination mechanism and the spread institutional arrangements (i.e. contracting) as well as identifies opportunities to expand innovative solutions that help to create and maintain the linkages among the famers and downstream businesses...

Abstract: The means by which fruit and vegetables growers are linked with the upstream partners in the supermarket supply chain are investigated in 15 semi-structured interviews with inter alia the managers of Croatia’s five major supermarket chains. Contrasting to existing literature we find...

The most striking consequence of recent food scares was that food quality is no longer the concern of a single firm, but instead the whole food chain has to work together in order to deliver the new quality. For the agri-food business there is evidence that the majority of these more highly...

This paper investigates various modes of vertical coordination, with the focus on small farm integration in the Romanian dairy chain. It draws on results from a World Bank study based on semi-structured interviews conducted in spring 2009. The findings indicate that large and prosperous dairy...