G. Baourakis

• PhD Food Marketing
• Managing Director at CIHEAM - Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania

Οι συγγραφείς του βιβλίου «Συνεταιριστική Επιχειρηματικότητα» παρέχουν στον αναγνώστη μια εξαιρετική ακαδημαϊκή ανάλυση των πιο σχετικών με το αντικείμενο θεωριών, αλλά, κυρίως, μεταδίδουν την πλούσια πρακτική εμπειρία του συνεταιριστικού γίγνεσθαι μέσω της συγκέντρωσης και της παράθεσης επικαιροποιημένων γνώσεων του κλάδου. Παρατίθεται ένα ευρύ φά...

This book offers comprehensive insights into the latest developments in biodiversity, sustainability, and agri-food supply chains, fostering an informed approach to policymaking decisions in the agriculture and agri-food industry within the global economy.

The adoption of healthy and sustainable diets, and the transition to sustainable food systems is of principal importance in order to counteract the double burden of climate change and non-communicable diseases. The Mediterranean diet (MD) has been widely recognized as a biodiversity and healthy nutrition resource to support sustainable development...

This study reviews the current information on the crop value chains that support biodiversity and analyses their critical endogenous and exogeneous factors. The study uses a systematic literature review approach.

Several economic analyses confirm that the development of a national economy is historically linked to the success of domestic production and the skills of local producers to compete effectively on international markets while maintaining a significant level of sustainability for their resources. The objective of this study is to analyse the competi...

In the present economic, political, societal and environmental landscape, which is dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergence of challenges and issues that demand immediate and urgent responses is more intense than ever. Policymakers, international organizations, governmental and non-governmental institutions around the globe are seeking eff...

The present study explored COVID-19 outbreak impacts on the food system in terms of agro-food production, distribution networks efficiency, and emerging food consumption patterns according to food experts' perspectives. Individual level data were selected from a sample of 59 executive managers of different domains representing agro-food businesses,...

The Mediterranean diet is considered one of the healthier and most balanced dietary models currently in existence. Different studies suggest that it is environmentally friendly: it combines low greenhouse gas emissions, low demand of soil water and less deforestation. Climate change can be mitigated through what consumers decide to eat. This articl...

This paper is a comprehensive and complete research on bank failures that we examine from many different perspectives. It compromises a comprehensive dataset of ~60,000 observations for an extensive period (2005–2014) and examines different prediction horizons prior to failure. Moreover, we explore whether the addition of variables related to the d...

Broadly consumed dietary patterns, such as the European and Western ones, are exerting pressures on biodiversity both in Europe and globally, and shifting toward a sustainable dietary pattern has thus become a must. This paper constitutes a preliminary communication of the results of a research project on the issue. In this study, the pressures of...

Greece is one of the countries blessed by astonishing features of nature where tourism is predominately thought of as one of the most powerful sectors that a country could lean on, a key component seeking every pinch of development effort. Under this scope and for the sake of helping to sustain the Greek tourism industry growth, this study is dedic...

The book Operational Research in Agriculture and Tourism contains 10 chapters. The first two chapters cover topics related to agriculture and the emphasis needed for the adoption of technological innovation in the field. The next two chapters refer to the food and beverage (F&B) industry. The following four chapters cover topics related to the tour...

Purpose This paper aims to get a better insight into the Cretan consumers’ behaviour towards alternative distribution channels (ADCs) of fresh fruits and vegetables. The main factors affecting the purchase decision are investigated and recorded, demonstrating the value of alternative channels in distributing agro-food products. Design/methodology/...

Unarguably, preserving the ecosystem, securing sustainability and understanding the dynamics of agro-food chains have all become vital policy objectives with several interlinked dimensions. The main objectives of this book are to draw the attention of researchers, policymakers and businesspeople to the relation between agro-food chains and the ecos...

The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the financial performance of hotel enterprises in Crete from a Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) perspective. Crete is one of the most developed tourist destinations in the Mediterranean basin and the hotel sector plays a major role constituting the main driving power towards economic growth. I...

