The logic of fodder legumes in Africa

This paper explores the long-standing interest in the introduction of fodder legumes as an essential component of mixed farming systems in Africa. The central argument is that because of certain biological characteristics and their association with historic changes in European agricultural, fodder legumes have become endowed with a mantle of absolute goodness. However, while the screening of fodder legumes has been an important theme in agricultural research for over 70 yr, the actual level of use by farmers and livestock keepers in Africa is still insignificant. This analysis leads to a call for a more realistic approach to legume research and promotion. Particular attention is placed on the idea that the bio-physical and socio-economic factors that have previously been seen as constraints to legume adoption should now be viewed as system properties and incorporated into the design specification of technology. Without such an approach the ‘logic of fodder legumes’ will continue to limit the contribution that agricultural research can make in Africa.     

Do farmers’ organizations enhance the welfare of smallholders? Findings from the Mozambican national agricultural survey

Farmers’ organizations have been used as a tool to improve the living conditions of farmers in many countries by improving market access, access to information and capacity to increase production. I employ panel data from Mozambique to investigate how membership in farmers’ organizations impacts smallholders’ welfare. Using difference-in-difference estimators that control for unobservable selection bias, I find a positive impact of membership on the marketed surplus (25%), the value of agricultural production (18%) and on total income (15%, and more than 20% for those whose main source of cash income is the agricultural sector).     

US agricultural research politics: Utopians,utilitarians, copians

Political support for US public agricultural research institutions has come from first users within the industry and from those interested in the long-run consequences of improved agricultural technology. Public funding for agricultural research was initially supported by ‘utopians’, who envisioned technology development as a route to food abundance and reduced labour. Recently, ‘dystopian’ groups have urged reform in the development process and have suggested alternative scenarios for coping with food needs in the twenty-first century. Major contemporary support comes from first users, including regional and commodity producer groups, and also from innovative farmers. These ‘utilitarians’ have also produced a scenario for coping with future food needs. Unsuccessful efforts have been made to reconcile the research agendas of these contrasting scenarios.     

Bundling, Competition and Quality Investment: A Welfare Analysis

We investigate how bundling affects investment in product quality, and derive welfare implications. A monopolist in a primary market competes with a rival in a complementary market. Bundling is the monopolist’s preferred strategy, since it either extracts surplus from the rival’s investment, or forces the rival to provide low quality. Bundling may reduce welfare without foreclosing the rival, but improves welfare when preventing undesirable investment. Since prohibiting bundling is not appropriate, we introduce a price test for bundled offers that preserves efficiencies from both bundling and quality investment, thereby improving welfare relative to the ‘do-nothing’ scenario. We consequently argue that this test should be applied whenever possible.     

Industrial Relations, Social Pacts and Welfare Expenditures: A Cross-national Comparison

Industrial relations and welfare state are interrelated. On the basis of time‐series data for 20 OECD countries, this paper discusses and tests the impact of industrial relations on social expenditures, including ‘social pacts’ as a means of combining wage moderation and welfare state reforms. The findings suggest that industrial relations have an impact mainly through the differential effects of distinct bargaining systems: a minor impact results from their externalities. The major impact ensues from their differing degrees of politicization, leading to higher expenditures in the case of peak‐level arrangements, as compared to more decentralized systems. Hence, the widely assumed potential of social pacts for welfare state reforms has been exaggerated.     

INFORMATIVE ADVERTISING: COMPETITION OR COOPERATION?*

In a duopoly version of the Grossman and Shapiro [1984] model of informative advertising, I examine firms' incentives to semicollude on advertising and the welfare implications thereof. I find that, relative to the noncooperative outcome, semicollusion on advertising is more profitable but is detrimental to welfare. I also find that when the advertising cost is ‘low,’ advertising semicollusion is more harmful to welfare than price semicollusion. These findings are important for competition policy since traditionally, cooperative advertising is not treated in the same light as price collusion.     

