Marian Garcia

University of Kent | KENT · Kent Business School

The purpose of the paper is to explore the multi‐dimensional and intersecting nature of proximity to drive innovation performance. Applying a multi‐dimensional proximity framework, the study provides a deeper understanding of the importance of substitution and overlap mechanisms in the relation between geographical and cognitive proximity dimension...

This paper examines how diversity dimensions, namely gender, skills and education, in R&D teams interact to drive innovation. Our research supports the hypothesis that surface-level diversity might negatively affect R&D team performance when interacting with deep-level diversity. Further, the study considers the mediating effect of social capital t...

This paper contributes to the debate on the determinants of business failure and helps to clarify the effect of internal innovation efforts and external knowledge sources in a hazard model of firm exit. Using panel data of manufacturing and service firms in Spain for the period 2009–2015, our findings show that the financial crisis increased the pr...

This paper examines the performance effects associated with different alliance portfolio configurations in terms of geographical location and partner type. Based on these distinctions, the authors hypothesize that more diverse alliance portfolios enable firms to gain and exploit innovation opportunities. Additionally, the mediating effects of R&D h...

This paper examines the role exerted by internal innovation efforts and external knowledge assets as dynamic capabilities to overcome adverse economic conditions. Additionally, we examine the differential impacts of the financial crisis in high and low-tech industries. Using panel data of manufacturing firms in Spain for the period 2006–2013, our r...

Online communities have become an important source for knowledge and new ideas. However, little is known about how to create a compelling virtual experience to inspire individuals to make novel contributions. This examination is crucial as participants' time and attention have become increasingly scarce resources in an ever more crowded online spac...

Diversity in the workplace has attracted significant interest in organisations that want to attract and retain talented employees. Breakthrough innovation requires a wider knowledge base, and organisations increasingly rely on multidisciplinary R&D teams to identify scientific developments that bridge gaps and reduce time to market. However, resear...

Research has demonstrated the value of external linkages to augment in-house R&D efforts; however, very little is known about how managers can operationally leverage the potential benefits of open innovation to create an innovative edge. This paper examines the value of alliance portfolio diversity and whether R&D human capital is the pathway throu...

There is increasing interest in online communities as a channel of innovation for companies. However, research to date has been limited on how to create a compelling virtual experience to inspire contestants to make novel and creative contributions. This examination is critical as the online space grows more crowded. This paper draws from job engag...

Preceding chapters outlined some of the challenges facing Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), from stubborn rural poverty to a crisis in its rapidly changing demographics. The region is facing a predicament over agricultural policy and competitiveness in its agri-food sector. MPCs and the wider region of the Middle East and North African (MENA)...

Despite the exponential rise of social media use in external stakeholder engagement academic research and managerial practice have paid little attention to how it can be used for open innovation across the entire innovation funnel, spanning ideation, R&D, and commercialization. As a result there is little understanding of how companies can organize...

This paper presents a theoretical framework grounded on the Resource Based View (RBV) of the firm to determine the strategic impacts from the technological evolution of food traceability systems. By viewing food traceability systems as unique resources embedded in firms' routines, the research aims to establish the effects of technological innovati...

Online communities have become an important source for knowledge and new ideas. This paper considers the potential of crowdsourcing as a tool for data analysis to address the increasing problems faced by companies in trying to deal with “Big Data”. By exposing the problem to a large number of participants proficient in different analytical techniqu...

A focus on the consumer has been recognized as the key to unlocking new sources of competitive advantage. This paper looks at this new perspective in value creation where personalized consumer experience takes central stage as opposed to a product and firm-centric view. Through an explorative case study, the paper illustrates how a joint innovation...

Despite the exponential rise of social media use in external stakeholder engagement academic research and managerial practice have paid little attention to how it can be used for open innovation across the entire innovation funnel, spanning ideation, R&D, and commercialization. As a result there is little understanding of how companies can organize...