Crete features many protected areas of exceptional natural beauty that attract thousands of visitors every season. Many local enterprises count on that touristic activity to increase their revenues. One of the most important and well known protected areas of Crete is the Samaria National Park. It was established in 1962 and since then it has earned...

In this study, the authors analyse the socioeconomic, political and geographic conditions that are conducive of cooperative microfinance initiatives in comparison with other organizational forms in Africa. They distinguish three types of institutions (MFIs) and business models: cooperatives/credit unions, non-profit or non-governmental (NGOs and co...

Nowadays, consumers’ quality awareness and health consciousness drive the agri-food market towards a consumer-response food market. As a result, many producers and firms in the Euro-Mediterranean countries have opted for several quality and origin assurance schemes. Among them, a prevalent role is played by the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)...

Football in Greece, as well as in whole world, exceeds the limits of simply the most commercial and widespread sport, becoming additionally a major issue in the political agenda. This can easily become understood, observing the impact of crucial football events (Mundial, Euro Cup, Champion’s League etc.) in world level. Besides the above events, ea...

Up to now we have discussed the cooperative model and have laid emphasis on the board and the management. In the present chapter, we draw attention to the role of the members.

Cooperatives are not ideological cliques trying to detach themselves from the world. In simple terms, they are merely associations of people who establish a business to provide themselves with certain services in order to thrive in the global market.

A cooperative enterprise, as we have seen, must operate in the same free market as other firms with different ownership structures.

The cooperative is operating in a market (or free market) environment. The cooperative is both an alliance and a corporate vehicle that offers the individual participants greater opportunities in that market.

In the previous chapters, we have discussed various aspects of cooperation, with an emphasis on business cooperatives. We have shown that the cooperative has been studied from many points of view. In this book we have laid emphasis on the work by economists, public choice theorists, sociologists and philosophers of the civil society. However import...

The cooperative was characterized in the first chapter as an alliance designed to achieve certain objectives for the participants—the individual cooperators—within the context of (free) markets.

At the core of any cooperative there are various interests. How do members and managers weigh the importance of those interests? There is a special relationship between the cooperative enterprise and its member-owners. As an introduction, we contrast a public stock company with an imaginary investment cooperative. We shall then see three relationsh...

There is no universally recognized economic theory of cooperation. In this part of the book, we review number of the main issues highlighted in the cooperative literature.

Farmers, as the first link in the agri-food value chain, are key in assuring its sustainability. Farmers’ behavior and attitudes towards implementing sustainable farm practices is influenced by their perceptions of risk affecting the farm and their household, either directly or indirectly. In this study, we elicit farmers’ perceived risk perception...

A microfinance institution (MFI) is an organisation which provides financial services to clients who are poorer and more vulnerable than traditional bank clients. Relevant studies have pointed out the importance of the macroeconomic environment for MFI outreach, additionally to institution-specific characteristics. MFIs attempt to fulfill a dual ob...

Nowadays the consumer's health consciousness drives the agri-food market. Superfoods or foods with health-related claims, including organic and functional foods, are the latest trend in the food industry. Since entering the market these products are rapidly gaining a remarkable market share worldwide. In this article, the authors conducted a survey...

This book provides an overview of recent advances in Integrated Community-Managed Development (ICMD) as an innovative strategy for the community-based development of local institutions in order to achieve lasting poverty reduction and empowerment. The original approach presented here to improving the lives and livelihoods of the poor takes a critic...

This book presents a study of cooperatives as a two-layer entrepreneurial model, and analyzes cooperative enterprises. Above all, it explores how inducements (from the firm) and contributions (from its members, in their respective roles) are aligned, and seeks to answer the question of what this means for managing each cooperative as a firm as well...

We kindly invite all participants of the 7h International Symposium and 29th National Conference on Operational Research, held in Chania, Greece from 14 to 16 June 2018 to submit their research papers at the Special Issue “Information and Communications Technology in Agriculture and Tourism” of the Int. J. of Decision Support Systems, Inderscience....

