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Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This assignment explores the assumptions and perceptions – both real, and created by the media, marketers and advertisers – surrounding the word “natural” when applied to health foods, vitamins, home remedies and medication. It also examines the anti-science stance taken by many promoters of such products and the appeal that stance holds for targeted consumers. In it an attempt is made to answer the following questions: What is the source of this apparently “antiscience” point of view? How have the media contributed to this type of sentiment? Why do socalled “natural” products hold more appeal to consumers than their synthetic equivalents? Is there a difference between such products? Is the difference real or perceived? Or, is it merely a media construct? Does the popularity of these ideas indicate a growing distrust of science and governments? What effect has the media’s portrayal of science had on peoples’ attitudes to it? And, above all, what have the media done to advance the idea that “natural” is good for you? / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie werkstuk ondersoek die veronderstellings en persepsies – die werklike sowel as dié wat deur die media, bemarkers en adverteerders geskep word – met betrekking tot die woord “natuurlik” wanneer dit toegepas word op gesondheidsvoedsel, vitamiene, boererate en medikasie. Dit bekyk ook die antiwetenskaplike houding wat baie voorstanders van sodanige produkte inneem en die trefkrag wat dié houding op die teikenmark uitoefen. In dié studie is ’n poging aangewend om die volgende vrae te beantwoord: Wat is die oorsprong van hierdie klaarblyklik “antiwetenskaplike” oogpunt? Hoe het die media bygedra tot dié idee? Hoekom is die sogenaamd “natuurlike” produkte soveel aantrekliker vir die gebruiker as hulle sintetiese ekwivalente? Is daar ’n verskil tussen sodanige produkte? Is daar ’n werklike verskil of is dit slegs ‘n persepsie? Of is dit bloot ’n maaksel van die media? Dui die gewildheid van hierdie idees op ’n toenemende gebrek aan vertroue in die wetenskap en die owerhede? Watter uitwerking het die media se voorstelling van die wetenskap op mense se houding ten opsigte daarvan? En, veral, wat het die media gedoen ter bevordering van die idee dat “natuurlik” goed is vir jou?

Despite phenomenal success of the commercial agricultural sector in South Africa and significant progress in integrating smallholders since democratic reforms, food security concerns remain. Recent global increases in food prices have further exacerbated vulnerabilities and made it imperative to examine alternative food production questions in the country. Organic agriculture is identified as one of the sustainable approaches to farming and offers insights towards a paradigm shift in food and nutritional security. Notwithstanding, consumer awareness, knowledge and consumption of organic foods are significantly lower in developing than developed countries. Risks associated with adoption of organic practices need to be explored to address the supply and demand constraints. Similarly, while consumer awareness of organic foods is the first step in developing demand for organic products, it does not necessarily translate to consumption. Therefore it is important to investigate these issues. The objectives of this study were to: (i) describe the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of organic farmers and consumers; (ii) establish the determinants of farmers‘ decision to participate in organic farming distinguishing between the fully-certified organic, partially-certified organic and non-organic farmers; (iii) elicit farmers risk preferences and empirically analyse farmers sources of risk and risk management strategies; (iv) explore consumer awareness, perceptions and attitudes regarding organic products; and (v) identify the factors that influence consumer‘s preference and consumption of organic products. A total of 400 respondents were surveyed, consisting of 200 smallholder farmers in KwaZulu-Natal and 200 consumers in the Eastern Cape. The KwaZulu-Natal study was conducted earlier and identified the following as major sources of risk, lack of consumer awareness of organic products and lack of information among producers about consumer preferences for organic products. This informed the need to undertake a consumer awareness and preference study, in order to inform producers. The Eastern Cape is a bordering province to KwaZulu-Natal with similar socio economic conditions and a major consumer of produce from KwaZulu-Natal. It was also expected that in the intervening period there could have been awareness about the product. An vii indication of its appeal would not be in the consumption of the product by the people who grow it, but by consumers who reside in bordering regions. Producer and household questionnaires were used to record household activities, socio-economic and institutional data as well as household demographics through personal interviews. The Arrow Pratt Absolute Risk Aversion (APARA) coefficient was used to measure the farmer‘s degree of risk aversion and the experimental gambling approach to establish the risk classification. Consumers were also asked about their awareness and knowledge about organics, attitudes and perceptions towards organics, preference and consumption patterns. The ordered probit results indicate that older farmers, who are less risk averse and reside in the sub-ward Ogagwini, Ezigani, and Hwayi were more likely to be certified organic farmers. Similarly, the propensity to adopt organic farming is positively correlated to household size, livestock ownership, asset base and tenure security. The risk analysis indicates that at higher pay-offs most farmers are intermediate to moderately risk-averse, with little variation according to personal characteristics, and that non-organic farmers tend to be more risk averse than fully-certified and partially-certified farmers. In general, price, production and financial risks were perceived as the most important sources of risk. