Assessing the Supply Chain Governance Scenario in the Agri-food Sector: Development of a Measurement Tool

Abstract

Defining a supply chain governance structure able to adapt to the supply chain technical and organizational characteristics positively influences the relationships between the agents and its overall competitiveness. The present study proposes a tool for the evaluation of the impact on the supply chain governance structure resulting from the adoption of sustainability improvement options in the area of organization and management in the agri-food sector. Two different approaches, proposed by (Gereffi et al., 2005) and (Hobbs and Young, 2000) are merged to provide a theoretical framework supporting the tool implementation. Gereffi et al., suggest that supply chains fall into one of five different governance structures, depending on the relative levels of three dimension: complexity of transaction, ability to codify and capabilities in the supply-base. Hobbs and Young link the product characteristics, regulatory and technology aspects to a change in supply chain vertical coordination. The parameters linking the sustainability improvement options to the change in the supply chain governance structure should result by interviewing a panel of experts, considering the difficulty to generalize the influence of the improvement options in different food chains contexts. This difficulty seems to be, to date, the main methodological limitation to the tool application. However, its represent a first step towards the assessment of the existing governance structure and its management.