Gastronomic tourism is becoming an important part of the tourism industry. However, there are very few studies on food tourists’ behaviour comparing with those about tourists’ behaviour in general. The current study provides an analysis of tourists’ behaviour based on the perceived value (PV) and the satisfaction (ST) to predict the intention to re...

Nowadays the consumer's health consciousness drives the agri-food market. Superfoods or foods with health-related claims, including organic and functional foods, are the latest trend in the food industry. Since entering the market these products are rapidly gaining a remarkable market share worldwide. In this article, the authors conducted a survey...

The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the financial performance of hotel enterprises in Crete from a Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) perspective. Crete is one of the most developed tourist destinations in the Mediterranean basin and the hotel sector plays a major role constituting the main driving power towards economic growth. I...

Olive oil is one of the products closely related to the Mediterranean basin and it represents one of the most important agricultural activities. Greece represents the third largest producer of olive oil in Europe. This research attempts to explore the olive oil preferences of tourists who have visited the island of Crete. The approach involved coll...

Crete features many protected areas of exceptional natural beauty that attract thousands of visitors every season. Many local enterprises count on that touristic activity to increase their revenues. One of the most important and well known protected areas of Crete is the Samaria National Park. It was established in 1962 and since then it has earned...

The International Journal of Food and Beverage Manufacturing and Business Models (IJFBMBM) provides a valuable forum for creative and scholarly work on agriculture and food marketing, food engineering, consumer behavior and food product development. The main objectives of this journal are to present innovative research within the food and beverage...

In this study, the authors analyse the socioeconomic, political and geographic conditions that are conducive of cooperative microfinance initiatives in comparison with other organizational forms in Africa. They distinguish three types of institutions (MFIs) and business models: cooperatives/credit unions, non-profit or non-governmental (NGOs and co...

The development of special interest groups may alter the structure of incentives and the direction of a society's development. Governments are systematically influenced by special interest groups. The slowdown in the adoption of new technologies, the non-adjustment of the economy, and the focus on the distribution of the “pie†rather than the en...

This chapter provides a brief description of the main characteristics of the agricultural sectors in the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), together with a short retrospective overview of the evolution of national agro-food policies, in an attempt to highlight the changes that occurred in the agro-food policy agendas in recent years. In this r...

This book focuses on the use of farm level, micro- and macro-data of cooperative systems and networks in developing new robust, reliable and coherent modeling tools for agricultural and environmental policy analysis. The efficacy of public intervention on agriculture is largely determined by the existence of reliable information on the effects of p...

We study the drivers of the market exchange of special investment shares among member-investors within New Generation Cooperatives (NGCs). Specifically, we examine the influence that the economic behavior and several other characteristics of member-investors have on the supply and demand of delivery rights equity shares within a NGC engaged in the...

This paper aims to identify regional properties of product categories and consumer perception and preferences of relevant grocery retailing product categories, in the Greek Island of Crete and the three cities. The dataset for this research consists of a sample of 2,000 consumers, distributed in three major cities in Crete. Ten product hyper-catego...

This synthesised report aims at providing a comparative view of agricultural sectors and policies in the MPC, based on the individual country reports and expanding the gathered information. It offers an overall depiction of the whole MPC region under investigation and a comparative perspective, along with a summary of the key country characteristic...

WP2T2 "A review of the national and international agro-food policies and institutions in the Mediterranean Region" - Deliverable D09 "Report on global and sectorial policies in the MPC’s and in the EU". Projet FP7 : SUSTAINMED - Sustainable agri-food systems and rural development in the Mediterranean Partner Countries.

This paper offers information about the progress made by the Sustainmed project on accomplishing the objectives of the Work Package 3 concerning (i) the identification of MPC’s major trade partners and competitors in the international agro-food marketplace, including the analysis of MPCs’ comparative advantage in agricultural trade, trade specialis...

