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European rural development programmes are driving multi-actor interactive innovation initiatives and alliances to create an environment in which innovation acts as a tool for accelerating rural development processes. In Europe, where rural areas are facing many challenges, identifying which challenges, difficulties, obstacles or risk factors that interactive innovation projects have had to face in rural areas while being planned and set up would be interesting. The objective of this research work was to, therefore, identify and analyse the risk factors of 200 rural projects and initiatives that were selected as case studies from the whole of Europe.

The employed methodology consisted in conducting interviews to subsequently perform statistical independence analyses of the qualitative variables characterising the found projects and risk factors.

The findings indicated that most of the risks that rural projects and initiatives faced were related to the social domain which was, in turn, the fundamental pillar of interactive innovation. Dependence was found between social risk factors appearing and the innovation type carried out; the risk factors corresponding to the political–legal risks category and the project or initiative coordinating country; and the economic–technical risks category and the initiatives' geographic magnitude.

This paper exposes the main risks identified within various rural innovation initiatives and projects around Europe. For this purpose, a statistical analysis of independence was performed, allowing us to generate reliable and accurate results of the main risks associated with certain descriptive characteristics (coordinating region, domain, innovation type, gender balance and geographic magnitude) of the initiatives studied.

Even when global players are increasingly dominating an industry, smaller competitors can win in local markets by paying attention to the different needs and expectations of their customers. The top‐down standardization of strategy adopted by many multinational consumer product companies can fail badly if these differences are ignored. Consumer needs and desires are not necessarily consistent across different market segments. Competitors can often exploit these differences to great advantage, particularly if some core competencies, like distribution or market intelligence, can be brought to bear. The old adage “Think global, act local” still applies in many industries. This SuÄrez Company beer case study demonstrates the impact that local market knowledge and positioning can have on a product’s success. Nimble local or regional players may dethrone even the largest of multi‐national or global competitors who often fail to recognize or embrace cultural differences and unique market conditions. These same multinationals may derive global benefits by re‐integrating local market experience into their broader positioning, as Coors is doing now.

Big is not necessarily always better – and that’s certainly true in the world of business. When global players largely dominate a particular market, there might seem little chance for the smaller guy to succeed. But sometimes a narrower focus can reap rich rewards. And doesn’t everyone like to put one over the top dog? Allio and Allio detail how V. Suárez and Company did just that when successful marketing and distribution strategies enabled a successful launch of new beer, Coors Light. This was the first step towards the brand taking the lion’s share of the Puerto Rico beer market – largely at the expense of big‐name rivals Budweiser and Heineken.

–Khat is a bushy plant whose leaves are chewed for a mild amphetamine effect. The purpose of this paper is to investigate khat's multiple effects, broadly defined to include impacts on producers, traders, and consumers, as well as on the biophysical environment, in northern Madagascar.

This primarily ethnographic study (conducted from 2004 to 2010), includes observation, semi-structured interviews, and orally administered questionnaires.

Khat's effects include strain on the household budgets of consumers, but increased earnings to producers and traders. In addition, there is some evidence of consumers’ strained primary social relationships, yet khat chewing is also positively linked with new forms of urban multiethnic identity.

To evaluate a drug's overall effects, it is critical to understand it within wide-ranging political, economic, biological, and cultural contexts. Many studies of drugs focus on only one component. While this makes for more manageable research designs, it obscures the complex interplay of numerous factors. This impedes general understanding and furthermore makes it difficult to design broadly effective, multisector intervention strategies.

This analysis reveals the intricacy of khat's effects in Madagascar while programmatically proposing a model for doing research with policy implications on other psychotropic substances.

Madagascar is undoubtedly a country of great interest, yet it is often thought that there is very little literature on the subject. The fact is, however, that the amount is considerable, as is shown by the number of the last item in the standard bibliography of Madagascar—14,978.

ON August 25, 1919, the first British air transport service was opened. On that day‐Air Transport and Travel Ltd. dispatched its first aircraft—a De Havilland Airco 4a— on a regular service from Hounslow, London, to Paris.