This paper considers open innovation strategies in the food and drink industry and seeks to examine the determinants of openness and the impact of open behaviours by companies on innovation performance. The study clusters food and drink companies in terms of their degree of openness measured across two dimensions, namely, collaboration breadth (bro...

Food safety regulation is a key policy area that has witnessed an increasing alignment of risk and regulation. This paper examines the emergence and operation of co-regulation – a hybrid form of regulation in which public and private actors coordinate their respective regulatory activities – within the increasingly risk-based approaches to food saf...

Purpose Value chain analysis (VCA) can expose strategic and operational misalignments within chains, and the consequential misallocation of resources, and hence opportunities for improvements which create value and economic sustainability. This paper's purpose is to argue why and how VCA needs to integrate the social and environmental aspects of su...

The aim of this paper is to show how supermarket loyalty card data from a panel of over 1.4 million shoppers can be used to analyse the effect of price promotions in a way which can bring significant advantages to retailers and manufacturers when making promotional decisions. The paper demonstrates the significant advantages that loyalty card data...

Marine fish are a common natural resource and the scenario described in Garrett Hardin's famous essay on`Theon`The tragedy of the commons' (Hardin, 1968), which depicts how individuals driven by self-interest tend to destroy the very resource 15 Tracing fish and fish products from ocean to fork using advanced molecular technologies Abstract: The ab...

The objective of this chapter is to estimate, at the firm level, the costs and benefits of upgrading existing traceability systems using stochastic simulation. The proposed changes represent potential improvements to the status quo through the use of advanced diagnostic devices, referred to as 'traceability solutions'. The aim is to estimate the im...

This chapter presents an overview of the recent literature on consumer interest in food labels and the role of traceability information in restoring consumer trust in food chains. Consumers consider food traceability to be an important tool for improving food safety. Although consumers show little understanding of the mechanism underpinning food tr...

Freezing is a very well established food preservation process that produces high-quality nutritious foods that offer the advantage of a long storage life. However, freezing is not suitable for all foods, and freezing does cause physical and chemical changes in many foods that are perceived as reducing the quality of the thawed material. Many innova...

Food safety controls are currently enforced in the UK by a variety of regulatory approaches that considerably differ in their efficiency and effectiveness in achieving social goals of safe food supply and improved consumer confidence. Aim of this study is to establish whether a coregulatory enforcement of these controls is more cost-effective than...

Food supply chains complexity present a real challenge to perform economic evaluation of food traceability systems and their innovation/upgrades. In order to perform a supply chain wide economic evaluation a conceptual framework is developed using food traceability reference models. Reference models allow interaction with chain members’ requirement...

Hypothetical bias is a persistent problem in stated preference studies. We propose and test a method for reducing hypothetical bias based on the cognitive dissonance literature in social psychology. A central element of this literature is that people prefer not to take inconsistent stands and will change their attitudes and behavior to make them co...

This paper proposes a research framework of the design and configuration of agrifood chains where the focal firm is a second-tier cooperative (group of affiliated cooperatives) in order to assess the alignment of (relational) governance structures and coordination mechanisms in these chains with supply chain management (SCM) principles. The theoret...

This paper considers the implementation of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a methodological framework for the development of new food products. This paper focuses on the beef supply chain and develops a horizontal product’s quality deployment as a strategic tool for the implementation of consumer-led product innovation strategies. Difficul...

The paper analyses food safety and quality control in Mediterranean fresh food export products to EU. We focus the analysis on Spain, as one of the leader export countries in fresh agricultural produces, identifying some of the main activities in the supply chain. A comparative analysis was conducted with Tunisia and Turkey, where fieldwork was car...

Countries that accede to the European Union face a complex and urgent task to adopt and implement the Acquis Communautaire on food safety. For the food industries in such countries, this implies that the European Union's standards of food production and processing, food quality and safety have to be met to ensure a high level of consumer protection...