The aim of this study is to develop and implement a methodology for the evaluation of tourism performance of some Mediterranean countries. In this paper, the multicriteria method PROMETHEE II, based on outranking relations, will be used to evaluate ten Mediterranean countries, namely Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Tun...

This study focuses on the identification of Dutch consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for organic olive oil. The analysis and results of a large-scale consumer survey carried out in The Netherlands are presented. The survey was carried out in grocery malls in the 5 largest Dutch cities. From the collected data an ordered logit regression analysis w...

Within the new bank regulatory context, the assessment of the credit risk of financial institutions is an important issue for supervising authorities and investors. This study explores the possibility of a developing risk assessment model for financial institutions using a multicriteria classification method. The analysis is based on publicly avail...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to segment the US food industry market through a network representation of the market. Design/methodology/approach A tangible technique is implemented to study the structural properties of food industry market. A systematic procedure is described to interpret the US food industry sector market data as a graph, whic...

The paper examines the economic implications of Bulgaria and Romania recent accession to the EU. The analysis has been carried out by using the GTAP model and database. In a first attempt, the effects of the removal of formal trade barriers and the adoption of common external tariffs are considered; not surprisingly, we find that associated impacts...

The "œcotton issue" has been a topic of several academic discussions for trade policy analysts. However the design of trade and agricultural policy in the EU and the USA has become a politically sensitive matter throughout the last five years. This study utilizing the Agricultural Trade Policy Simulation Model (ATPSM) aims to gain insights into the...

This study aims to investigate the impact of different product characteristics, such as price, quality/taste, image/reputation, advertising, packaging, and colour on consumers’ purchasing behaviour. An overview of the global, as well as of the Greek and Dutch juice markets, is presented. A comparison of consumers’ preferences and attitudes is perfo...

Supply chains for fresh fruit and vegetables, are going through considerable re-shaping phase worldwide. This study analyses the trends which impose those changes and focuses mainly at the wholesale and export trading of the Euro-Mediterranean supply chain (namely, on how fruit and vegetable producer, wholesale and export firms react to the market...

We study the price formation process for delivery rights traded within New Gen- eration Cooperatives (NGCs). More specifically, we attempt to explore the influ- ence of several factors on supply (i.e., price of a share) and demand (i.e., quantity of delivery rights demanded) sides of the market exchange of delivery rights within AVEBE, a NGC engage...

This paper examines and analyzes the impacts of the reformed CAP as well as the decisions of the new round of negotiations for the olive oil and cotton sectors in the European Union. The aim of this study is to estimate the changes in supply (agricultural supply plus intermediate demand and final production), demand (consumption), price and stock f...

Associating the Balkans with "backwardness" is highly common in specialty literature. However, more recently - ten years after the Dayton Peace Agreement - a new paradigm is dominating discussions about the future of the Balkans: a possible EU membership for the countries of the region. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the current economi...

Cooperatives constitute a "creation" of the social necessity for equal opportunities in the production and disposal of products. Nevertheless, the development and redistributive role of cooperatives in Crete has become open to controversy throughout the recent years, due to the problems of development and management that the co-operative organizati...

This is one of a number of case study reports by OECD on place-based policies and rural development, contributing to an OECD Thematic Review.

Food economists and financial researchers have long been preoccupied by the issue of evaluating the performance of agri-food firms. As the financial restructuring of the agri-business sector during the past two decades or so reflects sweeping changes that have occurred worldwide, questions have arisen regarding the application of the most suitable...

Greece is a major international olive oil producer. Olive oil varieties constitute the major crops for Greek farmers growing certain oriental olive oil varieties. Currently, the olive oil sector in Greece is undergoing substantial changes and the response of farmers and consumers to this will be a vital factor in its success. Throughout the applica...

This chapter examines the evaluation of economic and financial viability of marketing cooperatives (MCs) and Investor Owned Firms (IOFs). The analysis covers the periods from 1993-98 for MCs and from 1994-98 for IOFs. The data is based on the financial characteristics of 10 MCs and 2 IOFs established and operating in Crete (the largest Greek island...