How Knowledge Sharing Culture Can Become a Facilitator of the Sustainable Development in the Agrifood Sector

This article proposes a managerial vision of the sustainability planning of a territory. The main assumption is that the sustainable development policies of a territory oriented to the agrifood sector cannot be separated from the participation in the decision-making process of the stakeholders as well as the sharing of objectives and development paths. The paper offers an innovative perspective because it proposes a model in which sustainable development can be improved not only through the attention to the production process, but also through the Knowledge Sharing Culture, which allows the inclusion of social innovation. This model was tested on the companies participating in the Italian Agri-food Protection Consortia as they represent an example of a managerial vision of the territory use and also because they integrate the protection of specific agricultural and food production with the commitment of entrepreneurs and families who share a common growth path. The empirical results show that Knowledge Sharing Culture can become a facilitator of the sustainable development of the territory when it is activated along specific “determinants” and related “operative activities” that transform the Knowledge Sharing Culture into a driver of social innovation oriented to the sustainability of businesses and their territory.