Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item The Role of Agriculture Cooperatives in Green Agri-Food Value Chains in China: Cases in Shandong Province(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2025-08-14) Liu Y; Garnevska E; Shadbolt N; El Bilali HWhile escalating environment and food safety challenges underscore the need for sustainable agri-food systems, promoting green agri-food production provides a promising pathway. The green agri-food value chain integrates green agri-food production with coordinated value-adding activities across the value chain. In developing such value chains, agricultural cooperatives emerge as a key player. This research integrates sustainability and value chain theories, aiming to study the role of China’s cooperatives in enabling green production and green value chains. It used qualitative methodology and interviews with management and members of three green vegetable cooperatives in Shandong Province, China, to offer an initial examination into this research area. The findings reveal that cooperatives play an important role in the green vegetable value chain and have a different level of vertical integration, with some having control over the whole value chain from input supply to retail. They also provide essential input, technical, and market support to enable green vegetable production and facilitate various value-adding activities. The study offers valuable insights into recommendations for enhancing value addition and facilitating green value chains. It also holds practical implications for practitioners and policymakers to strengthen cooperative development in China as an important intermediary for advancing agriculture sustainability.Item Environmental Satisfaction, Residential Satisfaction, and Place Attachment: The Cases of Long-Term Residents in Rural and Urban Areas in China(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2019-11-15) Chen NC; Hall CM; Yu K; Qian CDrawing on literature from environmental psychology and urban planning, this study evaluates the relationships between environmental satisfaction, residential satisfaction, and place attachment in the context of both rural and urban areas in China. A field survey was carried out with 490 valid questionnaires collected in rural areas and 420 from urban areas in China. Partial least squares path modeling was applied for testing the relationships between the three main constructs. The results indicate a significant mediating role of residential satisfaction between environmental satisfaction and place attachment, suggesting the importance of residential satisfaction in residents' attachment-building to place. This study also found significant differences between rural and urban contexts with the mediating effect of residential satisfaction being absent from the rural sample.Item Chair–CEO age dissimilarity and firm value – evidence from China(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025-06-16) Hu Q; Bhuiyan MBU; Houqe MNPurpose: This study examines how age dissimilarity between the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer influences firm value. We also explore whether board monitoring intensity changes with the age dissimilarity between the Chair and CEO and whether it moderates the relationship between their age dissimilarity and firm value. Design/methodology/approach: We test our hypothesis by analysing 37,200 firm-year observations from 3,870 unique Chinese Stock Exchange-listed firms (2001–2021) using OLS, 2SLS Heckman and PSM methods. Findings: We find that higher age dissimilarity in firms is associated with decreased firm value. Additionally, increased age dissimilarity between the Chair and CEO is linked to lower board meeting frequency (low board monitoring intensity), negatively impacting firm value. This effect is more pronounced in firms with higher agency conflict, low concentration, dispersed ownership and non-SOE. Our findings are consistent and robust across alternative measures and endogeneity tests. Research limitations/implications: Our findings stress the policy importance of increasing board meeting frequency to enhance internal monitoring, mitigating potential negative impacts on firm value from age dissimilarity in top leadership roles. Originality/value: Our novel research emphasizes the unique influence of age diversity in top management roles (Chair and CEO) on firm strategy, coordination and communication – an understudied aspect of corporate governance. Our findings clarify the distinct impact of this factor on overall firm value.Item Online or not online: the impact of business owner’s risk preference on the adoption of e-business(Springer Nature, 2023-09-21) Yang W; Wang L; Zhang XThe significant growth of internet users has driven businesses to develop their capacity in e-commerce and meet the increasing demand for e-consumption, e-services, and e-business. To gain the benefits of e-business, firms may choose to extend or transit their offline-operated businesses to online or hybrid modes. Opportunities are accompanied by risks in this process. Therefore, it is important to understand how business owners’ financial risk preferences affect their choice of business operation models, namely, online and offline operations. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2017 and 2019, this study examined the impacts of business owners’ risk preferences on e-business adoption, considering social insurance as a moderator on the relationship between risk effect and online business operation. In addition, we used heterogeneity examination to test for regional differences between rural and urban areas. Our results show that, compared to high-risk takers, low-risk takers are less likely to choose online or hybrid businesses; and having social insurance reduces the effect of risk preference on adopting e-business. This finding indicates social insurance may provide financial security to business owners with low-risk preferences and makes them more likely to adopt online business, whilst it may distort adoption incentives for high- and medium-risk groups. Results of the heterogeneity examination suggest a discrepancy in the risk preference effect on the adoption of e-business between the rural and urban areas: the impact of risk preference is found to be significantly higher on businesses in the rural area than those in the urban area.Item To Achieve Carbon Neutrality, What Do Individual Residents Say? A Case Study of Yunnan Province of China Based on Spatial Analysis(SAGE Publishing, 2024-10-01) Yang W; Lu Y; Wang L; Xu YThis study aims to explore factors that affect individual residents’ behaviors contributing to reducing carbon emissions (low-carbon behaviors), based on the empirical analysis of the choice of adoption and the extent of adoption of low-carbon practices, such as using low-carbon transportation and energy-saving, in Kunming, China. We use spatial econometric regression models to consider positive spillover of low-carbon behaviors amongst residents as people tend to obtain knowledge and learn good actions from those located nearby. The results show the existence of positive spillover effects of low-carbon behaviors across several types of low-carbon practices. We find that location effects, such as access to parks, residents’ knowledge of carbon neutrality, and science communications in the local community are the most important determinants of residents’ low-carbon behaviors. The findings may provide insights into designing supporting policies to incentivize residents’ low-carbon behaviors and contribute to the pathway toward carbon neutrality from the micro-perspective.Item Can citrus farmers earn more from selling online(Elsevier B.V on behalf of the Economic Society of Australia, Queensland, 2023-12) Zhang H; Ma W; Li J; Yang WOnline sales are essential for linking smallholder farmers to a wide range of markets. In essence, online sales not only influence the income received from selling a specific product but also generate spillover effects on total farm income and household income because they promote the sales of other agricultural products and generate regional off-farm work opportunities (e.g. product sorting, packaging, and delivery). Taking citrus as an example, this study explores the income effects of online sales with a focus on net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income. We used an endogenous treatment regression model to address the self-selection bias issues of online sales and estimated data collected from 926 citrus-producing households in Jiangxi Province, China. The results show that online citrus sales boost income growth in rural China. Specifically, online sales significantly increased net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income by 5,000 Yuan/capita, 8,580 Yuan/capita, and 17,830 Yuan/capita, respectively. The income-enhancing effects of online sales are greater for female household heads than they are for their male counterparts. Our findings emphasise the importance of promoting online sales to improve rural household welfare.Item Evaluating front-of-pack voluntary well-being messaging for milk powders targeting Chinese older adults: A hedonic price model(Elsevier Inc and Fass Inc on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association, 2023-12) Chen A; Moradi S; Hort JThis study examines the price structure of milk powders targeting Chinese older adults, with special emphasis on the assessment of front-of-pack (FOP) voluntary well-being messaging (VWM), using a hedonic price model. Data of 456 sets of product prices and attributes were collected from official stores at online shops, TMALL.com and JD.com, in China. Prices were recorded 10 d before, during, and 10 d after a major online promotion event (November 11, 2021). A hedonic price model was employed to decompose explicit market prices into individual product attributes implicit prices, including essential attributes, such as milk source, brand origin, package material, and nutritional composition, and nonessential attributes conveyed by FOP VWM, regarding nutrition, ingredients, health, sensory qualities, and certification. Results showed that above and beyond essential attributes, nonessential attributes conveyed by FOP VWM were significantly associated with price. Specifically, significant price premiums were associated with dietary fiber claims (+12.7%), no added sugar (+19.0%) and potential health benefits (+19.3%), as nutrition-, ingredient-, and health-related FOP VWM respectively. However, nutrition claims regarding calcium and fat were negatively associated with price (-21.2% and -8.0%, respectively, when they were presented). Additionally, nutrition claims for protein and vitamin D, introducing farm environment, referring to imported ingredients, declaring specific ingredients added, describing sensory characterizes and providing certificates on FOP were not significantly associated with price in this market. These findings provide manufacturers with information to better differentiate their products by producing and advertising attributes most valued by consumers.Item Economic burden of patients with leading cancers in China: a cost-of-illness study.