Doing well by doing good—case study: ‘Fair & Lovely’ whitening cream

According to the ‘doing well by doing good’ proposition, firms have a corporate social responsibility to achieve some larger social goals, and can do so without a financial sacrifice. This research note empirically examines this proposition by studying in depth the case of ‘Fair & Lovely,’ a skin whitening cream marketed by Unilever in many countries in Asia and Africa, and, in particular, India. Fair & Lovely is indeed doing well; it is a profitable and fast‐growing brand. It is, however, not doing good, and I demonstrate its negative implications for public welfare. I conclude with thoughts on how to reconcile this divergence between private profits and public welfare. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cost-benefit analysis of agricultural research: hybrid maize reconsidered

This paper reviews the use of benefit-cost ratio, and the internal or external rate of return for ex post and ex ante assessment of agricultural research projects. The classic data on hybrid maize are used to illustrate unsatisfactory features of these criteria. In the absence of practicable optimization procedures, it is suggested that the net benefits of projects might be quantified, then judgment exercised on patterns of resource usage as well as on social consequences. Present value of net benefits is sensitive to discount rate and to the base year taken for discounting, but an ‘equivalent annual flow’ is a useful alternative form of expression. It is finally pointed out that the rejection of the high rates of return on agricultural research published in many retrospective studies does not weaken the case for investment in agricultural research which has to be determined by national needs. If, in the past, science was pursued for its own sake, nowadays it is being asked whether national expenditure on scientific research can also be justified in economic terms. Agricultural research would seem to be a particularly suitable area for studying this question since it is largely publicly funded, and agricultural benefits tend to accrue to the community as a whole in its capacity as a consumer of food.     

The kill programme: an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ in a slaughterhouse

It has been argued that ‘dirty work’ is characterised by strong occupational and workgroup cultures. This literature has mainly focused on direct workers, but this article largely attends to indirect ‘dirty’ workers, specifically meat inspectors, through ethnographic research conducted in a UK slaughterhouse. Four arguments are developed; the first is that ‘dirty workers’ may not all display group cohesiveness; indeed, individualisation may be more evident depending upon the technology used, internationalisation and employment conditions. Second, there is complexity and diversity within ‘dirty work’ and even single occupations can contain considerable variety, rendering generalisations problematic. Third, we argue that much greater attention needs to be given to the wider contextual issues affecting ‘dirty work’, specifically changing labour markets, itinerant labour, economic conditions and technologies. Finally, we argue that stigmatised work may become more so if it is equated with the low wage economy and/or undercutting conditions of employment through exploiting migrant labour.     

Buyer power with atomistic upstream entry: Can downstream consolidation increase production and welfare?

This paper investigates the effects of buyer power on entry into an atomistic upstream market and economic welfare. Under reasonable market conditions, we show that industries with a few buyers induce more upstream entry than industries with a larger number of firms. In particular, monopsony can be more conducive to entry and lead to higher social welfare than more fragmented industry structures. This seeming paradox arises because a single buyer better internalizes the positive effects of entry on later-periods’ supply conditions than a collection of firms. This result is relevant in a number of market settings, including markets for specialized labor and processing markets for agricultural products.     

A NICE agenda for IMP research

The IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) Group has engaged in a number of interesting developments in the past few years. Particularly adventurous have been the agendas of ‘pictures’ and sense-making and of time. In this paper we argue that borrowing and combining contemporary foci within social science on narratives, identity, culture and epoché temporality (for which we use the acronym N.I.C.E) allows the construction of an approach that can integrate these IMP agendas into a new research direction for the group that will keep it at the leading edge of marketing research. The purpose of our paper is to introduce and integrate discursive and temporal elements into the understanding and research of business networks to develop a more dynamic and hermeneutic approach. Our purpose is to provide a contribution to the field in exploring how identities are formed within business networks through narrative episodes in interconnecting relationships over time. We bring together all of the elements of a NICE agenda in an attempt to provide an integrative, ‘multi-lens’ theory of business networks focussed within the IMP research tradition. In doing so, we construct meaning as itself networked; sense-making involves relating presently narrated episodes to symbolic and material aspects of other narrative network episodes and events through emplotment and storying.     

