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Embeddedness, social capital and learning in rural areas: The case of producer cooperatives
Abstract
To pursue development goals, policymakers and scholars alike have proposed that actors in rural areas may usefully engage in collective actions, e.g. by forming community groups, producer associations or multi-actor networks. One proposed benefit of such collaborations is the enhanced knowledge exchange and learning which may be created, and in the literature the dynamics of this are often explained via the concepts of embeddedness and/or social capital. To date however, studies tend towards a somewhat narrow, territorial, interpretation of these concepts, with the result that current understanding of how collaborations and learning evolve between rural actors is rather constrained. This paper aims to explore a broader interpretation of these concepts, through case analysis of a producer cooperative in the Scottish shellfish sector. In the case, the realities of member and management relations are revealed, along with the types of knowledge generated and the processes by which these are, or are not, shared between actors. In terms of embeddedness, our analysis reveals that, rather than the local community context which tends to dominate the literature, it is sectoral norms and habits which shape actor relations and learning most significantly in this case. In terms of social capital, we identify that tension-fuelled social relations are not in themselves a barrier to collaboration, again in contrast to existing claims, particularly where key actors have appropriate interpersonal skills, and where a values-based mindset (‘cooperative know-how’) is held in common. The findings therefore challenge popular assumptions about how embeddedness and social capital shape collective action and learning in rural areas, and illustrate the value of interpreting these concepts more expansively.
... Moreover, Portes notes negative effects such as exclusion of outsider's knowledge and experiences. It means that overabundance of social capital cause the development of homogeneous knowledge within the network [97]; [123]. This cause the acquisition of new knowledge obtained from other social capital types [124]; [125]. ...
... The strong identification of members in a network causes the fragmentation of the whole and consequently results in dependence-oriented culture [124] and low efficiency of information exchange. Recently, [123] stated that limitations in the flow of different type of knowledge associated are another limitation of social capital. ...
... Farmers may bias only towards on the informal social bonding. Important technology and innovation from higher education institutions, research centers and advisors or experts will not incorporated by the adoption process [97]; [123]. When the network is constituted mainly by bridging social capital, this can allow for accessing new sources of knowledge. ...
Researchers tried to find out the socioeconomic and supply-side constraint factors to adoption. However, they overlooked the role of social networks and relationships among the community. Therefore, the aims of this review were to review the roles and negative effects of social capital. Based on its contents, relevancy, and time duration, only 129 (82 journals, 29 books, and 18 paper reports) were selected. It concludes that social capital has an indispensable role in facilitating cooperation and connection between members of the farmers' community, informal and experiential knowledge sharing, and access to research-based knowledge and contributes to reducing the transaction cost of adoption. On the contrary, inside the black box of social capital, the negative effects include the exclusion of outsider’s knowledge and experiences, excessive claims on group members, and restrictions on individual freedom.
... These social relationships have been studied in fields such as rural studies or economic sociology in the context of a number of concepts such as social embeddedness and social capital. These concepts address questions regarding business relationships characterized by reciprocity and trust (Tregear andCooper, 2016, González-Mon et al., 2023); personal relationships such as friendship or kinship (Ring et al., 2010); or knowledge exchange relationships (Hite, 2003(Hite, , 2005, all of which can be found within supply chains. Yet, the embeddedness of food supply chain related trade relations in such different types of social relationships remains poorly understood (Penker 2006;Leijten et al., 2022), and is often constrained to narrow territorial interpretations in rural studies (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). ...
... These concepts address questions regarding business relationships characterized by reciprocity and trust (Tregear andCooper, 2016, González-Mon et al., 2023); personal relationships such as friendship or kinship (Ring et al., 2010); or knowledge exchange relationships (Hite, 2003(Hite, , 2005, all of which can be found within supply chains. Yet, the embeddedness of food supply chain related trade relations in such different types of social relationships remains poorly understood (Penker 2006;Leijten et al., 2022), and is often constrained to narrow territorial interpretations in rural studies (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). ...
... We address this gap from a social-ecological resilience perspective, with particular focus on the role of these diverse social relationships and their cross-scale nature for responding to changes. In doing so, we contribute to rural studies since social embeddedness in agricultural systems has predominantly been analyzed within local rural contexts, and the role of social embeddedness and social networks across spatial scales remains an area for future research (Lyle 2015;Tregear and Cooper, 2016;Tuitjer and Küpper 2022). We aim to enhance understanding about how diverse social relationships interlinked with trade are structured in cross-scale social networks, and the implications for how actors respond to changes. ...
... Moreover, Portes notes negative effects such as exclusion of outsider's knowledge and experiences. It means that overabundance of social capital cause the development of homogeneous knowledge within the network [97]; [123]. This cause the acquisition of new knowledge obtained from other social capital types [124]; [125]. ...
... The strong identification of members in a network causes the fragmentation of the whole and consequently results in dependence-oriented culture [124] and low efficiency of information exchange. Recently, [123] stated that limitations in the flow of different type of knowledge associated are another limitation of social capital. ...
... Farmers may bias only towards on the informal social bonding. Important technology and innovation from higher education institutions, research centers and advisors or experts will not incorporated by the adoption process [97]; [123]. When the network is constituted mainly by bridging social capital, this can allow for accessing new sources of knowledge. ...
Researchers tried to find out the socioeconomic and supply-side constraint factors to adoption. However, they overlooked the role of social networks and relationships among the community. Therefore, the aims of this review were to review the roles and negative effects of social capital. Based on its contents, relevancy, and time duration, only 129 (82 journals, 29 books, and 18 paper reports) were selected. It concludes that social capital has an indispensable role in facilitating cooperation and connection between members of the farmers' community, informal and experiential knowledge sharing, and access to research-based knowledge and contributes to reducing the transaction cost of adoption. On the contrary, inside the black box of social capital, the negative effects include the exclusion of outsider’s knowledge and experiences, excessive claims on group members, and restrictions on individual freedom.
... In other words, smart growth is one of the regional planning strategies that aims to create regional balance and prevent disruption in line with sustainable development goals; to put it another way, "smart growth is the planning, design and development of cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas in which seeks to create and promote social equality, a sense of spatial and social belonging and preserve of natural resources alongside cultural resources." smart growth strategies can provide significant benefits to rural communities by preserving their history and identity, making rural settlements more pleasant and livable, sustainable economic development, creating diverse and more affordable housing options and maintaining ecological sustainability (Michaud, 2013: 4;Tregear & Cooper, 2016) and it is worth noting that the challenges facing a rural area in other places, even if they are sometimes similar, can never be the same from country to country. Rural areas or villages also deserve significant growth that creates development to promotes people's lives since rural development is essential to accelerate the overall development of any country. ...
... In the mid-1990s, the term smart growth emerged in planning science and quickly became the key word. Whether the term is inherently different from growth management or is essentially just growth management under its attractive name is controversial; In fact, smart growth mentions to principles of development and operations planning in which creates land use pattern and transportation (Tregear & Cooper, 2016). Smart growth considers the redevelopment of developed areas. ...
... The findings of this study is consistent with the results of the study by Anabestani & Kalateh Mimari (2020) in which identified indicators of increasing people with higher education and their tendency toward staying in rural areas and establishing cross-industrial activities such as tourism, food and cultural production as key effective drivers on the formation of smart rural development in this regard. The results of the study by Zavratnik et al. Tregear & Cooper (2016) believing that smart growth can contribute to maintaining ecological, social, economic and physical sustainability by making rural settlements more livable, sustainable economic development, creating diverse and affordable housing options and therefore has significant benefits for rural communities. It is also in line with research by Tsimpo & Wodon (2018) that the combined use of smart growth indicators can lead to the benefits of financial and economic sustainability and thus help to receive more local taxes, recognizing the occupations and local benefits which may attract more people. ...
Purpose-Nowadays, the smart growth approach plays a significant role in sustainable rural development. This approach seeks to improve the quality of human life and respond to socioeconomic , environmental and physical problems and issues and can pave the way for rural management in order to make optimal use of facilities and solve rural problems. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the drivers of the effect of smart growth approach on sustainable development of rural settlements in Jiroft County. Design/methodology/approach-This study is applied research and it is descriptive-analytical in terms of nature. Data has been collected through documentary and field study. To extract the key drivers of the effect of smart growth approach on sustainable development of rural settlements in Jiroft county, a questionnaire has been prepared in the form of a Micmac questionnaire and distributed and completed among the sample community. 36 questionnaires were considered for rural experts, relevant organizations. The data analysis and structural analysis of the effect of smart growth approach indicators on the sustainable development of rural settlements were conducted using Micmac software. Finding-The results showed that among the 57 studied factors, 14 key effective drivers were identified that according to the high score of direct and indirect effect, factors such as utilizing existing infrastructure to increase villagers' employment and income, (direct (+10) indirect (+7205), improving land and housing prices in rural areas, direct (+9) indirect (+6959), villagers' satisfaction of increasing rural relations with outside (city and other villages), direct (+8) indirect (+8356) have the most effect compared to other drivers.
