Poverty alleviation, employment creation, environmental conservation and income augmentation can be transformed based on agricultural diversification. Lotus farming is considered as a solution to improve income and livelihood for smallholder farmers. Many different products and values can be explored from lotus farming including lotus flower, lotus root, lotus seed, lotus fibre, as well as combining ecotourism. But many barriers are preventing the lotus products diversification of lotus growers. This study will provide a better understanding of lotus farming and explore the barriers to lotus products diversification and causes of these barriers. Phong Dien district, central Vietnam was selected as a case study. The qualitative research was applied through 54 semi-structured interviews including lotus growers, lotus buyers and officers of local government, as well as one focus-group discussion, observation method and secondary data from statistical data and reports were also conducted. The research findings indicated that there is a big gap between lotus products diversification of lotus growers and available lotus products on the market. Lotus growers only grow and sell raw products, of which, fresh unshelled lotus seed is the main product. Lack of knowledge, worries on loss, lack of market and market information, lack of labour and machines and traditional production habits are main determinants of the barriers. Characteristics of lotus seed, high production and monopoly of collectors are different features in barriers to lotus product diversification compared to other crop diversification.

This research seeks to contribute to the literature by classifying the operational risks to which companies are exposed and that have an impact on the results of sustainability through taxonomy. This study begins with a systematic literature review that covers 103 documents to build the theoretical constructs and establish the taxonomy; from this, the relationship among the constructs is established through reasoning based on 100 business cases. The results show a relationship between operational risks and corporate sustainability in aspects that generate this link, such as causes and consequences. From this, it is concluded that operational risks could affect corporate sustainability given that, based on case-based reasoning; we found relationship patterns linked by the economic, social, and environmental consequences and temporary effects on companies. The major contribution of this work lies in the proposed classification of operational risks regarding corporate sustainability and the establishment of their relationship. The findings of this study allow the management to classify the operational risk related to sustainability to carry out comprehensive risk management in companies, looking at the effects that this generates in the long term. The main limitation of this research was that the results of the connections can change depending on the analysed case. In addition, the CBR case base includes many sectors of the economy, which is why it provides heterogeneous results. It was identified that the relationship can change if a sectoral analysis is performed.