Rising food prices and undernourishment: A cross-country inquiry

Households’ welfare in developing countries has been hit by dramatic food prices increases which occurred between 2005 and 2008. In this paper, we adopt a partial equilibrium approach to analyze the short-time effects of a staple food price increase on nutritional attainments, as a measure of welfare. The analysis consists of first approximating complete food-demand systems and then performing household level micro-simulations. Instead of focusing on a single country profile, we provide a more complete snapshot by comparing the evidence through a cross-country assessment made possible by the use of nationally representative household surveys. Comparability is assured by the adoption of the same methodological choices in the treatment of the micro data. We find that food price spikes not only reduce the mean consumption of dietary energy, but also worsen the distribution of food calories, further deteriorating the nutritional status of populations. We also discovered that access to agricultural land plays a significant role in ensuring adequate nutritional attainments in rural areas, and surprisingly, even in urban areas.     

What is dark about the dark-side of business relationships?

Over the last decade or so, the term ‘dark-side’ in referring to business relationships has been increasingly used in academic discourse. Despite such a growth in the number of studies, relatively little critique has been offered among scholars. The fact that effectively managing the dark side of business relationships has potentially greater influence of contributing to inter-organizational success beyond more focus on the positive side necessitates an urgent critique surrounding ‘what is dark about the dark side of business relationships?’ Thus, we aim to provide an overview relating to the ‘dark side’ of business relationships in a quest to generate greater debate on the subject.     

Do development projects crowd-out private sector activities? Evidence from contract farming participation in Northern Ghana

Contract farming (CF) is attractive as a possible private sector-led strategy for improving market coordination and smallholder farmers’ welfare. At the same time, governmental and non-governmental development projects aimed at improving farmers’ welfare continue to be organized. It is not uncommon for CF activities and development projects to take place in the same communities. Yet so far there is no evidence on how development projects affect CF activities. We examine factors affecting entry in and exit from different maize CF schemes in Northern Ghana, and focus specifically on the role of development projects. We find that the presence of agricultural development projects in the community is associated with lower scheme entry, but this not the case for non-agricultural projects. CF exit is more strongly associated with maize projects, but not significantly with non-maize or non-agricultural projects. Thus, our findings do not support concerns of a general moral hazard problem arising from the presence of any development project, but indicate possible negative associations of more closely related agricultural or maize projects with maize CF participation.     

Strategic dalliances as an enabler for discontinuous innovation in slow clockspeed industries: evidence from the oil and gas industry

The concept of ‘strategic dalliances’– defined as non‐committal relationships that companies can ‘dip in and out of,’ or dally with, while simultaneously maintaining longer‐term strategic partnerships with other firms and suppliers – has emerged as a promising strategy by which organizations can create discontinuous innovations. But does this approach work equally well for every sector? Moreover, how can these links be effectively used to foster the process of discontinuous innovation? Toward assessing the role that industry clockspeed plays in the success or failure of strategic dalliances, we provide case study evidence from Twister BV, an upstream oil and gas technology provider, and show that strategic dalliances can be an enabler for the discontinuous innovation process in slow clockspeed industries. Implications for research and practice are discussed, and conclusions from our findings are drawn.     

Impact of information and communication technologies on agricultural households’ welfare in Benin

Information technologies are very important to transform the agricultural sector and improve economic performance. Nevertheless, does the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) improve agricultural households' welfare? To answer this, the study used a nationally representative household survey, the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) carried out in 2017 in Benin. The survey covered a sample of 15 000 households, however, the analysis focused on the 6502 agricultural households. An endogenous switching regression model was employed to control for selection bias and endogeneity issues. Results indicated that the use of ICT increases households' consumption expenditure by 89.6%. This implies that the use of ICT improves agricultural households' welfare. Other variables that affect agricultural households’ welfare include age, marital status, farm size, access to credit, ownership of livestock, membership in a farmer-based organization, and region of residence. Furthermore, the decision to use ICT in agricultural households depends on the level of education, age, sex, marital status, farm size, access to credit, ownership of livestock, membership in a farmer based organization, and location. These findings suggest that policies that promote the use of ICT are key to improving welfare of agricultural households in Benin. These policies must consider demographic, socio-economic, and institutional characteristics of households.     