... A few studies, on the other hand, argue that family interactions create homogeneous and redundant knowledge within the family (Fisher 2013), inhibiting the acquisition of new knowledge outside the family (Smith, Anderson, and Moore 2012;MacGillivray 2018). Family relationships, from this perspective, may isolate farmers from knowledge brokers (such as advisors and extension staff), reducing their ability to carry out farm tasks, let alone develop new knowledge about farm techniques (Fisher 2013;Tregear and Cooper 2016). Nevertheless, a variety of research has now demonstrated a favorable association between family resources and farmer learning, i.e. the relationship between challenges in the farming process and the level of knowledge gained through learning activities. ...
... Family resources, in particular, have a negative effect on active experimentation and the acquisition of new knowledge through active experimentation. These findings agree with studies on social networks and learning such as those (Fisher 2013;Tregear and Cooper 2016), who found that strong bonding network ties such as those of the family have a negative influence on farmer learning. Differently from their study, though, this study reveals indirect conditional effects of family resources that lower farmer active experimentation. ...
... Danielsen et al. (2020) by systematically relating farmer's family resources to the experiential learning process, rather than just isolated Specific family resources (for example, farmer family members' involvement in farming decision making, advice, and encouragement) have a positive effect on the acquisition of new knowledge through reflection when confronted with challenges according to this study. Furthermore, these findings are consistent with previous research on social networks and learning (Fisher 2013;Tregear and Cooper 2016), which found that strong bonding network ties, such as those of the family, had a negative impact on farmer learning. However, unlike their work, this analysis indicates indirect conditional effects of family resources on farmer active experimentation. ...
Purpose
Multiple value chain challenges confront smallholder farmers, which necessitate context-specific solutions. Family resources, such as information and production inputs, are valuable assets for farmers. When properly used, farmers’ family resources can help them in learning how to address value chain challenges. Yet, the learning in rural agricultural value chain literature still does not inform how family resources influence farmers’ learning.
Design/methodology/approach
Face-to-face interviews with 214 coffee farmers were used to investigate how family resources shape farmers’ experiential learning process. The data was analyzed using PLS-SEM.
Findings
Results show that family resources play a crucial role in farmers’ experiential learning process, particular in reflecting on and addressing value chain challenges they are confronted with.
Practical implications
Smallholder farms, as a collective and farmer-centered experiential learning context, can serve as a source of inspiration for extension agents bringing the paradigm shift from technology transfer to participatory advisory services to reality.
Theoretical implications
The study contributes to experiential theory in the context of agriculture by advancing a model on how rural family support can function as a resource to change the mechanisms underlying farmers’ experiential learning.
Originality/value
The smallholder farm is a node in larger social learning networks (e.g. Innovation platform), where resources such as information, labor, emotional support, and production inputs, circulate.
... Membership is central here, both in the narrative and reality of possibility, where the primary tools at hand are the members and their interests and their pre-disposition towards co-operative solutions to everyday problems (Tregear & Cooper, 2016). This could be described as a type of co-operative potentiality. ...
... A concept which better captures potentiality is Tregear and Cooper (2016) concept of co-operative know-how which they define as;. ...
... Another similar but extended concept from Cook (2018) is co-operative genius which captures both the underlying knowledge of co-operation in addition to the continual tinkering action to keep co-operative potentality on track. While Cook's co-operative genius and tinkering seems to relate to the member who is active in the governance of the co-operative, Tregear and Cooper (2016) co-operative know-how concept seems to speak to the ordinary member. However, the Tregear and Cooper (2016) measures are more related to the member who is active or intends to be active in the governance of the co-operative. ...
The kernel of co-operative identity is the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of social and economic integration in co-operatives. This paper discusses the limitations of economic and sociological theoretical frameworks in capturing the integrative and relational nature of co-operative identity. The author outlines how relational theory with its focus on emergence and its ability for integration may be a better fit with co-operative practice and hence the articulation of co-operative identity and theory.
... Goodman 1999) and social capital theory (e.g. Tregear and Cooper 2016), sometimes combined with political economy theories when dealing with grassroots sustainability movements and alternative food systems (Goodman et al. 2011). Main topics include the social, cultural, ethical and other values-based roles of producer organizations for their members and their communities, thereby promoting bottom-up agrarian-based, sustainable rural development (Marsden et al. 2002;Ortiz-Miranda et al. 2010). ...
... Cechin et al. 2013), whereas in the second stream social capital relates to embeddedness of producer organizations and their members in local communities and networks (e.g. Tregear and Cooper 2016). Second, both streams position producer organizations in a value chain by emphasizing their interdependence with other food system actors. ...
... Through grassroots approaches, producer organizations may engage in providing social, economic, cultural and environmental benefits to communities. Through their activities and by using their local knowledge and social capital, producer organizations may provide employment, education, knowledge sharing and other welfare services (Tregear 2011;Tregear and Cooper 2016). De los Ríos et al. (2016), for instance, show how the multi-faceted strategy of an organic cooperative contributes to prosperity and development in communities. ...
Increased pressures on agri-food systems have indicated the importance of intermediaries to facilitate sustainability transitions. While producer organizations are acknowledged as intermediaries between individual producers and other food system actors, their role as sustainability transition intermediaries remains understudied. This paper explores the potential of producer organizations as transition intermediaries to support producers in their needs to adopt sustainable production practices. Ten cases of producer organizations in conventional (regime) and organic (niche) vegetable systems in Uruguay were studied qualitatively. Findings show that the classic intermediary roles that producer organizations fulfil in food systems also address the needs of producers in their transition to sustainable food systems. By providing organic inputs, organizing access to output markets, sharing knowledge, and facilitating sustainable production practices, producer organizations support producers within and across regime and niche. Producer organizations mostly function as implicit transition intermediaries, facilitated by their legitimacy among producers, their embeddedness in rural networks, and by refraining from taking a strong normative position. Producer organizations have the potential to be more explicit transition intermediaries, however this position comes with limitations. We provide policy recommendations to optimize the transition intermediary potential of producer organizations in their facilitation towards sustainable food systems.
... Bananas exhibit a notable carbohydrate content ranging from 20.3 to 29.3 grams per 100 grams. Additionally, they contain essential mineral salts, including potassium (0.6-0.8 milligrams per 100 grams), magnesium (24-30 milligrams per 100 grams), phosphorus (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29) milligrams per 100 grams), and potassium (264-387 milligrams per 100 grams) [1]. Like rice, wheat, and corn, bananas are often regarded as one of the foremost staple foods globally [2,3,4]. ...
... This may be achieved through two primary means: firstly, by expanding the cultivation areas, which remains a viable option, and second, by implementing cultivation technical improvements to increase overall productivity. Several factors, including internal factors under farmers' control and external factors beyond their control, influence this condition [17,18]. Furthermore, the on-farm and off-farm performance also influences the excitement for agricultural businesses. ...
Saba banana, a widely recognized banana variety, is extensively cultivated in many countries worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia. This research is important because banana production in the study area is very low, only 5.45 tons/ha/year, compared to actual production which can reach 10-30 tons/ha/year. The purpose of this study was to propose an effective strategy to accelerate banana productivity in the study area, thus motivating farmers to expand their agricultural activities. A SWOT approach has been carried out in this research to assess the current condition of banana production and identify the main factors that influence its growth. Descriptive statistics and cluster analysis were used to classify banana farmers/producers into different groups. The SWOT analysis revealed that the limited access to information regarding cultivation techniques and suboptimal marketing systems hindered development opportunities. To effectively tackle these issues, it is essential to devise appropriate strategies and implement them accordingly. The research shows that the key factor influencing productivity growth is immediately improving the very low technical capabilities of farmers by revitalizing group activities that focus on improving production cultivation techniques and emphasizing marketing aspects. This comprehensive approach will contribute to the overall growth and success of banana production in the region.
... They are considered to open wider 'windows of opportunity' with regard to innovation [14]; thus, they have, in general, become associated with many benefits in terms of agricultural and rural development (see [15]). Among others, in networks, the interactions between their members facilitate knowledge exchange and affect their behavior towards all types of innovation, including the adoption of innovations and the embeddedness of new knowledge, resulting, in the case of agriculture, in the viability of members' farms (see [15,16]). Among other types of interactions (e.g., family, circles of friendship and acquaintance, voluntary associations, etc.), cooperatives comprise a distinct type of professional and business network; according to [16], cooperatives are considered formalized forms of small firms collaboration or a specific form of social capital with significant benefits to their members and the respective communities. ...