(BioMed Central Ltd, 2024-09-27) Wu Z; Yu Y; Xie F; Chen Q; Cao Z; Chen S; Liu GGBACKGROUND: China accounts for 24% of newly diagnosed cancer cases and 30% of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Comprehensive analyses of the economic burden on patients across different cancer treatment phases, based on empirical data, are lacking. This study aims to estimate the financial burden borne by patients and analyze the cost compositions of the leading cancers with the highest number of new cases in China. METHODS: This cross-sectional cost-of-illness study analyzed patients diagnosed with lung, breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, or gastric cancer, identified through electronic health records (EHRs) from 84 hospitals across 17 provinces in China. Patients completed any one of the initial treatment phase, follow-up phase, and relapse/metastasis phase were recruited by trained attending physicians through a stratified sampling procedure to ensure enough cases for each cancer progression stage and cancer treatment phase. Direct and indirect costs by treatment phase were collected from the EHRs and self-reported surveys. We estimated per case cost for each type of cancer, and employed subgroup analyses and multiple linear regression models to explore cost drivers. RESULTS: We recruited a total of 13,745 cancer patients across three treatment phases. The relapse/metastasis phase incurred the highest per case costs, varying from $8,890 to $14,572, while the follow-up phase was the least costly, ranging from $1,840 to $4,431. Being in the relapse/metastasis phase and having an advanced clinical stage of cancer at diagnosis were associated with significantly higher cost, while patients with low socioeconomic status borne lower costs. CONCLUSIONS: There were substantial financial burden on patients with six leading cancers in China. Health policymakers should emphasize comprehensive healthcare coverage for marginalized populations such as the uninsured, less educated, and those living in underdeveloped regions.Item Challenges and considerations of applying nature-based solutions in low- And middle-income countries in Southeast and East Asia(IWA Publishing, 2020-12-10) Lechner AM; Gomes RL; Rodrigues L; Ashfold MJ; Selvam SB; Wong EP; Raymond CM; Zieritz A; Sing KW; Moug P; Billa L; Sagala S; Cheshmehzangi A; Lourdes K; Azhar B; Sanusi R; Ives CD; Tang Y-T; Tan DT; Chan FKS; Nath TK; Sabarudin NAB; Metcalfe SE; Gulsrud NM; Schuerch M; Campos-Arceiz A; Macklin MG; Gibbins CLow- and middle-income countries in Southeast and East Asia face a range of challenges related to the rapid pace of urbanisation in the region, the scale of pollution, climate change, loss of ecosystem services and associated difficulties for ecological restoration. Possible pathways towards a more sustainable future lie in the applications of nature-based solutions (NBS). However, there is relatively little literature on the application of NBS in the region, particularly Southeast Asia. In this paper we address this gap by assessing the socio-ecological challenges to the application of NBS in the region – one of the most globally biodiverse. We first provide an overview and background on NBS and its underpinnings in biodiversity and ecosystem services. We then present a typology describing five unique challenges for the application of NBS in the region: (1) Characteristics of urbanisation; (2) Biophysical environmental and climatic context; (3) Environmental risks and challenges for restoration; (4) Human nature relationships and conflicts; and (5) Policy and governance context. Exploiting the opportunities through South-South and North-South collaboration to address the challenges of NBS in Southeast and East Asia needs to be a priority for government, planners and academics.Item Whole-genome resequencing of the native sheep provides insights into the microevolution and identifies genes associated with reproduction traits(BioMed Central Ltd, 2023-07-11) Zhu M; Yang Y; Yang H; Zhao Z; Zhang H; Blair HT; Zheng W; Wang M; Fang C; Yu Q; Zhou H; Qi HBACKGROUND: Sheep genomes undergo numerous genes losses, gains and mutation that generates genome variability among breeds of the same species after long time natural and artificial selection. However, the microevolution of native sheep in northwest China remains elusive. Our aim was to compare the genomes and relevant reproductive traits of four sheep breeds from different climatic environments, to unveil the selection challenges that this species cope with, and the microevolutionary differences in sheep genomes. Here, we resequenced the genomes of 4 representative sheep breeds in northwest China, including Kazakh sheep and Duolang sheep of native breeds, and Hu sheep and Suffolk sheep of exotic breeds with different reproductive characteristics. RESULTS: We found that these four breeds had a similar expansion experience from ~ 10,000 to 1,000,000 years ago. In the past 10,000 years, the selection intensity of the four breeds was inconsistent, resulting in differences in reproductive traits. We explored the sheep variome and selection signatures by FST and θπ. The genomic regions containing genes associated with different reproductive traits that may be potential targets for breeding and selection were detected. Furthermore, non-synonymous mutations in a set of plausible candidate genes and significant differences in their allele frequency distributions across breeds with different reproductive characteristics were found. We identified PAK1, CYP19A1 and PER1 as a likely causal gene for seasonal reproduction in native sheep through qPCR, Western blot and ELISA analyses. Also, the haplotype frequencies of 3 tested gene regions related to reproduction were significantly different among four sheep breeds. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide insights into the microevolution of native sheep and valuable genomic information for identifying genes associated with important reproductive traits in sheep.