Governance of the Agri-food Chains as a Vector of Credibility for Quality Signalization in Europe

For many agricultural products, the quality of the final products strongly depends on different stages of the productive chain. This stresses the importance of relationships between quality signal owners and suppliers in the vertical chain. Based on a New Institutional Economics analysis, the goal of this paper is twofold: (i) to design a framework to study the links between quality signaling, coordination in the supply chains and the institutional environment, (ii) to conduct a comparative analysis to identify, compare and explain the modes of organization implemented for the governance of different quality signs. The general hypothesis is that, in order to assure the credibility of a quality signal, there must be an efficient alignment between quality characteristics and governance of the supply chain. To test this general hypothesis, we have conducted a comparative analysis of 42 case studies in 3 sectors (processed meat, cheese, fruit and vegetable sectors) from 7 European countries. This diversity allows us to compare the organizations designed to govern different quality signals in different institutional environments and to test the matching between quality signals and governance structures.