... Among others, in networks, the interactions between their members facilitate knowledge exchange and affect their behavior towards all types of innovation, including the adoption of innovations and the embeddedness of new knowledge, resulting, in the case of agriculture, in the viability of members' farms (see [15,16]). Among other types of interactions (e.g., family, circles of friendship and acquaintance, voluntary associations, etc.), cooperatives comprise a distinct type of professional and business network; according to [16], cooperatives are considered formalized forms of small firms collaboration or a specific form of social capital with significant benefits to their members and the respective communities. Social capital comprises features of social organization-networks, norms, and trust-that potentially connect and enable people to act together while also providing access to valuable resources. ...
... There is no single definition of social capital because it depends on the author's perspective. The most widely accepted applicable notion of this concept is expressed in the links between people who know one another and the sharing of common interests [18] Three different social capital categories have been identified: (a) bonding, which refers to trust and cooperation between network members with similar socio-demographic characteristics, with profound trust, dense multiple networks with strong ties, generally informal collaboration and long-term reciprocity; (b) bridging, which involves the links between separate networks for collaboration and coordination, characterized by larger, looser networks with weaker ties, less trust and the establishment of interactions across explicit, formal or institutionalized gradients of power or authority in society; (c) linking, which denotes the type of weak ties (Granovetter, 1985) [19] that allow the resources, ideas and information from formal institutions beyond the community to be used, and has links with open networks [20,21] by enabling access to new knowledge sources and promoting the adaptation of innovations In agricultural innovations, it is widely argued that social capital allows access to not only resources that foster farm innovation, such as knowledge and funding, but also moral support [22]. Bonding facilitates cooperation and connection between farming community members by favoring exchanged informal knowledge and experience, and the sharing of physical resources. ...
... They include the exclusion of outsiders, excessive demands on group members, restrictions to individual freedom and top-down leveling norms. According to Tregear and Cooper (2016), dense and rich social relations can provide a barrier to ...
This paper identifies the main contributions of Social Network Analysis (SNA) use in the study of innovations in rural areas with an emphasis on agriculture and forestry. The bibliographic analysis was carried out on the Web of Knowledge (WoK) and Scopus platforms. Sixty-eight studies were found in which SNA was used as the main research tool in innovation processes in rural areas. The main fields of the SNA contribution were as follows: (i) social capital; (ii) social learning: information and knowledge flow for the adoption of innovations produced through existing social structures; (iii) the implementation and evaluation of innovations for local and territorial dynamization. The study contributes to summarizing the existing knowledge on SNA use in the study of innovations in rural areas and to informing future research. Understanding social networks is essential to strengthen and enhance the existing social capital and to promote social learning related to innovations in rural areas.
... Co-operatives, in particular, are deeply relational [57,58]; they emerge out of the relational and are continuously reproduced out of the relational [9,19,20,54]. Donati [47] (p. ...
... Integrating the we-relational into Cook's co-operative lifecycle framework allows us to diagrammatically present both Donati's [50] and Gergen's [57] discussion on the lifecycle degeneration of the "we-relation" in co-operatives and voluntary organisations. However, as discussed earlier in this paper, co-operatives are living systems where de-generation is not inevitable in co-operatives and while this lifecycle framework, highlights the options in Phase 5, it does not depict the natural and continuous flow of regeneration and degeneration. ...
The co-operative lifecycle framework has been a very useful concept in depicting the historical lifecycle of co-operatives. It is also particularly helpful in identifying and communicating if a co-operative is on a degenerative trajectory and points to the possibility of choice and re-invention. This paper focuses on this re-invention phase of the lifecycle framework and questions if re-invention is the best concept to use either in theory or practice. The paper explores whether regeneration may be a more promising concept, drawing on regenerative development and relationality literature. This paper concludes with an adaptation of Cook’s co-operative lifecycle framework by incorporating a regenerative enabling capability as a metric for success.
... The most important variables influencing social capital on resilience included the household head's membership in social groups, the extent of cooperation, opportunities to receive help, and social expenditures. This result is consistent with some studies [105][106][107][108]. According to this analysis, membership, and level of cooperation in social groups and non-governmental organizations highlight the importance of community-based organizations in improving resilience because they improve farmers' knowledge and prepare them for change [109]. ...
... In this regard, the restoration of social trust at different levels of society improves empathy, recognition, and proper understanding of each other's problems, leading to greater commitment to each other and willingness to help each other cope with drought. Consequently, making mutual trust under drought conditions leads to the exchange of goods for goods and financial support and cash, and these activities ultimately improve resilience [106]. A key variable of social capital in increasing resilience was social costs. ...
In recent years, rural-farmer families have encountered a higher level of vulnerability to drought than all other communities in the world including Iran. As well, their vulnerability has been intensified due to the gap in the previous research on resilience and the lack of a comprehensive program for their sustainability in drought conditions. To fill this gap, this research pursued two goals: (i) studying the resilience level of rural-farmer families in drought conditions and (ii) studying the factors underpinning resilience improvement. Given the drought severity in the region, the statistical population consisted of all rural farmers in Kerman province, southeastern Iran. Data were analyzed in the SPSS software package. The main research instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. Rural households in the study had weak resilience and livelihood assets, and their situation worsened with increasing drought. The results also revealed a negative significant relationship between drought severity and the resilience of rural-farmer families. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that 24 indicators of livelihood assets (financial, social, human, natural, physical) accounted for 84% of the variance in improving rural households' resilience under drought conditions.
... Cooperatives are spontaneously formed economic organizations based on geographical, kinship, and affinity ties [31]. Cooperative farmers also have greater access to innovative agricultural technologies [29,32,33]. Cooperatives can encourage farmers to make use of advanced technologies and share experiences, such as using superior seed varieties [34,35], water-saving irrigation systems, the scientific use of fertilizers [36], and adopting environmentally friendly technologies [29]. ...
... By joining cooperatives, farmers can gain access to new technologies and information, which reduces the costs of learning new technologies [32], promotes specialization and cooperation in production, decreases the frequency of common pesticide applications [47], and reduces agricultural pollution [29]. Small-scale farmers find it difficult to introduce expensive new technology and are therefore less unwilling to adopt green production systems independently [10]. ...
This study examines whether cooperatives can assist more than 200 million farmers in China, who are facing tightening resources and environmental constraints, in adopting green farming practices. A framework for counterfactual analysis was established to quantify the impact of farmers joining cooperatives on the reduction in chemical fertilizer consumption and the use of organic fertilizers. The study’s conclusions are based on data from 712 farmers in four counties in Shandong and Henan provinces. Joining a cooperative can have a positive impact on farmers’ selection of environmentally friendly production methods, which increases the likelihood of farmers reducing chemical fertilizer application by 35.6% and organic fertilizer application by 22.0%. It can also reduce the cost of chemical fertilizer application by an average of $209.2/ha. The extent to which smallholder farmers use chemical and organic fertilizers after joining cooperatives depends on the size of their farming operations and their perception of green production.
... Further, social capital has become one of the "trendiest terms" in the development literature (Farr, 2004). The way it tends to be used conflates social outcomes and the productive capacity that social capital can generate with the embedded processes upon which those outcomes rely (Hyun-soo Tregear and Cooper, 2016;Gretzinger et al., 2018, 24). As Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993) write, "social capital is the result of embeddedness". ...
... Sustainable agricultural processes require relationships, trust, and connection to the environment (Brinkley, 2017, 315;Payán-Sánchez et al., 2018) and the individualist motivations of the rational actor model are negatively correlated with social and environmental concerns (Steg et al., 2011;Raymond and Kenter, 2016). Communities with stable populations and strong community relationships have been shown to be more conducive to transitions to sustainable agriculture (Lorendahl, 1996;Huggins, 2000;Laschewski et al., 2002;Phyne et al., 2006;Ring et al., 2010;Tregear and Cooper, 2016). ...
Agricultural systems are deeply enmeshed in complex social processes and institutions, something Polanyi called embeddedness. Designing policy for sustainable agricultural activity requires understanding and measuring such embeddedness. Due to the difficulty of measuring complex social dynamics, however, most policy is aimed at measurable metrics such as price and production. The focus on these metrics imports the rational actor conceptualization of economic activity and fails to incorporate the values, motivations, and socio-cultural components of agricultural decision-making. This paper develops a tool for measuring embeddedness called the Embeddedness Type Matrix (ETM). The tool utilizes survey responses to elucidate economic actors' instrumentalism (decisions motivated by self-interest) and marketness (decisions motivated by market factors). Instrumentalism and marketness are considered together along perpendicular axes to determine the embeddedness quadrant of economic actors. The ETM allows researchers and policy-makers to better understand producers and consumers and design sustainability policies that are aligned with their values and motivations.