Generic manufacturing strategies: A conceptual synthesis

This paper provides a conceptual framework that links manufacturing to business unit strategy and focuses on developing the notion of ‘generic manufacturing strategies’ at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. Specifically, an explicit conceptual link is drawn between ‘generic’ business unit strategies and ‘generic’ functional structures in manufacturing. It is proposed that the alternate manufacturing structures implicitly represent ‘generic manufacturing strategies’. Drawing on ideas and concepts from the business strategy literature and manufacturing literature the paper links Porter's generic strategy framework to a complementary manufacturing structure framework that uses three dimensions: process structure complexity, product line complexity, and organizational scope. Viewed from different perspectives, the ‘manufacturing contingency theory’ concepts presented implicitly in the paper can be viewed as an extension of classic research on the interdependence between strategy and structure. The frameworks developed here provide a partial synthesis of knowledge in the broader disciplines of engineering and management without sacrificing academic rigor and practitioner relevance.     

Infrastructure Contracts: Trust and Institutional Updating

This paper discusses trust and trust perceptions in infrastructure contracts and supporting institutions. We focus on perceptions of the trustworthiness of the government purchasers of infrastructure services by the supplying companies and by the governments themselves. In particular, we allow for trust updating and trust misalignments, which may give rise to ‘undertrusting’ and ‘overtrusting’. The core of the paper sets out a game theoretic model of contracts with dynamic adjustment of trust perceptions, which we use to explore the impact of trust misalignment both on economic efficiency (measured by expected welfare) and on investment levels. We explore flexible contracts with and without pre-payments, rigid contracts (which do not allow for post-investment renegotiation), and hybrid contracts. We then compare the efficiency of the flexible contracts to that of hybrid contracts using as a criterion the expected welfare implications of each contract. The model is used to shed light on current issues on the sustainability of private investment infrastructure contracts in developed and in developing countries, including the role of regulatory institutions.     

Does food processing mitigate consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water?

This paper presents results from a field experiment designed to evaluate whether food processing alleviates consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water. Recycled water has emerged as a potentially safe and cost-effective way to replace or supplement traditional irrigation water. However, adoption of recycled water by U.S. agricultural producers has been modest, in part, because of concerns that consumers will be reluctant to accept their products. Our results suggest that simple processing of foods such as drying or liquefying can relieve some of consumers’ concerns about use of recycled irrigation water. While consumers of processed foods are indifferent between irrigation with recycled and conventional water, they are less willing to pay for fresh foods irrigated with recycled water relative to conventional water. We also found that consumers would experience a welfare gain from a labeling policy communicating the use of recycled irrigation water on both processed and fresh foods. Our analysis further reveals that informational nudges that provide consumers with messages about benefits, risks, and both the benefits and risks of using recycled water have no statistically significant effect on consumers’ willingness to pay for fresh and processed foods irrigated with recycled water relative to a no-information control group.     

How to define,identify, and measure societal value

At the same time as the productivity of academics have become more formalized and institutionalized with increasing emphasis on counting publications in high-ranking journals, citations, h-index, and so on, there is an increased demand on academics to contribute to what is referred to as societal value, societal relevance, public value, societal impact, and/or similar phenomena. This editorial is an attempt to provide an overview and hopefully a clarification. We propose to use the concept ‘societal value’ as the overarching concept. This can be achieved only if the research has ‘societal relevance’ and if it has ‘societal impact’. These two sub-components of societal value measure different qualities, but they are dependent on each other and the total absence of one of them results in no societal value. In fact, we shall argue that societal value is the multiplum of societal relevance and societal impact. After defining societal relevance and societal impact, we describe how to identify relevant societal value, as well as how to measure the extent to which an individual or an organization might contribute to societal value. Following that, we suggest a number of ways to increase the societal value of academic research. Finally, we reflect on the role of academic journals and their editors in the societal value agenda.