This paper examines the innovative behavior of agri-food firms located in Central and Eastern Europe. In the literature, empirical analyses on innovation activities of firms focus on various case studies from around the world. However, very few studies explored the innovation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from Central and Eastern Europe’s agri-food sector. The analysis uses the logit estimation method and firm-level data, which are obtained from ERBD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS). Results suggest that firms that spent some proportion of their financial budget on research and development (R&D), had workforce training programs and bought fixed assets are more likely to launch product, process, organizational and marketing innovations.

La tesi di dottorato fornisce una ricostruzione, sotto il profilo civilistico, del ruolo di standard e certificazioni nel mercato agro-alimentare europeo. Nel primo capitolo viene ricostruita la natura delle certificazioni e la loro evoluzione da strumento di competitività delle imprese a mezzo per colmare le asimmetrie informative presenti nel mercato. Nel secondo capitolo viene analizzato il “Sistema Qualità”, nel quale sono coinvolti quattro attori fondamentali: l’ente di normazione, l’ente di accreditamento, il certificatore e, infine, l’impresa che richiede la certificazione, e sono analizzate le varie problematiche sottese al suo funzionamento. Nella terza parte si è indagata la natura giuridica del contratto di certificazione di qualità e la rilevanza delle certificazioni di qualità sotto il profilo civilistico. Infine, nella quarta parte, si sono analizzate le conseguenze giuridiche scaturenti da una certificazione non veritiera, con particolare riguardo alla possibilità o meno di configurare una responsabilità extra-contrattuale del certificatore per i danni causati a consumatori e terzi in generale a seguito del rilascio di una certificazione non veritiera. / The dissertation examines the role of certification marks in the european food- sector. The first chapter analyses the function of certification and their development from instruments of competitive advantages within firms to a tool for fulfilling the information asymmetry between business and consumer. The second chapter deals with the “Quality System”: a system which involves four players: the standardization body, the accreditation body, the certification body and, finally, the producer seeking the certification. The third chapter analyses the certification activity and the obligations of the parties of the contract. The last chapter deals with the tort liability of certification bodies.

Au delà de la gestion de la qualité, la traçabilité répond à des enjeux stratégiques pour les entreprises. L'évolution technologique propice à une informatisation intensive et la reconfiguration du paysage logistique amènent à considérer la traçabilité, non plus seulement à l'échelle de l'entreprise mais de la supply chain dont le périmètre mouvant ne cesse de s'élargir. Notre recherche s'est ainsi intéressée à la traçabilité totale des supply chains. Définie comme la capacité à assurer le long des supply chains et si possible en temps réel, le suivi des flux physiques couplés aux flux d'informations, des flux financiers, des ressources et des activités, la traçabilité totale apparaît comme un support de pilotage des supply chains. Notre travail découle d'une question de recherche centrale, «quels facteurs expliquent et influencent la concrétisation de la traçabilité totale des supply chains ?», et prend appui sur le secteur agroalimentaire en France. L'analyse est conduite au niveau de l'entreprise (décision) et de la supply chain (mise en oeuvre), elle se base sur une méthodologie qualitative. Ce travail contribue à donner corps au concept de traçabilité totale en identifiant six dimensions fondamentales. Il propose un cadre d'analyse sur les motivations des entreprises à déployer une traçabilité totale et les éléments qui influencent sa mise en oeuvre. Il ressort ainsi que la traçabilité totale est une préoccupation présente dans les entreprises, mais que leurs intérêts sont variés. Des facteurs, favorables (ou non) à sa mise en oeuvre, sont aussi repérés. Ils sont liés aux caractéristiques de l'entreprise, de la supply chain et aux relations inter-organisationnelles. / Traceability is a relevant and up-to-date issue for companies. The main challenges for companies are not only related to quality, they are of concern from a strategic point of view. Changes in technology and the globalization have contributed to develop traceability of supply chains. Indeed, traceability is to be achieved not only at the company level, but also for supply chains, which have been extended. The research focuses of « total traceability of supply chains ». The total traceability can be defined as the ability to monitor, along supply chains and if possible in real time, physical flows and related information and financial flows, as well as resources and activities. The question we tried to answer was: « what are the factors influencing and explaining the implementation of a total traceability of supply chains? ». The research is based on the case of french agri-food sector. We conducted a twofold qualitative analyses; enterprise and supply chain level because the decision is a choice of the company, and the total traceability is organized at the supply chain level. The main contribution is to provide a conceptual framework of the total traceability concept. Six dimensions characterize the concept. Furthermore, we present an analytical framework to identify what are the enablers and which factors explain the implementation of total traceability. It appears that total traceability is a current interest in every interviewed company, but their motivations are diverse. The identified factors that explain the implementation are related to the characteristics of the company, of the supply chain, of the inter-organizational relationships between the actors.