... Practically speaking, farmers who are members of both FA and APMG can benefit from both territorial and sectoral organisations. According to Tregear and Cooper (2016), the development of rural organisations can be categorised into territorial or sectoral types. On the one hand, territorial types develop in the context of local communities where local relations are important in shaping organisations. ...
... APMGs and cooperatives fit the profile for sectoral organisations since APMGs and cooperatives attract members from different territories. Sectoral organisations may provide more opportunity in learning the know-how or value-based mindsets (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). ...
We explore the effects of different farmer organisations on smallholder farmers' economic performance. The average treatment effect of switching between different farmer organisations is examined. In addition, based on the premise that a higher level of social capital is accumulated through participation in multiple farmer organisations, we also investigate how the economic consequences of farmer organisation membership vary with the intensity of participation. Our conceptual model explicitly includes social capital to provide a micro‐foundation and a theoretical justification for the linkage between farmer organisation participation and the economic outcome. This indicates that participating in different types of farmer organisations is beneficial for farm households only when the returns from social capital investment outweigh the time cost of participation. Our empirical results suggest that membership of farmer organisations that are more homogeneous in terms of member specialty and similarity in production and marketing activities results in a significant increase in farm sales revenue and net returns. This result supports the view that technological proximity accentuates knowledge spillovers within the farmer organisations, and thus leads to better economic outcomes. In line with the prediction of the theoretical model, the average treatment effect of participation is found to increase with the number of organisations that farmers belong to. Moreover, results from the quantile regression provide empirical evidence supporting increasing returns to social capital accumulated through participation in several farmer organisations.
... Studies often focus on a single challenge type such as climate change (Harvey et al. 2018), access to funding (Fisher 2013;Tregear and Cooper 2016) and land (Horst and Gwin 2018), or the adoption of new technologies (Castillo et al. 2021). Comparatively, fewer studies investigate a suite of challenges (Bruce and Som Castellano 2016;Iles et al. 2021). ...
... Social interactions within and beyond a community, regardless of their formality, require agreed-upon norms and rules that govern those relationships, which is the foundation for building and sustaining social capital (Putnam 2000). Social capital among farmers has been shown to facilitate a range of processes that benefit farmers and farming communities, such as knowledge sharing and acquisition (Pratiwi and Suzuki 2017;Thomas et al. 2020), diffusion of innovation (Oreszczyn et al. 2010;Cofre-Bravo et al. 2019, Cofré-Bravo et al. 2019, increasing access to funding (Fisher 2013;Tregear and Cooper 2016), fostering the adoption of new technologies (Lanza Castillo et al. 2021) and adaptation to new agricultural policies (Arnott et al. 2021). Furthermore, social capital can improve an entire community's capacity to deal with challenges by facilitating formal and informal collective action and community building (Glowacki-Dudka et al. 2013;Hulke and Diez 2020). ...
Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers' willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. We sent an online questionnaire to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10460-022-10343-0.
... Our results indicate that social relationships of farmers in this study firmly leans towards proactive investment in existing relationships to assist farmers in responding to change. These include the relationships farming operations have with business partners, labourers, neighbours and friends, and therefore relates to their embeddedness in communities which span across levels of the value chain (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). In addition to these relationships, social organisation through the industry body provided another important means of responding. ...
... Education, as a benchmarking guide for decision making on the adoption of green technology in agriculture, can enable farmers to raise awareness of green control in agriculture and the advantages and disadvantages of traditional control so that farmers can establish green concepts at the subjective level and effectively promote green production by farmers [23,24]. Since education cannot be separated from trust between organizations and individuals [25], mutual understanding between public relations officers and farmers [26], individual farmers' needs [27], and ease of access to information [28] are necessary, as cooperatives are deeply rooted in rural social networks as spontaneous farmers' organizations [8,29]. Thirdly, cooperatives influence farmers to engage in green production by changing their perceptions [30]. ...
Nudging the adoption of agricultural green production technologies (AGPTs) by cotton farmers is a practical need to implement the national “green development” strategy. Based on the micro-survey data of 502 cotton farmers, this paper empirically analyzed the influence and driving mechanism of cotton farmers’ participation in cooperatives on their adoption of green production technology from the perspective of their inner cognition and external regulation by using the propensity score matching (PSM) model and the intermediary effect model. The study found that (1) the importance of agricultural green production technology to cotton farmers was in the order of soil testing and formula fertilization technology, green prevention and control technology, deep tillage technology, water-saving irrigation technology, new variety technology, and straw-returning technology. (2) Participation in cooperatives can significantly improve the adoption of agricultural green production technologies by cotton farmers, with an increase of about 27.16%, and the improvement effect on technology-intensive production links is pronounced. (3) By improving the inner cognition and external regulation of cotton farmers, cooperatives can enhance the green endogenous power of cotton farmers, improve environmental external constraints, and become an intermediary path to guide cotton farmers to adopt agricultural green production technology.
... Collaborative learning experiences serve as a valuable training ground where individuals acquire the skills and attitudes necessary for effective cooperation, communication, and participation within cooperative structures (Fu & Hwang, 2018). In turn, cooperative literacy supports the application of these skills within cooperative environments, including cooperatives, community organizations, and collaborative work settings (Tregear & Cooper, 2016). ...
This study examines the robust relationships between Roblox's business model, collaborative learning, participation in the decision-making process, and cooperative literacy within the Indonesian Roblox community. All hypotheses were substantiated, emphasizing the significance of understanding the business model, promoting collaborative learning, and encouraging active involvement in decision-making activities for fostering cooperative literacy among players. The research employed an exploratory research design with a quantitative approach. Sampling bias and self-reported data are acknowledged limitations, along with the cross-sectional design's inability to establish causality. To address these constraints, future research should employ longitudinal methods, diverse data collection approaches, and intervention studies. Cross-cultural research comparing the Indonesian Roblox community with other cultural contexts is also encouraged. Practical recommendations include integrating features that support collaborative learning and decision-making participation within the Roblox platform. Collaboration between educational institutions and Roblox to use the platform as an educational tool is suggested, offering students a unique opportunity to develop cooperative literacy skills. These findings offer valuable insights into cooperative literacy and community engagement within the Roblox ecosystem, providing a roadmap for its development. This research contributes to the platform's growth and success in Indonesia, making it a more cooperative and informed community.
... Social capital has been understood in a number of different ways (e.g., Cofré-Bravo et al., 2019;Hurley, 2017;Levebvre et al., 2016;Narayan, 2002;Woolcock, 1998) where bonding, bridging and linking capital are commonly used concepts. Bonding social capital are bonds within communities that facilitate cooperation and connection between members of families and their local farming communities (Fisher, 2013;Narayan, 2002;Tregear & Cooper, 2016). Kinship ties are important social relations in rural Chinese society (Tang et al., 2019) where bonding social capital among villagers is typically strong and easily established (Pretty & Ward, 2001). ...
There is a growing global emphasis on sustainable agriculture to reduce human impacts and improve delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With increasing investment in critical zone observatories (CZOs), it becomes important to understand how sustainable agricultural knowledge is produced, shared and used between different groups including farmers, scientists and government. To explore these issues, scientists leading the knowledge exchange (KE) component of a China‐UK CZO program studied three farming regions with contrasting geologies and varying economic levels, using a practice‐based research method. We demonstrate how additional funding for social science research allowed us to understand how farmers access and share farming knowledge through bonding, bridging and linking networks, and how this varies spatially, using interviews and survey questionnaires. Knowledge flows, barriers and opportunities for designing locally suited two‐way KE activities were identified. First, we highlight the need for a more locally, socially embedded and reflexive approach to build trust and better address pressing local environmental challenges. Second, we show how social science can usefully inform KE for collaborative, international development science, to draw on local knowledge, promote research impacts and capacity building while avoiding knowledge mismatches. Lastly, a blueprint for the design and funding of future CZOs, social‐ecological and planetary health research agendas that combine science, social science, local knowledge and KE is presented, including the need for substantive social science research to take place in addition to science research in human‐modified landscapes—enabling the CZ science to be better grounded in, informed by and useful to local communities.
... South Africa, like many other third world countries, is battling with the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment, and inequality (Shava and Hofisi 2019). In order to meet rural development objectives, policymakers and researchers have recommended rural cooperatives as a strategy in rural areas that will enable citizens to participate in collective activities (Tregear and Cooper 2016). Kruss (2018) posits that South Africa is at the front-line of development planning, as is clear from an attempt at creating a reasonable, thorough, cross-government national methodology for the comprehensive turnaround of social ills through Innovation for Inclusive Development (IID). ...
