Agri-food value chain transparency and firm performance: the role of institutional quality

Abstract

This paper investigates agri-food value chain transparency and the role of institutional quality on agri-food processing firms’ performance. The research collected primary data via survey to analyse 320 agri-food processing firms. This study empirically established that value chain transparency and institutional quality significantly improve agri-food processing firms’ performance. Also, institutional quality positively moderates the relationship between value chain transparency and the performance of agri-food processing firms significantly. The empirical results in this paper imply that stakeholders in the existing and incoming agri-food processing firms should prioritise transparency and institutional quality in making managerial decisions to achieve higher performance in their value chain. The study’s uniqueness is its contribution to value chain literature and also towards the development of the agri-food value chain sector to enhance performance in a developing economy.