Increasingly, firms like Patagonia, IKEA, General Mills, or Barilla actively seek to understand their interdependence with nature, build innovative capabilities, and generate more radical shifts toward sustainability. This creates exciting opportunities to investigate exactly how these companies obtain knowledge about ecosystem dynamics and processes and how they use it both to cope with climate change or declining ecosystem resilience and contribute to maintain or even strengthen ecosystems. Despite the considerable potential to advance research on organizational strategy and corporate sustainability, the notion of ‘ecological knowledge’ has yet to enter the scholarly work of management and business organization in a substantive manner. At present, we know almost nothing about the processes, mechanisms, and routines that enable an organization to, first, recognize the value of such knowledge and to, then, systematically access, co-create, integrate and utilize such knowledge into its broader knowledge and resource base. My dissertation attempts to fill this gap and opens up new directions for research on the role of ecological knowledge in corporate sustainability management. More specifically, I ask: What are the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize ecological knowledge with current organizational knowledge and strategies? I link strategic and organization-focused concepts of knowledge and the perspective of absorptive capacity with the notion of ecological knowledge from modern ecology, especially from the social-ecological systems literature, to shed light on the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize new ecological knowledge into their operational and strategic decision making. I adopt a qualitative, emergent, and inductive strategy drawing on a grounded research approach to gain an in-depth, cross-validated, and processual understanding of the mechanisms through which organizations can promote and enhance ecosystem health including biodiversity. I undertook my study on the organic agriculture sector, a sub-sector of the modern agriculture and agri-food industry. I collected data from nineteen agriculture and agri-food organizations based in British Columbia (BC), the westernmost province of Canada, using multiple data sources including in-depth interviews, observations, company documents, reports, newspaper articles and field reports. Based on my analysis, I develop a grounded theory about the processes through which organizations can successfully deepen their ecological knowledge and then utilize this knowledge to more sustainably manage their relationships with nature and contribute to protecting or even strengthening ecosystem functionality. With my dissertation, I address the call from scholars in Organization and the Natural Environment (ONE) and Corporate Sustainability for more transdisciplinary cross-fertilization as an essential approach to building compelling new theory and models in the field. First, my analysis offers a more fine-grained understanding of the types, components, dimensions, and characteristics of ecological knowledge. Second, my analysis uncovers a micro-level account of the processes by which individuals as critical actors identify, evaluate and make sense of the organization-environment interrelationships across various scales of time and space. I also identify the multiple personal characteristics of individual actors that influence these processes in various stages and circumstances. Third, my study offers insights into the factors that can strengthen an organization’s relational capacity to build mutual trust and collaboration with holders of ecological knowledge. Fourth, it sheds light on how firms engage with and motivate multiple community stakeholders in building a collaborative process of mutual learning, knowledge sharing, and knowledge co-creation to build joint capacity for coping successfully with many complex challenges of sustainability, thus contributing to the wellbeing of the entire social-ecological system. Collectively, these contributions provide a deeper and more holistic understanding of the processes of acquiring and co-creating ecological knowledge that can allow an organization to transition successfully towards greater ecological sustainability. My dissertation also offers numerous practically relevant insights for businesses facing the challenges of economic, social and environmental sustainability, as well as specific guidance on how companies can protect or enhance their supply of natural capital and contribute toward greater stability of the broader human-nature systems in which they are embedded. / Graduate / 2023-11-15

[ES] La presente tesis doctoral se plantea sobre la necesidad de buscar alternativas a los medios de pago y cobros internacionales en el sector agroalimentario y su viabilidad normativa, que permitan automatizar las operaciones de comercio internacional y reúnan todos los beneficios mitigantes del riesgo y de la falta de seguridad de cobro para las partes. La acelerada revolución tecnológica en el campo de las telecomunicaciones y de la informática, se ha empleado como instrumento en el comercio internacional agroalimentario, no sólo en la fase de negociación y elaboración del contrato de compraventa internacional, sino, en la forma de pago. Por ello, se hace necesario considerar y valorar la viabilidad jurídica que ofrecen los nuevos instrumentos tecnológicos en las transacciones comerciales internacionales. La reciente aparición de la tecnología denominada cadena de bloques (blockchains) y los contratos inteligentes (smart contracts) ofrecen una alternativa sostenible en el sector primario y es por ello que, despierta un creciente interés objeto de nuestro estudio. Desde este objetivo, y tras no pocas dudas, se presenta una revisión de ambos conceptos y su relación con el uso de nuevos medios de pago virtuales (criptomonedas). En este sentido, dichos conceptos toman relevancia en la investigación en virtud de la propuesta de un novedoso crédito documentario automatizado en