This paper explores the potency of rural cooperatives for the effective planning and implementation of rural strategies to address poverty. Rural cooperatives function as a participatory approach that provides the potential to equip and empower people in rural areas with various skills. Hence, rural cooperatives represent the means and strategies to unshackle rural people from the vicious circle of poverty. The contestation about a deadlock of rural development has become pertinent in the recent and ongoing political transformation in South Africa. This paper is grounded on the social capital theory and its ideals. As such, it depends on a literature review for its premise, argument, crux and purpose, as well as drawing up results and conclusions. The paper gathers information in respect of various scholars' notions on rural cooperatives and rural development from related articles, journals and books. The paper reveals that where the South African government is confronted and characterised by some form of upheaval and service delivery challenges, so rural cooperatives are fit to capacitate citizens to avoid depending on the government for scarce resources. The paper further reveals that rural cooperatives are deemed to ameliorate the long-standing patterns of developmental backlogs in almost all South African municipalities. The conclusion that can be made from this paper is that the authentic promotion of rural development in the formulation of a well-informed legislative framework, that is clear and unambiguous, can deal effectively with the challenges of rural cooperatives.
... Another larger body of scholarly work employing social capital theorizing within the agri-food sector increasingly focuses on collective action in a territorial context such as certain rural areas, where cooperatives coexist with a broader array of formal (oftentimes nonprofit) and informal legal statuses (Tregear & Cooper, 2016). These local, community-based initiatives typically involve multiple stakeholders: farmers, consumers, and sometimes local third sector organizations and the public sector. ...
Cooperatives are considered resilient enterprises in times of crisis, partly due to their social logic as eminent through cooperative values and principles, such as democratic governance. Increasingly, social capital theory has been applied to study cooperatives’ social relationships. In this chapter, we focus on the organizational level (Leana and Buren in Academy of Management Review 24:538–555, 1999), asking how the three dimensions of social capital as identified by Putnam (Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press, 1993) and further recognized by Ostrom and Ahn (Foundations of social capital. Elgar, 2003), i.e. (i) trust, (ii) networks, and (iii) norms and rules, are manifesting across agri-food cooperatives in particular. Extant literature has thus far explored social capital either in large, homogeneous producer cooperatives, or exclusively considered recently emerging, rather alternative multistakeholder cooperatives. Overcoming the dichotomy from the literature, we used purposive sampling to investigate a maximal diversity of agricultural cooperatives in Flanders, Northern Belgium. Analyzing 26 semi-structured interviews, we first identified characteristics of “typical cases” to develop a typology of distinctive subtypes of agricultural cooperatives in Flanders. Second, the cooperatives’ interpretations of the three dimensions of social capital were explored, revealing considerable overlap with how cooperatives “live” and embed the principle of democratic governance. Third, a matrix was developed to link these dimensions to different subtypes of agricultural cooperatives, which in turn held theoretical and practical implications for humanistic management practices (Melé in Journal of Business Ethics 44:77–88, 2003; Pastoriza et al. in Journal of Business Ethics 78:329–341, 2008) in cooperatives.
... Another larger body of scholarly work employing social capital theorizing within the agri-food sector increasingly focuses on collective action in a territorial context such as certain rural areas, where cooperatives coexist with a broader array of formal (oftentimes nonprofit) and informal legal statuses (Tregear & Cooper, 2016). These local, community-based initiatives typically involve multiple stakeholders: farmers, consumers, and sometimes local third sector organizations and the public sector. ...
Cooperatives have always lived on the edge of established categories, disrupting and disorganizing prevailing cultural, political, and institutional arrangements on the basis of alternative practices organized around normative values like democracy, autonomy, participation, equality, and solidarity. This chapter investigates how ideologiesIdeology help cooperatives resist dominant institutional patternsDominant institutional patterns and preserve their distinctiveness over time. In order to do so, it draws on an in-depth ethnographic studyEthnographic studyof CecosesolaCecosesola, a long-lasting Venezuelan second-tier cooperativeSecond-tier cooperative that has nurtured radical self-managementRadical self-management for several decades. The chapter makes a threefold contribution. First, it contributes to a key debate within institutional theoryInstitutional theory concerning how alternative organizationsAlternative organizations resist institutional pressures towards conformityInstitutional pressures, by describing the process through which alternative organizations make a virtue of nurturing their distinctive organizing patternsDistinctive organizing patterns and deliberately shield them from the influence of dominant institutionsDominant institutions. Second, it contributes to the literature on organizational ideologyOrganizational ideology, by unveiling the conditions under which a radically distinctive ideologyRadically distinctive ideology may be created, sustained, and reproduced over time within the boundaries of a participatory organizationParticipatory organization. Third, it contributes to the debate on the degeneration of participatory organizationsDegeneration of participatory organizations, by unveiling how the development of a strong ideologyDevelopment of a strong ideology contributes to protecting workplace democracyProtecting workplace democracy against external and internal forces leading to the erosion of participation.
... It is understandable that someone wants to do business with the person they familiar with. Trust is also establishing harmonious intercommunity relationships in eco-tourism [41]. Moreover, trust and collective action are cultural components in modern society [14], that able to encourage the welfare of the local community and minimize the negative impacts of tourism [8]. ...
The role of social capital in Community-based tourism (CBT) to reach local communities' welfare is being the concern of tourism activities. Previous research found that social capital approach could be used to achieve sustainability and prosperity. Mutually beneficial trust and collective action among the member of the community as aspects of social capital played an important role to take off CBT. The study aimed to analyze the role of trust and collective action as elements of social capital on the local community of CBT Kampung Tajur and to examine the link between trust and collective action. This study was conducted on a sample of Kampung Tajur community which was appointed as CBT because its willingness to take collective action. The result showed that trust was a robust predictor of attending a religious meeting, participating in managing homestay, and joining for community work. On the other hand, the absence of attending a formal meeting and community meeting conducted by the community head did not have a link to trust among the community member. Our findings suggested that due to well implementation of social capital role in terms of trust and collective action, the community's members must be encouraged as the subject in tourism activity by enhancing knowledge, empowerment, and inspiration based on local wisdom. Keywords: Collective action, Community-based Tourism, social capital, trust.
... As a new form of land consolidation under the background of the new era, the novelty of CLC lies in the construction of a regional sustainable economy on the basis of spatial consolidation projects. A collective economy has great potential in organizing the reuse of abandoned land, strengthening the exchange of knowledge and other elements, providing more employment opportunities, and enhancing collective marketing income, and has been advocated in many developed and developing countries [66][67][68]. Several studies have used empirical case analysis combining qualitative and quantitative methods and found that the collective economic model of the village cooperative and social enterprise unified management promoted the extension of the agricultural industry chain and local economic Land 2022, 11, 1932 13 of 17 growth; additionally, the residents' livelihood structure became non-agricultural and diversified [17,18,61,69,70]. ...
In the context of current global rural decline, land consolidation has been adopted with the objectives of promoting rural vitalization and regional sustainable development. In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework for rural restructuring driven by comprehensive land consolidation (CLC). The framework describes three key mechanisms of rural spatial, economic, and social restructuring driven by CLC: improving spatial patterns and functions, vitalizing the collective economy, and reshaping the social community. Based on the theoretical framework, we present a case that exemplifies the micro processes of rural restructuring. Taking spatial restructuring as the material basis and carrier, CLC promotes economic restructuring from traditional agricultural production to modern agricultural production and industrial integration, as well as social restructuring from a traditional rural society to urbanization, communitization, and a society with diversified culture. After CLC, it is very important to further enhance the sustainability of the collective economic development and enhance the cohesion and prosperity of the social community.
... SC and self-efficacy emerged as reference points in various studies (Koçak et al., 2013;Yuasa et al., 2015;Wuepper and Sauer, 2016;Kannadhasan et al., 2018;Andersson, 2021), and well recognized as cultural traits which affect the performance of farmers (Wuepper and Sauer, 2016). Although, the relationship dynamics of these concepts seem to be narrow and localized (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). In India, no study has performed yet to investigate the relationship among SC, SEF and perceived performance of FPOs. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of social capital and self-efficacy in the performance of producer organizations. It also tests the mediating influence of self-efficacy in the relationship of social capital and performance of producer organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used data from a survey of 226 members of farmer producer organizations (FPO) in India. The model was tested through structural equation modeling wherein all hypotheses were tested using “R” studio.
Findings
The findings reveal that social capital and self-efficacy play a significant role in predicting the performance of FPO. It was found that in the process of social capital influencing the performance of FPO, self-efficacy plays a significant role as a partial mediator with a mediating effect of approximately 69.28%.
