No abstract

While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.

This study examines the empowerment of low-power, vulnerable stakeholders of global, complex supply chains as one effective strategy to increase value co-creation and to moderate the vulnerabilities that threaten supply chain resilience. Previous scholars have indicated the necessity of investigating the concept of value co-creation further by including various stakeholder perspectives and suggesting systems of evaluation. This research thus focuses on low-power smallholder farmers within the coffee supply chain by qualitatively evaluating the effectiveness of value co-creation projects. The study also analyzes the extent of development and the nature of empowerment initiatives designed conjointly by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and coffee roasters that are addressed to farmers. The mixed qualitative methodology includes a literature review, interviews, focus groups, and content analysis of 20 value co-creation projects conducted in various developing and emerging coffee-producing countries. The research proposes a theoretical framework employed to conduct focus groups with Brazilian coffee farmers. This framework empirically demonstrates that these farmers are in the process of becoming business partners of the coffee supply chain thanks to various empowerment initiatives, common to most of the analyzed projects, that appear to moderate specific vulnerabilities of the coffee supply chain and therefore benefit supply chain resilience.

This paper investigates whether generation matters in the intention to buy green and sustainable products and, simultaneously, examines the antecedents of green and sustainable buying behaviour among three different generational cohorts (X, Y, and Z). By doing this, the present paper fills the gap regarding studies addressing the relationships between age and sustainable behaviour which have not included actual green and sustainable buying intention, along with the gap regarding studies only focussing on one or two (X and Y) generational cohorts. Drawing on the generational cohort theory, and by using a survey approach involving three samples of specific generations (X, Y, and Z), as well as by testing several hypotheses through ordinary least squares regression models, the paper finds that: (a) age plays a key role in the choice of green and socially friendly products, and (b) environmental concern and perceived consumer effectiveness are strong antecedents of green and sustainable purchase behaviour for all generational cohorts. This is also true for environmental citizenship, but this only applies to generations Y and Z.Finally, collectivism is only an antecedent of sustainable purchase behaviour for generation Z.

Some scholars have emphasized the importance of food tourism in mature and certain emergent economies for growing consumption‐related products (e.g., wine, beer, rice, and tea) and attempts have been made to study tourism levers and threats in developing economies. However, to the best of our knowledge, little research has been conducted on the potential development of tourism activities centered on coffee producers and their farms in equatorial countries to determine whether a coffee tourism market is developing in these locales and if this could enhance these countries’ brand perceptions. Thus, this study explores the antecedents of the perceptions, potentialities, attitudes, and behavior of tourists specifically with regard to coffee tourism and coffee cultivation visits. To achieve our goal, we employ a quantitative method involving a survey of potential tourists. Our findings indicate that while the effects of gender and age on the perceptions of coffee cultivation visits are not significant, the effects of coffee consumption and travel in coffee‐producing countries are positive and significant. These findings help us draw some relevant theoretical and managerial implications.

This study is focused on the issue of agritourism in developing countries, which is a growing phenomenon and an understudied topic by the academic literature. By developing an investigation on coffee tourism based on multiple stakeholder perspectives around the subject, we contribute to further the debate over potentialities and benefits of coffee tourism development. We applied grounded theory methodology and through an iterated process involving literature review, a case study on Costa Rica, interviews with coffee experts, and a survey with European tourists, we designed a theoretical framework of the benefits that coffee tourism can have on both local farmers, who are vulnerable and lowpower stakeholders within the coffee supply chain, and on actual and potential coffee tourists. Our research pointed out that empowerment and cooperation, business diversification, sustainability, and creation of a destination image are the four main benefits for the local communities of farmers and their families and are also perceived to be creating favorable and attracting conditions for tourists.

No abstract

In this paper, we provide early insights about a rethinking of the dominant logic of circular economy (CE) systems, which are described by the literature as still too strongly focused on the circularity of physical resources primarily for economic and environmental benefits. We could observe that the traditional narrative of the CE is being challenged by new strategies that include the relationships among stakeholders and the reallocation of stakeholder roles. This is even more evident in the current health crisis, COVID-19. Circular economy can have higher integrated impacts beyond the mere economic and environmental spheres if it is conceptualized as an open and dynamic loop of relationships, where stakeholders’ power, roles and responsibilities overlap and converge into an emergent joint-value creation process.