{"title":"Business processes and information systems in the Ghana cocoa supply chain: A survey study","authors":"Emmanuel Ahoa , Ayalew Kassahun , Bedir Tekinerdogan","doi":"10.1016/j.njas.2020.100323","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Ghana cocoa industry contributes substantially to the total world cocoa production and provides livelihoods to more than a quarter of the population. Although cocoa holds a leading position in the Ghanaian economy, no explicit effort has been made in modelling and documenting the business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the role that IT plays in supporting those processes. Hence, it is difficult to identify the current obstacles in adopting IT in the Ghana cocoa sector, and likewise, enhance the alignment of the business processes along the supply chain and the underlying IT systems. To address this issue, this article presents the results of a survey study to the current business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the underlying IT systems in Ghana. The survey study has been conducted with 56 individuals from the three key sets of actors from the sector, which are cocoa farmers, cocoa traders and the Ghana cocoa board. Based on the results of the survey study, we provide formal business process models of these actors and describe the role IT currently plays in supporting the business processes. We report on the lessons learned together with the obstacles and thus aim to pave the way for further development and enhancement of the business processes as well as the adopted IT.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49751,"journal":{"name":"Njas-Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences","volume":"92 ","pages":"Article 100323"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.njas.2020.100323","citationCount":"18","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Njas-Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1573521419300740","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Agricultural and Biological Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 18
Abstract
The Ghana cocoa industry contributes substantially to the total world cocoa production and provides livelihoods to more than a quarter of the population. Although cocoa holds a leading position in the Ghanaian economy, no explicit effort has been made in modelling and documenting the business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the role that IT plays in supporting those processes. Hence, it is difficult to identify the current obstacles in adopting IT in the Ghana cocoa sector, and likewise, enhance the alignment of the business processes along the supply chain and the underlying IT systems. To address this issue, this article presents the results of a survey study to the current business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the underlying IT systems in Ghana. The survey study has been conducted with 56 individuals from the three key sets of actors from the sector, which are cocoa farmers, cocoa traders and the Ghana cocoa board. Based on the results of the survey study, we provide formal business process models of these actors and describe the role IT currently plays in supporting the business processes. We report on the lessons learned together with the obstacles and thus aim to pave the way for further development and enhancement of the business processes as well as the adopted IT.
期刊介绍：
The NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, published since 1952, is the quarterly journal of the Royal Netherlands Society for Agricultural Sciences. NJAS aspires to be the main scientific platform for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on complex and persistent problems in agricultural production, food and nutrition security and natural resource management. The societal and technical challenges in these domains require research integrating scientific disciplines and finding novel combinations of methodologies and conceptual frameworks. Moreover, the composite nature of these problems and challenges fits transdisciplinary research approaches embedded in constructive interactions with policy and practice and crossing the boundaries between science and society. Engaging with societal debate and creating decision space is an important task of research about the diverse impacts of novel agri-food technologies or policies. The international nature of food and nutrition security (e.g. global value chains, standardisation, trade), environmental problems (e.g. climate change or competing claims on natural resources), and risks related to agriculture (e.g. the spread of plant and animal diseases) challenges researchers to focus not only on lower levels of aggregation, but certainly to use interdisciplinary research to unravel linkages between scales or to analyse dynamics at higher levels of aggregation.
NJAS recognises that the widely acknowledged need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, also increasingly expressed by policy makers and practitioners, needs a platform for creative researchers and out-of-the-box thinking in the domains of agriculture, food and environment. The journal aims to offer space for grounded, critical, and open discussions that advance the development and application of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methodologies in the agricultural and life sciences.
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