Research limitations/implications
The study considered only one antecedent while identifying the reasons for perceived performance of FPOs. Hence, further studies of the various other constructs such as attitude, subjective norms, etc., may be considered.
Originality/value
No previous work has examined the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between social capital and perceived performance of FPO. This study is possibly the only one that joins two streams of thought – social capital and self-efficacy – to examine the performance of FPO.
... Vertical networks comprise actors within the same value chain, but on different scales and predominantly from different locations. Dubois (2016) and Müller and Korsgaard (2018) point to the value of extra-local business networks for exploiting and creating business opportunities, and Tregear and Cooper (2016) show that local knowledge production is strongly related to (vertical) industry-specific knowledge. Virkkala (2007) shows that small manufacturing businesses in the ICT sector in remote locations learn from projects with large customers, i.e. through their value chain. ...
Rural businesses tend to rely on ‘collaborative strategies’ to cope with their adverse locational effects. They are known to sustain strong local ties, and some rural businesses also have ‘pipelines’ to faraway places. While, in general, the effects of ‘networking,’ especially for small rural businesses, have been intensively studied, there still remain important gaps in the literature, which we seek to address: frst, ‘networks’ are often conceptualized rather broadly; second, different types of networks have been looked at in isolation; and third, the outcomes of networking remain unclear. Based on a survey of rural microbusinesses in Germany (n = 166), we shed light on the various collaborative strategies that these businesses sustain. We simultaneously estimate the effects of
horizontal, vertical and private networks on business growth and innovativeness in a structural equation mode (SEM). This is important because overwhelmingly, rural development programs focus on the establishment of localized business networks alone, neglecting the important knowledge inflows along the vertical business chain. Indeed, our results show that vertical networks and horizontal networks are both strongly associated with innovativeness and subsequently growth. This calls for a balanced strategy to support rural entrepreneurs, combining regional cooperation and integration in extra-regional value chains.
... Sebagai contoh, [21] mencatat efek negatif modal sosial seperti pengecualian orang luar, klaim pada anggota kelompok, pembatasan kebebasan individu, dan norma-norma lainnya. ketika jaringan petani didasarkan pada ikatan modal sosial, ini dapat menyebabkan perkembangan yang homogen dan pengetahuan yang berlebihan dalam jaringan [8], [9]. Ini bisa mencegah perolehan pengetahuan baru diperoleh dari jenis modal sosial lainnya [23]- [25]. ...
Pembangunan berkelanjutan menjadi isu penting di setiap sektor termasuk sektor perkebunan. Keberlanjutan kebun plasma sering mengalami permasalahan setelah lepas dari perkebunan besar pengelolanya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat bagaimana modal sosial berperan dalam keberlanjutan pengelolaan perkebunan kelapa sawit rakyat pasca plasma. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode survey melalui wawancara mendalam dengan Ketua KUD Lubuk Karya dan 10 orang anggotanya koperasi yang dipilih secara purposive sampling. Hasil wawancara ditabulasi dan diinterprestasikan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa modal sosial berperan penting dalam keberlanjutan perkebunan pasca lepas dari plasma. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa modal sosial yang paling beperan dalam keberlanjutan perkebunan paca plasma adalah modal rasional terutama pada aspek saling percaya diantara anggota. Komunikasi, tranparansi dan aliran informasi antar aktor melahirkan hubungan positif jangka Panjang. Walaupun manajemen kebun sudah berganti dengan petani pengelola yaitu petani KUD tidak mempengaruhi keberlanjutan, karena transfer ilmu dan informasi masih tetap dilakukan melalui pemeliharaan hubungan sosial atau modal sosial.
... This question seeks to identify the role of co-operatives in supporting the entry of farmers into the bioeconomy by taking a collective approach. A core research study relating to this question is Tregear and Cooper [153] which identify the benefits of co-operatives for primary producers compared to taking an individualistic approach. Within just transition, the role of trade unions is also highly relevant. ...
The European Commission's European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI), part of the European Commission's Europe 2020 strategy, aims to 'achieve more and better from less' by bringing together a diversity of innovation actors to harness their combined knowledges to creatively achieve sustainability goals. The creation and novel use of biomaterials remains both a significant challenge and opportunity and bringing together all the relevant actors from primary production through to refinement and processing is anticipated to make progress in bringing into practice pilot operational approaches on the ground. For the bioe-conomy, a nascent sector, it is a significant challenge for it to become established; grow; innovate and engage all the relevant actors. It has been noted internationally that primary producers, among other cohorts, remain marginalised from bioeconomy activities, which significantly compromises how inclusive and innovative the bioeconomy is likely to be henceforth. In this context, an interesting case study is the Biorefinery Glas Operational Group (OG), located in Ireland. The OG was a 'small-scale-farmer-led green biorefinery supporting farmer diversification into the circular bioe-conomy'. The central research question of this paper concerns the dynamics of farmers' participation in the OG, focusing specifically on how their knowledges shaped the operation of the OG and bioeconomy activities within it. This paper presents a social network graph illustrating the diverse actors involved in the OG, their relative degrees of connectedness to each other, and an overview of the differing levels of actors' influence in the network. Interrogating the roles of different actors further, a lens of power theory is used to explore how farmers' knowledges were used in combination with others' knowledges to shape the development of the OG and innovation within it. The overall conclusion from an analysis of interviews conducted with farmer and non-farmer participants in the OG is that while farmers were highly connected with other members of the OG and viewed their involvement in the OG positively, the level of influence they had in decision-making processes in some areas of the OG was relatively limited. Different types of members of the OG tended to work in a relatively segmented way, with farmers contributing as input suppliers and on the practical side at the farm level, while other members of the OG such as scientists worked on more technical aspects. This paper concludes by providing conclusions and lessons of relevance to innovation-brokers and practitioners, and for the operation of OGs involving farmers elsewhere. Citation: Harrahill, K.; Macken-Walsh, Á.; O'Neill, E.; Lennon, M. An Analysis of Irish Dairy Farmers' Participation in the Bioeconomy: Exploring Power and Knowledge Dynamics in a Multi-Actor EIP-AGRI Operational Group. Sustainability 2022, 14, 12098.
... This happened among rattan entrepreneurs in Cirebon. Social networks and economic forms can also occur in rural communities, which have stronger family ties than urban communities (Tregear and Cooper 2016). Local entrepreneurs are able to compete in the economy while maintaining the characteristics of the rural economy with the wisdom values they possess (Bosworth and Turner 2018). ...
The purpose of this study was to analyze the attachment of economic activity in social networks among entrepreneurs in Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia. This research was conducted in Cirebon Regency, for a period of 6 months, from May to October 2019. This research method uses a qualitative approach. The results of the study found that: first, local entrepreneurs (genuine) in the rattan business sector have been running for a very long time. Second, as a result of historical formation, there is a wide network both between entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs with certain institutions and community structures. Thrid, the map of economic network attachment in social networks shows the diversity of attachments between economic networks and social networks.
... Second, cooperatives can accurately determine which type of green production technology is suitable for the production needs of local farmers, and consider the individual needs of farmers [49] to improve the efficiency of agricultural technology extension. Third, cooperatives are all established in local villages, which have prominent geographical advantages [50], and can bring convenient information access for trained farmers [51]. Fourth, peasant cooperatives are established by farmers spontaneously, and the training using the local language system is more in line with their cognitive dimensions [38], and is more conducive to farmers to absorb the training information [47]. ...
The issue of environmental pollution caused by traditional agricultural production operations is becoming increasingly serious. Farmers are the direct actors of production, and their willingness to green production deserves the greatest attention. Technical training conducted by farmers’ cooperatives worldwide in recent years appears to have changed farmers’ willingness to adopt green production technologies, but there is a lack of empirical testing of the impact mechanisms. Therefore, based on a sample of 1147 members of China’s citrus production cooperatives, we theoretically and empirically explored the impact of this; the mechanism of the effect was analyzed through the endogeneity treatment and robustness test of farmers’ value perception, as well as the instrumental variable method (IV-Oprobit). The results showed that farmers’ overall willingness to adopt green production technologies was low, and increasing the number of training sessions in farmers cooperatives could significantly enhance their willingness. Specifically, the probability of members being “very willing” to adopt technologies increased by 3.2% for each additional training session in cooperatives. Additionally, cooperative training can significantly improve members’ technology applicability and benefit–cost perceptions of green production technologies, thus enhancing their willingness to adopt; both types of value perceptions are important transmission mediators of this effect, and the mediation effects account for 5.98 and 14.53% of the total effect, respectively. Other than that, the results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that the effect of cooperative training on the willingness to adopt them was positively significant regardless of small-, medium- or large-scale members, with the most significant effect on small-scale farmers. This study provides a better understanding of the impact of technical training of cooperatives on farmers’ willingness, contributes to the enrichment of value perception theory, and provides a basis for formulating relevant policies to encourage cooperatives to perform their training function and promote green production in agriculture.
