Purpose

Food waste is increasingly becoming a major issue for retail companies. However, there is still limited knowledge of how new forms of collaborative consumption (CC) may impact firms' behavior. This paper identifies and examines how the enablers of food waste and firms' tendency to cooperate with their customers may affect the adoption of measures oriented to diminish waste reduction, as well as the use of mobile technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

A empirical study has been conducted on a sample of international firms operating in the food sector as retailers (i.e. restaurants, bar and catering services) or in similar activities (i.e. hotels and accommodations). The authors tested an empirical model aimed at revealing the possible mediating role of customer cooperation in affecting the impact of food waste enablers on (1) waste recovery measures and (2) the adoption of mobile technologies for food recovery.

Findings

The results of this study showed how customer cooperation mediates the impact of food waste enablers on the intention to use mobile applications for food recovery but not on the adoption of food recovery measures that, instead, mainly depends on waste causes internal to the firm.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies that tries to identify and evaluate the impact of the different enablers of food waste on firms' pro-environmental behaviors. Interestingly, the authors show how customer cooperation is a decisive factor to promote new forms of CC in the food industry. Importantly, customer cooperation acts as a bridge between the drivers of food waste and a firm's intention to adopt measures against it. By actively involving customers, firms can gain insights, develop effective strategies and foster a culture of waste reduction that benefits both the business and the environment.

中文翻译：

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管理食物浪费：客户合作在影响企业环保行为中的作用

 目的

食物浪费日益成为零售公司面临的一个主要问题。然而，对于新形式的协作消费（CC）如何影响企业行为，人们的了解仍然有限。本文确定并研究了食物浪费的推动因素以及企业与客户合作的倾向如何影响旨在减少浪费的措施的采用以及移动技术的使用。

设计/方法论/途径

我们对在食品行业作为零售商（即餐馆、酒吧和餐饮服务）或从事类似活动（即酒店和住宿）的国际公司样本进行了实证研究。作者测试了一个实证模型，旨在揭示客户合作在影响食物浪费促成因素对（1）废物回收措施和（2）采用食物回收移动技术的影响方面可能发挥的中介作用。

 发现

这项研究的结果表明，客户合作如何调节食物浪费促成因素对使用移动应用程序进行食物回收的意图的影响，而不是对食物回收措施的采用的影响，而食物回收措施的采用主要取决于公司内部的浪费原因。

 原创性/价值

这是首批试图识别和评估食物浪费的不同推动因素对企业环保行为影响的研究之一。有趣的是，作者展示了客户合作如何成为食品行业推广新型 CC 的决定性因素。重要的是，客户合作是食物浪费的驱动因素和公司采取措施的意图之间的桥梁。通过积极让客户参与，公司可以获得见解、制定有效的策略并培育一种对企业和环境都有利的减少废物文化。