IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i8p3453-d1633681.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prioritization of Water Footprint Management Practices and Their Effect on Agri-Food Firms’ Reputation and Legitimacy: A Best–Worst Method Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Marcelo Werneck Barbosa

    (Department of Agricultural Economics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile)

  • María de los Ángeles Raimann Pumpin

    (Department of Agricultural Economics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile)

  • Gonzalo Vargas

    (Department of Agricultural Economics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile)

Abstract

Agricultural production is responsible for most of the withdrawal of water volume. There has been increasing the pressure on stakeholders to adapt water usage behavior and manage water resources. In this context, water footprint management (WFM) practices have been implemented. Despite the positive benefits of the adoption of WF practices, the selection and prioritization of WFM practices remains a challenge. In addition, the effects that each of these individual practices have on reputation and legitimacy have not been investigated. To fill these research gaps, this study determined the relative priority of seven different WFM practices and the relative importance of each of these practices to increase agri-food firms’ reputation and legitimacy. This study applied the best–worst method (BWM) with a set of expert Chilean professionals in the field. The practice related to the promotion of the measurement of the water footprint throughout the supply chain was considered the most vital and the one with the greatest effects on firms’ reputation and legitimacy. The practice related to the establishment of water auditing and control systems was considered the least important and the one that generates lower effects on firms’ reputation and legitimacy. Our study also found that lack of financial resources is the main barrier to WFM implementation. These findings are useful for companies that are not capable of developing a complete program of WFM adoption due to lack of resources to implement all these practices. By knowing the importance of each practice, farmers can select the practices that will bring the greatest benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcelo Werneck Barbosa & María de los Ángeles Raimann Pumpin & Gonzalo Vargas, 2025. "Prioritization of Water Footprint Management Practices and Their Effect on Agri-Food Firms’ Reputation and Legitimacy: A Best–Worst Method Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-24, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:8:p:3453-:d:1633681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/8/3453/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/8/3453/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Teresa Madureira & Fernando Nunes & José Veiga & Pablo Saralegui-Diez, 2021. "Choices in Sustainable Food Consumption: How Spanish Low Intake Organic Consumers Behave," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-18, November.
    2. Mevlut Uyan & Jarosław Janus & Ela Ertunç, 2023. "Land Use Suitability Model for Grapevine ( Vitis vinifera L.) Cultivation Using the Best Worst Method: A Case Study from Ankara/Türkiye," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, August.
    3. Cesar, Saenz, 2021. "Corporate social responsibility fit helps to earn the social license to operate in the mining industry," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Douglas Aitken & Diego Rivera & Alex Godoy-Faúndez & Eduardo Holzapfel, 2016. "Water Scarcity and the Impact of the Mining and Agricultural Sectors in Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Ximena Vallejos & Steven Hidalgo & Belén González & Patricio Neumann, 2025. "Estimation of the Water Footprint of Wood Construction in Chile Using a Streamlined Input–Output-Based Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, January.
    6. Dimitrios Vlachos & Eirini Aivazidou, 2018. "Water Footprint in Supply Chain Management: An Introduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-3, June.
    7. David L. Deephouse & Suzanne M. Carter, 2005. "An Examination of Differences Between Organizational Legitimacy and Organizational Reputation," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 329-360, March.
    8. Matthew Egan, 2011. "The Water Footprint Assessment Manual. Setting the Global Standard," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 181-182, September.
    9. de Boon, Auvikki & Sandström, Camilla & Rose, David Christian, 2022. "Perceived legitimacy of agricultural transitions and implications for governance. Lessons learned from England’s post-Brexit agricultural transition," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    10. Hui-Cheng Yu & Lopin Kuo & Beiling Ma, 2020. "The Drivers of Corporate Water Disclosure in Enhancing Information Transparency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, January.
    11. Kheybari, Siamak & Kazemi, Mostafa & Rezaei, Jafar, 2019. "Bioethanol facility location selection using best-worst method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 612-623.
    12. Wahba, Shimaa M., 2025. "A consumption-based approach to trace the effects of income inequality on water pollution responsibility in Egypt: An internal grey water footprint perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    13. Badri Ahmadi, Hadi & Kusi-Sarpong, Simonov & Rezaei, Jafar, 2017. "Assessing the social sustainability of supply chains using Best Worst Method," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 99-106.
    14. G. Donoso & E. Blanco & G. Franco & J. Lira, 2016. "Water footprints and irrigated agricultural sustainability: the case of Chile," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 738-748, September.