... Training farmers is the main way to disseminate GCT operational knowledge, which can promote people to master the GCT operating points skillfully, and then generate the willingness to adopt technology [38]. Cooperatives have the natural advantage of playing a training function in rural society, and are an important organizational carrier for information transmission [27]. In practice, cooperatives can effectively carry out targeted and can provide targeted technical information for farmers to implement newer green prevention technology [39], and reduce the marginal cost of technology adoption [40]. ...
The study explores the impact of education of farmers’ cooperatives on members’ green production behavior. The Probit, Oprobit model and the mediation effect model are used to analyze the influence mechanism of the cooperative’s education on the members’ adoption of four types of green prevention and control technologies and the overall adoption rate, and the instrumental variable method is used for endogeneity treatment and robustness test. The results show that: (1) The education of cooperatives have a significant positive impact on the members’ physical pest control technology, biological pesticide application technology, water and fertilizer integration technology, scientific pesticides reduction technology, and the overall adoption rate plays a critical role. As a result, there is a certain degree of heterogeneity in different intergenerational member groups. (2) The education of cooperatives can significantly enhance members’ cognition of green prevention and control. (3) Through on-the-spot demonstration and general meetings of the members to carry out education, members are more likely to adopt green prevention and control technologies. These findings shed light on the mechanisms by which cooperative’s education affect the green production behavior of cooperative members and provide important policy implications for green agricultural development.
GIZ Türkiye (Alman Uluslararası İşbirliği Kurumu) tarafından yürütülen Türkiye-Almanya Bilgi Değişimi Projesi kapsamında Çalışma ve Sosyal Güvenlik Bakanlığı Uluslararası İşgücü Genel Müdürlüğü ile ortaklaşa olarak gerçekleştirilen kooperatiflere odaklı araştırmamızın iki çıktısından ilki yayınlandı.
Aylin Çiğdem Köne, Çağatay Edgücan Şahin, Uygar D. Yıldırım, Serkan Öngel ve Cevat Yildirim'ın özellikle yeni kurulan ve kurulacak olan kooperatiflere yönelik hazırladıkları "Dünyada ve Türkiye'de Kooperatifler" başlıklı el kitabı, "kooperatifler konusunda teorik arka plan", "uluslararası düzeyde kooperatifçilik yaklaşımları ve eğilimler" ile "ülkemizde kooperatiflerle ilgili durum" bölümlerinden oluşuyor.
Purpose-The "Smart Village" approach includes long-term social, economic, and environmental activities of the rural community that involve widespread participation in local governance processes, promoting entrepreneurship, preserving the rural environment and, ultimately, sustainable development of rural areas. Therefore, the development of scenarios that facilitate the realization of the smart village approach in the peri-urban settlements of the metropolis of Tehran should be emphasized. Design/methodology/approach-This research is a descriptive-analytical study from the perspective of its objectives it is applied. Data and information were collected through library research, documentary studies, and survey methods (interviews). By reviewing scientific sources and conducting interviews with experts, 57 influencing factors of the smart village approach on the sustainability of peri-urban settlements were identified, categorized into 5 dimensions, and a total of 35 people, including managers of relevant organizations and university experts, were interviewed. The analysis of data was based on futures studies techniques, including structural analysis and mutual effects analysis (done using Micmac and Scenario Wizard software). Finding-The research findings show that there are a very large number of possible scenarios for the impact of the smart village on the sustainability of peri-urban settlements in the metropolis of Tehran within the range of Islamshahr County. Among them, 14 scenarios have weak compatibility and only 1 scenario is in a state of strong and sustainable compatibility (zero incompatibility). The first scenario, which is a positive one, has a mutual effect score of 733 and a compatibility value of 13, while the second scenario, which indicates unfavorable conditions for the future impact of the smart village on sustainable development, has a mutual effect score of-144 and a compatibility value of 5. The third scenario also has a compatibility value of-2 and with a mutual effect score of 63, it can be one of the impactful scenarios for the smart village on the sustainability of peri-urban settlements in the metropolis of Tehran. At the end of the research, operational suggestions are presented to enhance the indices of a smart village to achieve sustainable development in the rural settlements of the studied area. Originality/Value-For the first time in Iran, scenarios have been developed on the impact of smart villages on the sustainability of peri-urban settlements, and from this perspective, it is innovative and among the first research in the field.
O desenvolvimento sustentável (DS) tem se mostrado um fator importante para os tomadores de decisão de diversos setores ao redor do mundo, uma vez que contribui para melhorar a qualidade de vida das pessoas, o bem-estar econômico, social e ambiental das sociedades. Sendo assim, conhecer os indicadores de sustentabilidade torna-se cada vez mais importante. E no contexto de indicadores de avaliação de sustentabilidade, as cooperativas representam um papel importante em relação ao processo de desenvolvimento sustentável. Este artigo tem como objetivo identificar e analisar quais indicadores são utilizados para avaliar a sustentabilidade das cooperativas. Para tanto, foi desenvolvida uma revisão sistemática de literatura. Obteve-se oito artigos de análise em buscas, a partir de quatro bases de dados, no período de 2011 e 2020. E constatou-se a predominância de estudos nos aspectos econômicos e sociais, características dos princípios cooperativos e que somente um dos artigos elaborou um estudo considerando todos os pilares, e ainda, com subíndices específicos para o estudo. É importante destacar que os estudos reforçam que as cooperativas contribuem em fortalecer o desenvolvimento sustentável à sociedade, potencializando a redução de pobreza, oportunidade de emprego e preocupação com as gerações futuras.
Due to tensions between social, cooperative and competitive goals, producer cooperatives (PCs) often degenerate by abandoning their cooperative and social goals or fail economically. We show how these pressures to degenerate into business-as-usual can be resisted and even reversed through a longitudinal study of Zespri, a cooperative responsible for 30% of global kiwifruit exports. We employ a performativity lens to theorise the organising involved in regenerating cooperative principles while introducing new competitive strategies. We explicate three types of performativity: performative dualism, instrumental performativity and performative multiplicity, and offer nuanced insights into how different performative struggles unravel and temporarily resolve through different modes of ordering (distribution, coordination and mutual inclusion). Our insights further contribute to organisation studies about cooperatives’ tendencies to degenerate/regenerate by showing the importance of organising the multiple, and sometimes conflicted, views of actors in a generative and productive way. Those findings can be extended to other democratically managed and hybrid organisations.
L’article revisite la question de l’ancrage territorial des coopératives au prisme d’un cadre d’analyse croisant la sociologie du travail politique et l’approche régulationniste « méso ». Ce cadrage général est mis à l’épreuve à partir d’une étude de cas portant sur les coopératives de production (SCOP) du Pays basque français, considérées comme un mouvement social économique aspirant à refonder le développement local sur une base coopérative, territoriale et intersectorielle. Les visions du développement territorial ainsi véhiculées ne sont cependant pas statiques. Nous en proposons dès lors une lecture sociohistorique en distinguant trois séquences. La genèse du mouvement, d’une part, se caractérise dans les années 1970 par sa politisation, les fondateurs des SCOP se référant à un modèle de développement économique endogène, au modèle transfrontalier de Mondragón, à l’identité territoriale et à des registres hérités de coopération. Dans une deuxième phase, le mouvement connaitra un ralentissement dû à quelques échecs entrepreneuriaux. Les contraintes sectorielles et marchandes mettent alors à l’épreuve le modèle coopératif et l’inter-coopération. Une troisième phase, à compter des années 2000, voit un redéploiement des coopératives dans le cadre d’un spectre élargi de mobilisations citoyennes autour de l’économie sociale et solidaire mais aussi de la transition écologique, de la langue et de la culture basques, ce redéploiement coïncidant avec un changement substantiel de la gouvernance territoriale. La section conclusive revient sur quelques enseignements à portée générale concernant l’ancrage territorial des coopératives.
Purpose
Sustainable development involves companies on an individual, organizational and social level requiring the adoption of business models or innovations capable of privileging the co-creation of mutual value with a view to sustainability. From an organizational perspective, this paper aims to show that knowledge brokers, by making explicit their roles as mediators of interactions and acting on dynamic capabilities (DCs), can generate a proactive approach to the three dimensions of sustainability and specifically allows capabilities to positively impact the propensity toward sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study offers an empirical analysis of 200 companies in the agro-food sector participating in a knowledge brokerage system activated by protection consortia. It uses a multiple regression technique that allows for observing relationships between DCs and SSCM.
