Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concept of supply chain collaboration and to provide an overall framework that can be used as a conceptual landmark for further empirical research. In addition, the concept is explored in the context of agri---food industry and particularities are identified. Finally, the paper submits empirical evidence from an exploratory case study in the agri---food industry, at the grower---processor interface, and information regarding the way the concept is actually applied in small medium---sized enterprises (SMEs) is presented.Design/methodology/approach: The paper employed case study research by conducting in---depth interviews in the two companies.Findings: Supply chain collaboration concept is of significant importance for the agri---food industry, however, some constraints arise due to the nature of industry's products, and the specific structure of the sector. Subsequently, collaboration in the supply chain is often limited to operational issues and to logistics---related activities. Research limitations/implications:Research is limited to a single case study and further qualitative testing of the conceptual model is needed in order to adjust the model before large scale testing. Practical implications:Case study findings may be transferable to other similar dual relationships at the grower---processor interface. Weaker parts in asymmetric relationships have opportunities to improve their position, altering the dependence balance, by achieving product/process excellence.Originality/value: The paper provides evidence regarding the applicability of the supply chain collaboration concept in the agri---food industry. It takes into consideration not relationships between big multinational companies, but SMEs.Citation: A. Matopoulos, M. Vlachopoulou, V. Manthou, B. Manos, (2007) "A conceptual framework for supply chain collaboration: empirical evidence from the agri---food industry", Supply

The success of mobile services adoption hinges on their ability to cover user needs and attract consumer interest. The extant literature focuses on understanding the factors that might affect consumers' actual adoption of such services through their effect on behavioral intention; these studies are mostly based on behavioral intention theories, such as Technology Acceptance Model, Diffusion of Innovation and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. In this work, new theoretical constructs are combined with existing evidence in order to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as it was initially established by Davis and later further enriched by other researchers. The proposed model includes behavioral intention, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trust, innovativeness, relationship drivers, and functionality. Within this approach, relationship drivers introduce a marketing perspective to the original models of technology adoption by building emotional connections between the users and the mobile services. The hypothesized model is empirically tested using data collected from a survey on m-commerce consumers. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to evaluate the causal model and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model. It is briefly concluded that behavioral in-T. Zarmpou ( ) · V. Saprikis · M. Vlachopoulou 226 T. Zarmpou et al. tention is directly affected by perceived usefulness, innovativeness and relationship drivers; the findings provide interesting insights and useful hints to practitioners and researchers.

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The World Wide Web has become an essential modern tool for people’s daily routine. The fact that it is a convenient means for communication and information search has made it extremely popular. This fact led companies to start using online advertising by creating corporate websites. With the rapid increase in the number of websites, search engines had to come up with a solution of algorithms and programs to qualify the results of a search and provide the users with relevant content to their search. On the other side, developers, in pursuit of the highest rankings in the search engine result pages (SERPs), began to study and observe how search engines work and which factors contribute to higher rankings. The knowledge that has been extracted constituted the base for the creation of the profession of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This paper consists of two parts. The first part aims to perform a literature review of the factors that affect the ranking of websites in the SERPs and to highlight the top factors that contribute to better ranking. To achieve this goal, a collection and analysis of academic papers was conducted. According to our research, 24 website characteristics came up as factors affecting any website’s ranking, with the most references mentioning quality and quantity of backlinks, social media support, keyword in title tag, website structure, website size, loading time, domain age, and keyword density. The second part consists of our research which was conducted manually using the phrases “hotel Athens”, “email marketing”, and “casual shoes”. For each one of these keywords, the first 15 Google results were examined considering the factors found in the literature review. For the measurement of the significance of each factor, the Spearman correlation was calculated and every factor was compared with the ranking of the results individually. The findings of the research showed us that the top factors that contribute to higher rankings are the existence of website SSL certificate as well as keyword in URL, the quantity of backlinks pointing to a website, the text length, and the domain age, which is not perfectly aligned with what the literature review showed us.

Purpose -The study aims to use the inter-relationship between market orientation and e-marketing in order to investigate alternative mechanisms through which both contribute to tourism services performance. Design/methodology/approach -Direct and indirect effects of market orientation on performance are examined using structural equation modelling in a sample of 216 tourism firms. Findings -Market orientation is found to contribute to performance through a dual mechanism in that it contributes both directly and indirectly, through e-marketing, to the relationship. Practical implications -The results indicate that academics and managers should consider the inter-relationships between multiple sources of competitive advantage when looking for explanations of services performance and particularly, tourism services. Originality/value -This is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, that investigates the inter-relationship between market orientation and e-marketing on service performance within the context of travel and tourism services.

Mobile Technology is creating a range of tremendous opportunities and new revenue streams for businesses across industry sectors through the delivery of chargeable mobile products and services via the deployment of innovative value-added solutions that exploit the commercial benefits of mobility. To keep up with the pace of change, companies increasingly want to understand the behavioral attitude of the modern mobile consumer. The aim of this paper is to find out users' reaction towards different parameters that would influence their intention to utilize their mobile devices in order to purchase products and services online focusing on the current Greek reality. The extant literature focuses on understanding the factors that might affect consumers' behavior intention to adopt m-shopping; these studies are mostly based on behavioral intention theories, such as Technology Acceptance Model, Diffusion of Innovation and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. In this study, new theoretical constructs are combined with existing evidence in order to extend the Technology Acceptance Model as it was initially established by Davis and later further enriched by other researchers. The proposed model includes behavioral intention, mobile skillfulness, enjoyment, anxiety, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trust, relationship drivers, and innovativeness.According to [62], the volume of m-commerce is growing at 39 percent each year and was estimated to have reached US$31 billion by 2016. The increased mobile phone usage during daily activities, and new areas of mobile integration such as m-Payments, reveals that the connected-consumer is here to stay [28].Mobile devices have reached critical mass, with a majority of consumers, 80% of global consumers in both developed and high-growth economies, now owning a mobile phone. Still a relatively new application, m-Payment usage is gaining traction globally. 47% of the consumers in emerging markets reported using their phones to make in-store payments. In developed markets, 20% of the consumers reported using their phones to make in-store payments and 30% indicated interest. In developed markets, more northern Europeans use m-Payments for transport whereas central and southern Europe uses them more on food / shopping (lifestyle). One-third of ecommerce's business worldwide is transacted via mobile devices, and the number of smartphone and/or tablet users making purchases on their mobile devices will increase significantly in the years ahead [99].With the consumer shift to mobile-first now fully underway, brands and marketers are constantly seeking to better understand consumer mobile preferences, transforming their mobile operating models, strategies and processes, while answering consumer demand for more personalized and contextually-relevant experiences, as well as instant access to products and services. When in stores, mobile shoppers tend to scan product barcodes and read reviews more often than computer-based shoppers and therefore "require different sales,...

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