IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i9p4724-d541806.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Organic Mindset: Insights from a Mixed Methods Grounded Theory (MM-GT) Study into Organic Food Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Kretschmer

    (Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture (FB 11), University of Kassel, Nordbahnhofstraße 1a, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany)

  • Bettina Langfeldt

    (Department of Empirical Social Research (FB 05), University of Kassel, Nora-Platiel-Straße 5, 34127 Kassel, Germany)

  • Christian Herzig

    (Department of Management in the International Food Industry (FB 11), University of Kassel, Steinstraße 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany)

  • Thomas Krikser

    (Department of Management in the International Food Industry (FB 11), University of Kassel, Steinstraße 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany)

Abstract

A broad understanding of food systems includes a complex web of activities, outcomes and drivers, encompassing not only the food and agriculture sectors, but also the social norms and cultures in which those activities are embedded. The organic food and farming movement has lately been portrayed as a food system of its own right, since it contains all necessary sub-systems, consisting of food environments, distribution networks, processing, as well as production and supply, all of which are bounded by an organic guarantee system. The underlying hypothesis of this investigation is that drivers in the organic food system operate on a paradigm level that is associated with the codified principles of ecology, health, fairness and care. Personality science suggests that the choice to act in pro-environmental ways is driven by an internalized sense of obligation or personal norms, which justifies our pursuit of seeking key drivers of food systems in the mindset of the actor. Through integrated findings from actor-centered mixed methods grounded theory research involving eleven case territories, this study identified a pattern of global mindset attributes that intuitively drive organic food system actors toward holistic human and sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Kretschmer & Bettina Langfeldt & Christian Herzig & Thomas Krikser, 2021. "The Organic Mindset: Insights from a Mixed Methods Grounded Theory (MM-GT) Study into Organic Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-21, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4724-:d:541806
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4724/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4724/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Béné, Christophe & Oosterveer, Peter & Lamotte, Lea & Brouwer, Inge D. & de Haan, Stef & Prager, Steve D. & Talsma, Elise F. & Khoury, Colin K., 2019. "When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 116-130.
    2. Joseph Persky, 1995. "The Ethology of Homo Economicus," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 221-231, Spring.
    3. Lisa-Britt Fischer & Jens Newig, 2016. "Importance of Actors and Agency in Sustainability Transitions: A Systematic Exploration of the Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-21, May.
    4. Harm-Jan Steenhuis, 2015. "Iterative-Pragmatic Case Study Method and Comparisons with Other Case Study Method Ideologies," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Kenneth D. Strang (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Research Design in Business and Management, chapter 19, pages 341-373, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. James Lovelock, 2003. "Gaia: The living Earth," Nature, Nature, vol. 426(6968), pages 769-770, December.
    6. Richard H. Thaler, 2000. "From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 133-141, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Kretschmer & Sheena Dehm, 2021. "Sustainability Transitions in University Food Service—A Living Lab Approach of Locavore Meal Planning and Procurement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-31, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Klaus Mohn, 2010. "Autism in Economics? A Second Opinion," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 39(2), pages 191-208, July.
    2. Victor I. Espinosa & William Hongsong Wang & Jesús Huerta de Soto, 2022. "Principles of Nudging and Boosting: Steering or Empowering Decision-Making for Behavioral Development Economics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, February.
    3. Joanna Dzionek-Kozlowska, 2014. "Economics in Times of Crisis. In Search of a New Paradigm," Lodz Economics Working Papers 5/2014, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology.
    4. Levine, Jordan & Chan, Kai M.A. & Satterfield, Terre, 2015. "From rational actor to efficient complexity manager: Exorcising the ghost of Homo economicus with a unified synthesis of cognition research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 22-32.
    5. Aneta Kargol-Wasiluk & Anna Wildowicz-Giegiel & Marian Zalesko, 2018. "The Evolution of the Economic Man. From Homo Oeconomicus to Homo Moralis," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1, pages 33-57.
    6. Girts Racko, 2019. "The Values of Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 35-48, January.
    7. Ravi Kashyap, 2019. "Concepts, Components and Collections of Trading Strategies and Market Color," Papers 1910.02144, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2020.
    8. Kopczewski, Tomasz & Okhrimenko, Iana, 2019. "Can homo economicus be an altruist? A classroom experimental method," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Naudé, Wim, 2023. "Artificial Intelligence and the Economics of Decision-Making," IZA Discussion Papers 16000, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Anne Corcos & Yorgos Rizopoulos, 2011. "Is prosocial behavior egocentric? The “invisible hand” of emotions," Post-Print halshs-01968213, HAL.
    11. Söderlind, Paul, 2009. "The C-CAPM without ex post data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 721-729, December.
    12. Lovric, M. & Kaymak, U. & Spronk, J., 2008. "A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-030-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    13. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Anna Justyna Parzonko & Agata Balińska & Anna Sieczko, 2021. "Pro-Environmental Behaviors of Generation Z in the Context of the Concept of Homo Socio-Oeconomicus," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, March.
    15. Beulah Pretorius & Jane Ambuko & Effie Papargyropoulou & Hettie C. Schönfeldt, 2021. "Guiding Nutritious Food Choices and Diets along Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Giuseppe Pernagallo & Benedetto Torrisi, 2020. "A theory of information overload applied to perfectly efficient financial markets," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(2), pages 223-236, October.
    17. Michel Zouboulakis, 2010. "Trustworthiness as a Moral Determinant of Economic Activity: Lessons from the Classics," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 209-221, January.
    18. Fehmi Krasniqi & Hysni Terziu, 2021. "Challenges of Kosovo Micro Businesses," European Journal of Economics and Business Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 7, ejes_v7_i.
    19. Benito Umana Hermosilla & Juan Cabas Monje & Juan Rodríguez Navarrete & Miguel Villablanca Fuentes, 2015. "Variables explicativas del comportamiento del inversor de multifondos. Un análisis desde la perspectiva de los inversores en el sistema de pensiones chileno," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, April.
    20. Vogel, Everton & Martinelli, Gabrielli & Artuzo, Felipe Dalzotto, 2021. "Environmental and economic performance of paddy field-based crop-livestock systems in Southern Brazil," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4724-:d:541806. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.