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Building an aligned and committed value chain

Most food & agribusiness stakeholders (entrepreneurs in particular) agree that it is not only difficult to innovate new products and technology, but also to realize its true market potential. A lack of market and/or supply partnerships, i.e. a robust and committed value chain, is often cited as the reason for the failure to achieve this potential. The key objective of this research is to understand the necessary elements needed for building a committed value chain and to suggest an approach to realize them. Our research shows that partnerships which combine the four key elements of aligned objectives and incentives and shared responsibilities and information are most likely to realize a committed value chain. The research further provide guidelines to developing these elements and achieving committed chains in practice. Finally, we demonstrate the relevance of the suggested approach using two real-life business cases; the first one is a business success story with a committed value chain, while the other is a story of a failure due to the lack of a committed chain

Housing association objectives need to be under the same roof

Evaluating the horizontal alignment of safety management activities through cross-reference of data from safety audits, meetings and investigations

Vertical and horizontal alignment within organizations are seen as prerequisites for meeting strategic objectives and indications of effective management. In the area of safety management, the concept of vertical alignment has been followed through the introduction of hierarchical structures and bidirectional communication, but horizontal alignment has been given little attention. The principal goal of this study was the assessment of horizontal alignment within an aviation organization with the use of data from safety investigations, audits and meetings in order to explore the extent to which (1) causal factors recorded in safety investigation reports comprised topics discussed by safety committees and focus areas of internal safety auditors, and (2) the agendas of safety committees include weak points revealed during safety audits. The study employed qualitative and quantitative analysis of data collected over a 6 years’ period at three organizational levels. The results suggested a low horizontal alignment across the three pairs of the corresponding safety management activities within each organizational level. The findings were attributed to the inadequacy of procedures and lack of a safety information database for consistently sharing safety information, cultural factors and lack of planning for the coordination of safety management activities. The current research comprises a contribution to the literature and practice and introduces a technique to assess the intra-alignment of safety management initiatives within various organizational levels. Future research is needed in order to investigate the association between horizontal alignment of safety management practices and safety performance.