    15. Huang, H.W. & Jiang, S. & Zhang, S.Y. & Wang, Y.M. & Wang, J.C. & Zhao, X.N. & Gao, X.R., 2025. "Agricultural and energy products trade intensified the water scarcity in the grain and energy base in northern China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    16. Marcelo Werneck Barbosa & José M. Cansino, 2022. "A Water Footprint Management Construct in Agri-Food Supply Chains: A Content Validity Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, April.
    17. Rajesh, R., 2020. "Sustainable supply chains in the Indian context: An integrative decision-making model," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    18. Marcelo Werneck Barbosa, 2024. "Government Support Mechanisms for Sustainable Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Feng, Jianghong & Guo, Ping & Xu, Guangyi & Xu, Gangyan & Ning, Yu, 2024. "An integrated decision framework for resilient sustainable waste electric vehicle battery recycling transfer station site selection," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 373(C).
    2. Xiao-Kang Wang & Wen-Hui Hou & Chao Song & Min-Hui Deng & Yong-Yi Li & Jian-Qiang Wang, 2021. "BW-MaxEnt: A Novel MCDM Method for Limited Knowledge," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(14), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Gholamreza Haseli & Reza Sheikh & Jianqiang Wang & Hana Tomaskova & Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee, 2021. "A Novel Approach for Group Decision Making Based on the Best–Worst Method (G-BWM): Application to Supply Chain Management," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(16), pages 1-20, August.
    4. Aditi & Devika Kannan & Jyoti Dhingra Darbari & P. C. Jha, 2023. "Sustainable supplier selection model with a trade-off between supplier development and supplier switching," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 331(1), pages 351-392, December.
    5. R. Rajesh, 2022. "Sustainability performance predictions in supply chains: grey and rough set theoretical approaches," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 310(1), pages 171-200, March.
    6. Ran, Zenghong & Ji, Pengfei, 2025. "Environmental protection tax legislation and corporate reputation in China: A legal perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Martínez-Ferrero, Jennifer & García-Sánchez, Isabel-María, 2017. "Coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphism as determinants of the voluntary assurance of sustainability reports," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 102-118.
    8. Lefroy, Kathryn & Tsarenko, Yelena, 2014. "Dependence and effectiveness in the nonprofit-corporate alliance: The mediating effect of objectives achievement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1959-1966.
    9. Yuanyuan Zhang & Zhe Ouyang, 2021. "Doing well by doing good: How corporate environmental responsibility influences corporate financial performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 54-63, January.
    10. Sarfaraz Hashemkhani Zolfani & Ramin Bazrafshan & Fatih Ecer & Çağlar Karamaşa, 2022. "The Suitability-Feasibility-Acceptability Strategy Integrated with Bayesian BWM-MARCOS Methods to Determine the Optimal Lithium Battery Plant Located in South America," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(14), pages 1-18, July.
    11. Ayla Amamou & Safa Chabouh & Lilia Sidhom & Alaeddine Zouari & Abdelkader Mami, 2025. "Agri-Food Supply Chain Sustainability Indicators from a Multi-Capital Perspective: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-34, May.
    12. Thams, Yannick & Alvarado-Vargas, Marcelo J. & Newburry, William, 2016. "Geographical diversification as a predictor of MNC reputations in their home nations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2882-2889.
    13. Catia Milena Lopes & Annibal José Scavarda & Mauricio Nunes Macedo de Carvalho & André Luis Korzenowski, 2018. "The Business Model and Innovation Analyses: The Sustainable Transition Obstacles and Drivers for the Hospital Supply Chains," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    14. H. L. Zou & R. C. Zeng & S. X. Zeng & Jonathan J. Shi, 2015. "How Do Environmental Violation Events Harm Corporate Reputation?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(8), pages 836-854, December.
    15. Sujit Sur & Carol-Ann Sirsly, 2013. "What’s in a name? Decomposing corporate reputation to assess the relative impact of temporal, firm and industry level factors," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 17(4), pages 1047-1072, November.
    16. Vismara, Silvio, 2019. "Sustainability in equity crowdfunding," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 98-106.
    17. Changfeng Shi & Hang Yuan & Qinghua Pang & Yangyang Zhang, 2020. "Research on the Decoupling of Water Resources Utilization and Agricultural Economic Development in Gansu Province from the Perspective of Water Footprint," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-16, August.
    18. Anup Kumar & Santosh Kumar Shrivastav & Avinash K. Shrivastava & Rashmi Ranjan Panigrahi & Abbas Mardani & Fausto Cavallaro, 2023. "Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Performance Measurement, and Management: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, March.
    19. Reza-Gharehbagh, Raziyeh & Hafezalkotob, Ashkan & Makui, Ahmad & Sayadi, Mohammad Kazem, 2022. "Financing green technology development and role of digital platforms: Insourcing vs. outsourcing," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Francesco De Pascale & Eleonora Guadagno, 2025. "Climate Change and High-Quality Agri-Food Production: Perceptions of Risk and Adaptation Strategies in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-23, April.

    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:17:y:2025:i:8:p:3453-:d:1633681. 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.