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Despite modern retail formats, for many cultures, informal markets (street markets, farmers’ markets, or wet markets in Asia), fleas, and bazaars still remain an important part of life. The purpose of this paper is to provide further insight into the characteristics of informal retailers, and to explain their growth and longevity in markets.

In order to explore what attracts customers to informal retail markets, a survey conducted on the sample of Croatian consumers was carried out.

The results show that consumers point out fresh, affordable, and healthy products and relationships with vendors as the main advantages, while weather conditions, unattractive food, and crowds are the disadvantages and barriers of purchasing at informal markets.

The results presented give directions for various subjects on how to increase the popularity of informal markets.

This paper addresses consumers’ perception of informal markets in the context of an emerging country. With the literature review, and the results of the explorative survey, it contributes to the knowledge on this type of retailing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged supply chains (SCs) around the globe unprecedentedly. This study aims to gain insights on the impacts of the pandemic on SCs and their management under consideration of different regional contexts on a global scale.

A Delphi study collects the expertise of global SC academics on the SC vulnerabilities and the measures for responding to disruptions, improving resilience, and restoring operations. Data from three polls are systematically analyzed by content, frequency, and cluster analysis.

The study identifies and ranks ten major issues related to SC vulnerabilities and management strategies for specific SC processes and geographical regions. Detected differences among the considered geographical regions point towards particular challenges and call for specific measures to integrate regional contingencies into SC management. In a regional comparison, China and Iran as well as Africa clearly stand out, but also Europe/North America, India/Pakistan, and Brazil show geographical particularities.

The responses are collected against the COVID-19 pandemic, while the findings show differences among the regions thereby arguing for taking regional contingencies into account in managing SCs.

SC resilience is a core aim, which was emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings provide insights and challenges that managers would have to meet in the different regions covered.

This paper contributes to existing knowledge on SC risks and SC resilience in context to extreme situations. Given that events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, will become more frequent in the future due to climate change and geopolitical tensions, insights into how to manage SCs under extreme conditions and into regional differences are crucial.

The food industry and its distribution solutions often lie at the center of sustainability-related arguments. However, little is known about the dynamic role of business capabilities for sustainable transformations in the context of local food distribution. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate how dynamic capabilities drive sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) business practices in short food supply chains (SFSCs) through the professionalization and expansion of online distribution channels.

The present study analyzes sustainability-related practices at six online distribution channels selling local food products in Germany and Austria. By applying a cross-case study and theory-elaboration approach, the study analyzes empirical data derived from these businesses and provides insights into how dynamic capabilities can facilitate SSCM practices within SFSCs. Hereby, potential pathways for a sustainable transformation in this industry context are deduced through abductive reasoning.

The empirical findings provide evidence that supply chain orientation, coordination, innovation practices and strategies are highly relevant for SFSCs seeking to reach upscaling effects in regional markets. However, because SFSCs may not be able to reach mass markets without weakening their own sustainability performance, the present study recommends addressing sustainability inefficiencies in the region and developing further expansion potentials through replication in other regions. In this approach, related and necessary SSCM dynamic capabilities were identified and validated based on the empirical findings.

Although SFSCs include sustainability aspects at their core – particularly regarding resource usage, environmental friendliness and social-standard assurance – missing distribution-related capabilities limit growth such that these businesses often remain in a niche. To address this issue, the study builds on dynamic capabilities theory by identifying and describing core SSCM practices and capabilities; moreover, this study is among the first to elaborate empirically on the use of dynamic capabilities theory in this specific industry context.

This paper identifies, evaluates and structures research that focuses on “collaboration” (C), “trust” (T) and “performance” (P) in the agri-food supply chain (AFSC) and reveals its intellectual foundation. It aims to synthesize research published over a period of 18 years (from 2003 to the beginning of 2020) and provide a platform for practitioners and researchers in their efforts to identify the existing state of work, gaps in current research and future directions in the area of collaboration–trust–performance (CTP) in the AFSC.

Prior to carrying out a bibliometric analysis (BA), literature search was performed, identifying 69 related papers focused on CTP in the AFSC. The content of the papers was further analysed in a systematic literature review (SLR) with regard to the subject area, theoretical lenses, research methodology, supply chain (SC) category and other relevant categories.

CTP in the AFSC are based on a relationship marketing and operations management fundament but show specific particularities. AFSCM is a multi-dimensional design task, and collaboration is considered a necessity, whereas trust significantly affects the AFSC effectiveness. The paper also develops a conceptual CTP model, which shows the interrelations between all identified construct variables, where the authors were able to see also bi-directional relations. Furthermore, the paper presents viable future research opportunities, e.g. focus on organic food chains or multi-actor analysis.

Results of the conducted BA refer to the CTP discussion within a preselected number of peer-reviewed academic articles, which are provided by the WoS CC (Web of Science Core Collection) database.

CTP measurements within the AFSC context are a relevant subject with increasing academic interest in the area of agricultural economics as well as operations and supply chain management (SCM). Therefore, further studies are necessary to develop the related theory and ascertain the practical implications of collaboration, trust and performance among members in the consistently complex AFSC.

CTP have been recognized as important factors for designing a sustainable SCM strategy, particularly in the case of the AFSC. However, although previous studies have addressed the AFSC, there is insufficient knowledge regarding all three pillars (CTP) and how they enable successful AFSCM. The originality of this paper lies in systematically mapping the intellectual base of CTP research and providing path forward for research in AFSCM.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) research is so far dominated by studies focusing on manufacturing companies, while research on retailers is missing. The purpose of this study is to assess the interaction between green in-store activities (environment-related infrastructure and retail in-store processes), GSCM and environmental and economic performance outcomes.

The paper builds on empirical evidence gathered from 190 responses by Croatian food retailers to a self-administered survey. The identified relationships in the conceptual model are tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results reveal a positive relation between green in-store activities and GSCM in food retailing regarding environmental and economic performance. The relevance of these relationships accrues from the positive association between GSCM and food retailers’ environmental performance, which in turn drives economic performance. It is noteworthy that green supply chain practices drive environmental and then also economic performance.

The study extends the application of GSCM to retailing and, therefore, broadens its scope. However, the data collected are based on one country and, thus, should be extended to assess the impact of green retailing practices in the supply chain on environmental and economic performance in other countries.

This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first empirical analysis on the relationship between green in-store activities and GSCM in the context of food retail. This important link to customers has rarely been explored. Further, the representative sample of food retailers in Croatia is unique as generally data from Central and Eastern European countries are still rare. Finally, the operationalization of GSCM practices into three constructs as green logistics, green purchasing and cooperation with suppliers’ offers conceptual contributions to the GSCM field.

A country image is a generic construct created by a wide range of factors as representative products, national characteristics, economic and political backgrounds, history and traditions. In times when environmental protection and performance have become two of the world’s most important priorities, such a general view of a particular country should include green dimensions as well. Literature review suggests a lack of literature on the coexistence of country image and green orientation. The goal of the chapter is to bridge the gap in the research literature about the green image of a country and to explore the level of awareness of its existence among tourists. Therefore, after secondary (desk) research, primary (field) research in two stages was conducted. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in both stages. Firstly, group interviews were conducted among tourists in the capital of Croatia. Then, a survey was carried out with 250 tourists who shared their perception of the environmental practices in Croatia. The research results indicate that Croatia has a green image mostly because of its unspoiled nature and natural food assortment. However, the implementation of environmentally responsible activities is lacking, especially those related to waste and energy management, as well as fundamental knowledge and experience of Croatian citizens on how ecological awareness contributes to higher quality of life.