la red blockchain como mecanismo de pago internacional y cuya moneda de pago es la criptomoneda. Ello proporciona a los agentes comerciales, la posibilidad de realizar pagos jurídicamente válidos, eficaces y automáticos, sin la intervención de ninguna autoridad bancaria central o institución de crédito. La investigación trata temas actuales como lo son la compraventa internacional, los medios de pago internacionales, con base en el crédito documentario y los nuevos desafíos tecnológicos, evidenciando la importancia de la Comisión de las Naciones Unidas para el Derecho Mercantil Internacional (UNCITRAL) como fuente reguladora del Derecho Comercial Internacional. Con el estudio se concluye la posibilidad de uso del dinero electrónico y las monedas virtuales para una operación de compraventa internacional en el sector primario como alternativa a los mecanismos tradicionales, dotando a ésta de la funcionalidad y la seguridad jurídica con el uso de un crédito documentario en la red Blockchain en formatos estandarizados y automatizados de contratación, a pesar de su escasa o nula regulación internacional. / [CA] La presente tesis doctoral se plantea sobre la necesidad de buscar alternativas a los medios de pago y cobros internacionales en el sector agroalimentario y su viabilidad normativa, que permitan automatizar las operaciones de comercio internacional y reúnan todos los beneficios mitigantes del riesgo y de la falta de seguridad de cobro para las partes. La acelerada revolución tecnológica en el campo de las telecomunicaciones y de la informática, se ha empleado como instrumento en el comercio internacional agroalimentario, no sólo en la fase de negociación y elaboración del contrato de compraventa internacional, sino, en la forma de pago. Por ello, se hace necesario considerar y valorar la viabilidad jurídica que ofrecen los nuevos instrumentos tecnológicos en las transacciones comerciales internacionales. La reciente aparición de la tecnología denominada cadena de bloques (blockchains) y los contratos inteligentes (smart contracts) ofrecen una alternativa sostenible en el sector primario y es por ello que, despierta un creciente interés objeto de nuestro estudio. Desde este objetivo, y tras no pocas dudas, se presenta una revisión de ambos conceptos y su relación con el uso de nuevos medios de pago virtuales (criptomonedas). En este sentido, dichos conceptos toman relevancia en la investigación en virtud de la propuesta de un novedoso crédito documentario automatizado en la red blockchain como mecanismo de pago internacional y cuya moneda de pago es la criptomoneda. Ello proporciona a los agentes comerciales, la posibilidad de realizar pagos jurídicamente válidos, eficaces y automáticos, sin la intervención de ninguna autoridad bancaria central o institución de crédito. La investigación trata temas actuales como lo son la compraventa internacional, los medios de pago internacionales, con base en el crédito documentario y los nuevos desafíos tecnológicos, evidenciando la importancia de la Comisión de las Naciones Unidas para el Derecho Mercantil Internacional (UNCITRAL) como fuente reguladora del Derecho Comercial Internacional. Con el estudio se concluye la posibilidad de uso del dinero electrónico y las monedas virtuales para una operación de compraventa internacional en el sector primario como alternativa a los mecanismos tradicionales, dotando a ésta de la funcionalidad y la seguridad jurídica con el uso de un crédito documentario en la red Blockchain en formatos estandarizados y automatizados de contratación, a pesar de su escasa o nula regulación internacional. / [EN] This doctoral thesis is based on the need to seek alternatives to international payment and collection methods in the agri-food sector and its regulatory feasibility, which allow automating international trade operations and bring together all the mitigating benefits of risk and the lack of collection security for the parties. The accelerated technological revolution in the field of telecommunications and information technology has been used as an instrument in international agri-food trade, not only in the negotiation and preparation phase of the international sales contract, but also in the form of payment. For this reason, it is necessary to consider and assess the legal viability offered by the new technological instruments in international commercial transactions. The recent appearance of the technology called blockchain and smart contracts offer a sustainable alternative in the primary sector and that is why it arouses a growing interest in our study. From this objective, and after many doubts, a review of both concepts and their relationship with the use of new virtual means of payment (cryptocurrencies) is presented. In this sense, these concepts become relevant in the investigation by virtue of the proposal of a novel automated documentary credit in the blockchain network as an international payment mechanism and whose payment currency is cryptocurrency. This provides commercial agents with the possibility of making legally valid, efficient and automatic payments, without the intervention of any central banking authority or credit institution. The research deals with current issues such as international sales, international means of payment, based on documentary credit and new technological challenges, evidencing the importance of UNCITRAL as a regulatory source of International Commercial Law. The study concludes the possibility of using electronic money and virtual currencies for an international sale operation in the primary sector as an alternative to traditional mechanisms, providing it with functionality and legal security with the use of a documentary credit in the Blockchain network in standardized and automated contracting formats, despite its little or no international regulation. / Bonet Juan, MA. (2022). Aplicación del derecho internacional en los mecanismos de medios de cobro y pago e ítems relacionados con el comercio internacional [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/186004 / TESIS