Management Summary Research Study “Exports or Public Procurement to Resist in the Post-pandemic World? How E-commerce Appeases This Food and Beverage SMEs Ambidextrous Dilemma”

Purpose –Food and beverage (F&B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must diversify their markets and obtain predictable sources of revenues to withstand difficult and volatile periods such as the post-pandemic geopolitical scenario, recently burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand, another strand of the literature suggests that public procurement could be considered a great source of income, enabling solid contracts, revenues and cash-flow stability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the role of public procurement, the adoption of e-commerce platforms and their interactions in affecting the exporting performances of SMEs operating in the F&B sector.

Design/methodology/approach – The study retrieves data from 2,186 Italian F&B manufacturing SMEs relying on Marg_o by Cribis database. Therefore, it conducts a structured equational model (SEM) to test the developed hypotheses empirically.

Findings –The findings reveal that digital selling platforms positively affect exports, whereas public procurement negatively affects F&B SMEs exports. Nonetheless, findings underline that the interaction between public procurement and the adoption of digital selling platforms dampens public procurement’s negative effects on exports. Originality/value –This study brings an original contribution to the F&B literature by conducting empirical research on an extensive sample of firms from one of the most influential countries in the F&B vertical, Italy, with officially registered data. More importantly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study pioneers the investigation of the relationship between public procurement and e-commerce platforms in affecting F&B SMEs’ export performances.

Target groups of stakeholders: companies SMEs

Citation: Ballerini, J., Giordino, D., Smrčka, L. and Culasso, F. (2023), “Exports or public procurement to resist in the post-pandemic world? How e-commerce appeases this food and beverage SMEs ambidextrous dilemma”, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 715-750. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-01-2023-0021

Source: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1460-1060/vol/26/iss/7