Western society is suffering an increasing risk regarding the food chain for several reasons. Longer geographical distances between producers and consumers, more stakeholders in the supply chain, less capacity of national governments to regulate and protect consumers due to globalisation and the liberalization process, with pressure to innovate and...

The development of new products and how the process is organised and managed within the firm is a key area in management research due to the high failure rate of new products and the consequent waste of limited resources. Developing new products and being innovative requires companies to have deep understanding of the consumer, the market and the e...

During the last years, the research of food quality perception and food safety have been issue of greater attention due to the intense existing debate on aspects related to ethical considerations relative to the new agricultural production techniques, animal welfare concerns, food scares and crises and their impact in consumer’s confidence, that...

This paper presents the results of a large-scale study in the Spanish F&DI aimed to identify the motivators, perceived costs, and benefits of implementing ISO 9000 standards. Results indicate the increasing importance of ISO 9000 standards as a strategic tool in the Spanish F&DI with an increasing number of F&D companies seeking ISO 9000 certificat...

Integration into global markets offers the potential for more rapid growth and poverty reduction for poorer countries. However, market barriers within advanced economies to agricultural imports have made it harder for developing countries to take full advantage of this opportunity. This article examines the impact of increasing demands for food saf...

Empirical studies have underlined the importance of technical trade barriers in the agricultural sector. For organic food products, national differences in standards and certification systems could act as a major non-tariff barrier for exporting countries, particularly developing countries, which could eventually fail to benefit from the increasing...

The objective of this paper is to assess food systems performance in Mediterranean countries to deliver safe food (fresh produce), and to demonstrate the capacity to the satisfaction of private customers and public regulators. To that end, an international benchmarking exercise was developed to assess the quality performance gap in food standards a...

This article reports the results of an industry-level study that seeks to identify empirical regularities between firm strategy, management style, organisational structure and performance in the Spanish fresh fruit and vegetable (fresh produce) industry using strategic group analysis. Groups were formed from key dimensions reflecting firms' strateg...

A magyar friss zöldség- és gyümölcsimportban az ellátási-lánc menedzsment szintje az élenjárónak tekintett UK importőrökhöz képest több területen elmarad. A fogyasztói magatartás (erős árérzékenység), a kiskereskedelmi-láncok erős árversenye elsősorban az árkoordinációt helyezi előtérbe. A nagy vállalati környezeti bizonytalanság (kereslet/kínálat,...

Az élelmiszerbiztonsági és minőségi követelmények szerepe és megítélése a nemzetközi kereskedelemben egyre inkább felértékelődik. A gazdasági növekedéssel párhuzamosan az élelmiszerpiacok - döntően a fejlett országokban - telítetté váltak. Az élelmiszerfogyasztói magatartás összetevőin belül a biztonsági motivációk erősödnek, így nagyobb figyelem m...

Despite a rapid growth in olive oil consumption in recent few years, the culinary use of olive oil is still relatively new to UK consumers, and is still regarded as a set of particular attributes rather than as an everyday cooking oil. To increase sales and attract new users, olive oil needs to be seen by UK consumers as an 'everyday' cooking oil,...

RESUMEN: Este artículo ofrece los resultados de un estudio intra-sectorial destinado a identificar la existencia o no de vínculos entre la estrategia empresarial, el estilo de gestión, la estructura organizativa y la actuación en el sector hortofrutícola español utilizando el análisis de grupos estratégicos como instrumento metodológico. L...

The benefits of collaborative innovation agreements are increasingly recognised in the innovation management literature as open innovation moves from a curiosity and an academic debate to be the driving force in R&D and technological development. Harnessing external knowledge however requires the development and implementation of suitable systems t...

Estudios empíricos han resaltado la importancia de las barreras técnicas comerciales en el sector agrícola. En el comercio internacional de productos ecológicos, diferencias entre estándares y sistemas de certificación podrían actuar como una importante barrera no-arancelaria para los países exportadores, particularmente para los países en vías de...