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), seven principal components (PCs) explaining 66.13% of the variation were extracted. Socio economic factors having a significant effect on the various sources of risk are age, gender, education, location, information access and risk taking ability. The most important traditional risk management strategies used by the surveyed farmers are crop diversification, precautionary savings and participating in social networks. There was general awareness of what constituted organic foods with many consumers associating organic foods with health and nutrition, chemical free and produced using indigenous methods of production. However, there was low awareness of organic products among consumers with little or no knowledge of organic certification and standards. According to the logit model the major factors influencing consumer awareness of organic products are: gender, education, employment status, and location of the respondents, person/household member responsible for shopping and the price perception of the decision maker. The discriminant analysis showed that the consumption of organic products is significantly affected by age of the consumer, viii location, person/household member responsible for shopping, consumer awareness of organics, price perception and label trust. The findings from this study provides useful practical insights for policy makers, farm advisers and researchers in the design of effective and efficient policies, programmes and projects which can affect the adoption of organic practices, increase smallholder farmers capacity to manage risk and drive growth in the organic food market.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Please see fulltext for abstract / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sien asb volteks vir opsomming

A Orientação para o Mercado é uma perspectiva estratégica que preza a geração e a disseminação de conhecimento sobre o entorno para satisfazer as necessidades do mercado. Essa satisfação de necessidades de mercado deve ser buscada por meio de estratégias responsivas, que envolvam a participação de diversas funções e níveis organizacionais para geração da inteligência de mercado. Desta forma, a Orientação para o Mercado acontece por uma série de processos interfuncionais que buscam atender às necessidades do mercado, a partir de informações geradas por seus atores: clientes, concorrentes, consumidores, compradores, fornecedores. A Integração Interfuncional, por sua parte, são os esforços e trabalhos nos quais há participação ativa de várias funções ou departamentos de uma organização, buscando gerar melhores resultados a partir da união de percepções, por meio de fatores formais e informais. A literatura apresenta a Integração Interfuncional como um antecedente da Orientação para o Mercado, e uma lista de nove fatores de integração orientados para o mercado. Não obstante, esses estudos não mostram a forma como a Integração Interfuncional é operacionalizada para que as organizações consigam ser orientadas para o mercado. Essa pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar como o processo de integração interfuncional contribui para que as organizações consigam adotar estratégias de Orientação para o Mercado no contexto industrial de alimentos Latino Americano. Para isto, um estudo multicaso foi realizado na Costa Rica e no Brasil, com duas organizações orientadas para o mercado do setor de alimentos e bebidas. Entre junho e outubro de 2016, foram realizadas 24 entrevistas semiestruturadas com gerentes, líderes e supervisores dos departamentos de: marketing, comercial, logística, produção, planejamento, finanças, compras, recursos humanos. Além disso, com o intuito de triangular os dados, foi utilizada uma escala quantitativa para medir o nível de integração interfuncional nos processos estudados de cada organização. Os resultados mostraram que nas organizações são realizados processos de integração orientados para o mercado, isto é, pontos de contato que envolvem mais de duas ou três departamentos na organização com o intuito de melhorar a resposta que a organização oferece ao mercado. Estes processos são: Entrega de produtos e serviço, Lançamento de inovações, Solução de reclamações e projetos de inovação e melhoria interna para o fortalecimento da Orientação para o Mercado. Estes processos precisam de fatores de integração que facilitam o alcance de resultados relacionados à orientação para o mercado, como: responsividade, disseminação de conhecimento de mercado e satisfação do cliente. São apresentadas sete proposições teóricas geradas a partir desta pesquisa, com o intuito de acrescentar elementos ao conhecimento da operacionalização da Orientação para o Mercado dentro das organizações, por meio da Integração Interfuncional. / Market orientation is a strategic perspective looking for knowledge generation and dissemination about context, to satisfy market needs. This market needs satisfaction must be searched through responsive strategies, involving the participation of several functions and hierarchical levels for the generation of market intelligence. Hence, market orientation occurs through interfunctional processes looking for attending market needs through information obtained from: competitors, consumers, customers, shoppers and suppliers. On the other hand interfunctional integration is about the efforts and tasks with active participation of many functions or departments of an organization, looking for the generations of improving results through perceptions union with formal and informal integration factors. Literature shows interfunctional integration as an antecedent for market orientation, and a list of nine market oriented integration factors. Nevertheless, these studies do not show how interfunctional integration is operationalized in the organizations in order to achieve market orientation. This research has the objective of analyzing how interfunctional integration process helps organizations to adopt market orientation strategies, on the Latin American Foods Industrial Sector. To do this, a Multi-Case study was conducted in Costa Rica and Brazil, with two market oriented firms. A total of 24 in depth interviews were realized between June and October 2016, with managers and supervisors from diverse departments such as marketing, commercial, logistics, finance and human resources. Moreover, for triangulation, integration level of the organizations was evaluated though a quantitative scale. Results show that both organizations have market oriented integration processes, as contact points involving more than three departments, to improve responsiveness. These processes are: innovation launch, products and service delivery, claims solution and innovation and improvements projects for a stronger market orientation. These processes require integration factors to help the achievement of results related to market orientation: responsiveness, market intelligence dissemination and customer satisfaction. Seven theoretical propositions are presented, with the aim of increasing elements to the knowledge of the operationalization of market orientation on organizations, through interfunctional integration. / Dissertação (Mestrado)