The Governance of Quality: The Case of Fresh Meat

We argue that the mechanism used for governing the supply chain is an essential factor in promoting quality. An integrated organization facilitates conformance quality but decreases efficiency in terms of incentives. A hybrid organization attenuates this incentive problem but may hinder conformance quality, making additional safeguards necessary. This results in more complex organization of the supply chain but enhances overall quality. We find evidence of this argument in a set of international cases of meat brands. First, market-oriented solutions in the supply chain employ more additional controls to improve coordination than more integrated solutions. Second, geographical indicators, being the most complex organization for the meat supply chain, seem to perform best in terms of overall quality