Findings
Absorptive, adaptive and innovative capabilities, when understood and brokered, have a positive and direct impact on the SSCM.
Originality/value
As there have rarely been frameworks developed that correlate knowledge brokerage, DCs and sustainability, this paper suggests that DCs, when adequately valued by the knowledge broker, allow for identifying the requirements of the various stakeholders regarding sustainability and changes in market scenarios to generate sustainability practices along the supply chain.
The recent development of new technologies has enabled the global enhancement of production in numerous industries. This has caused changes in society on the cultural, economic and sociological levels. In 2015, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were formulated by the United Nations (UN), aiming to be achieved by the year 2030. There are a total of 17 SDGs that are concerned with such important areas as poverty, hunger and well-being, gender equality, sustainability or climate change, among others. In this context, the present study explores the role of business associations known as cooperatives in the SDGs and discusses its role in the current resource curse. To this end, a bibliometric analysis using VOSViewer is applied to the dataset of scientific contributions (n = 874 studies) published between 2015 and 2022 in Web of Sciences (WoS). The analysis fo-cuses on co-citation of references and authors, bibliographic coupling and occurrence of keywords in the dataset. The results show and link 8 types of cooperatives with their influence on each of the 17 SDGs. These links are then discussed and analyzed with the main contributions made to date in the literature linked to the current resource curse and future solutions. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the study in relation to the state-of-the-art in this field of research are presented.
El objetivo de la investigación es caracterizar las formas de asociatividad y su impacto en la productividad y competitividad del sector agrícola. Se aborda la temática desde un referente teórico, casuístico y participativo para el caso de la producción de guayaba en la provincia de Vélez, Santander-Colombia. Se estudia desde la concepción y experiencia de los directivos de cuatro organizaciones asociativas, que agrupan cerca de 80 asociados, alrededor de tres variables: caracterización de la asociatividad y las organizaciones solidarias, impacto de la asociatividad en la productividad y competitividad del sector y beneficios de la dinámica asociativa. Los resultados demuestran que la asociatividad es concebida, por los pequeños productores, como la principal alternativa para solucionar sus problemas de productividad y competitividad. La asociatividad ha generado impacto en el sector con la recuperación de la hegemonía del cultivo, avances en la productividad, tecnificación y calidad del cultivo, sin embargo, se puede considerar apenas incipiente dadas las falencias en visión empresarial, estrategia, planeación, operación, finanzas y comercialización que conducen a privilegiar una dinámica cortoplacista y dependencia de apoyos gubernamentales, lo que dificulta avanzar en términos de competitividad. Se concluye que no existen diferencias notables en las características y estructuras de las asociaciones estudiadas, así mismo, se establece que la productividad se ha mejorado, pero en cuanto a competitividad del producto, todavía es necesario generar más y mejores estrategias. Los resultados invitan a profundizar en la identificación de modelos de negocio que impulsen la asociatividad como estrategia de competitividad y desarrollo.
Based on the human capital and social capital theories, this study aims to explore how micro, small and medium enterprises utilize strategic resources to drive growth and competitiveness. Data were collected from 309 micro, small, and medium restaurant owners and managers and two-stage structural equation modelling was conducted to test the hypothesized relationships. The research findings show that the entrepreneur’s/manager’s age and years of work experience are related to firm growth while the entrepreneur’s age is related to firm competitiveness. Accordingly, social capital is directly related to firm growth and competitiveness. Moreover, social capital plays a mediating role in the effect of human capital on firm growth and competitiveness. The study contributes to extant knowledge by extending human capital and social capital theory as well as firm growth and competitiveness literature in the field.
The purpose of this study is spatial analysis of factors affecting the formation of intelligent growth approach in rural settlements of Jiroft. This research is descriptive-analytical and in terms of practical purpose and statistical population of the present study consists of two groups: The statistical population of the first group includes (12131) households living in all 18 villages located in Jiroft county. Using Cochran's formula, 261 households were estimated as sample households and were randomly interviewed. The second group includes 30 experts, specialists and university professors and executive officials identified in the rural area. AHP, COCOSO and one-sample t-test in SPSS software were used to analyze the data. Findings of the study confirm that among the indicators of rural intelligent growth, transportation and communication index and physical tissue improvement with averages of 106.542 and 99.425, respectively, were the most important indicators of rural intelligent growth in the studied villages. The results of pairwise comparison of factors affecting the formation of intelligent growth using AHP method by experts showed that the components of local economy sustainability, transportation and communications, housing quality improvement, environmental quality improvement with weights of 0.303, 0.204, 0.132, respectively. 0 and 0.126 percent are the most important factors influencing the formation of intelligent growth. Also, the components of density and intensive development, improvement of physical tissue and stability of the local community with weights of 0.065, 0.081 and 0.089, respectively, are less important in the formation of intelligent growth than other factors. Finally, the results of the combined weighting method of AHP and COCOSO show that in terms of having intelligent growth indicators, Aliabad, Dolatabad and Dubneh villages have the first to third ranks with the highest rank, respectively, and the villages of Tarj, Narjoo and Soghdar have the lowest rank in terms of enjoyment. They are indicators of smart growth.
Das Modellvorhaben „Land(auf)Schwung“ des Bundesministeriums für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft hat zum Ziel, neue Wege in der Entwicklung ländlicher Räume zu erproben. 13 periphere, ländliche Kreise wurden von 2015 bis 2019 mit jeweils ca. 2,5 Mio. Euro gefördert, um Ansätze zur Sicherung der Daseinsvorsorge sowie zur Stärkung der regionalen Wertschöpfung zu entwickelnund umzusetzen. Benachteiligte ländliche Regionen sind oftmals geprägt von einer begrenzten Innovationskraft aufgrund fehlender Wissensinfrastrukturen, einer Branchenstruktur mit niedrigemInnovationsniveau, weniger Startups und einer Dominanz von Klein- und Kleinstbetrieben. Die regionale Wirtschaft bietet häufig wenige Arbeitsplätze für Hochqualifizierte an und hat gleichzeitigaufgrund geringerer Produktivität Schwierigkeiten, Fachkräfte anzuziehen. Diese Herausforderun-gen wurden in zahlreichen Projekten zur Stärkung der regionalen Wertschöpfung angenommen. So wurden u. a. Kleinstbetriebe im Lebensmittelbereich mit Investitionshilfen bei der Entwicklungneuer Produkte unterstützt, regionale Vermarktungsinitiativen wurden auf- und ausgebaut, um denAbsatz regionaler Produkte zu steigern, und Technologie- und Gründerzentren wurden eingerichtet. Die Begleitforschung nutzte diese entstandene Projektlandschaft als Datengrundlage für dieAbleitung übergeordneter Erkenntnisse und Handlungsempfehlungen. Es wurden vertiefende Fallstudien (insgesamt 83 Interviews) zu regionalen Produkten durchgeführt sowie die Einrichtung vonzwei Gründerzentren untersucht und eine standardisierte Onlinebefragung von insgesamt 166 Klein(st)betrieben, die in regionalen Vermarktungsinitiativen organisiert sind, ausgewertet. Die Untersuchungen weisen auf ein reges Innovationsverhalten der Klein- und Kleinstbetriebe hin. Durch investive Förderung von an die Nischenstrategie angepassten Fertigungsanlagen sowie Unterstützung bei der Netzwerkbildung können sie im Wachstumsprozess unterstützt werden. RegionaleVermarktungsinitiativen fördern Kooperationen zwischen den beteiligten Klein(st)betrieben und können so Innovationen anstoßen und letztendlich das Betriebswachstum positiv beeinflussen. Da Vermarktungsinitiativen teilweise mit hohem Aufwand insbesondere für eine gemeinsame Logistikverbunden sind, sollten zunächst die regionalen Voraussetzungen für einen wirtschaftlichen Betriebüberprüft werden. Technologie- und Gründerzentren können zwar die Eintrittsbarrieren in die Selbstständigkeit senken, sollten aber immer in eine kohärente regionale Strategie der Wirtschafts-förderung eingebettet sein, um ihr Potenzial entfalten zu können.
This paper develops a taxonomy of rural micro-enterprises based on their level of embeddedness in the rural. Drawing upon 19 in-depth narrative interviews we identify the classifications of ‘bedrock’, ‘anchored’, ‘disembedded’ and ‘perfunctory’ enterprises. This offers a new categorisation of rural micro-enterprises and challenges the notion that all rural micro-enterprises add value to the rural economy. Indeed, ‘disembedded’ rural micro-enterprises may have parasitical tendencies and be negative contributors to rural economic sustainability due to the actions and choices made by their owner-manager(s). Through the creation of an empirically and conceptually grounded taxonomy we reveal a number of important attributes which develop understanding of the nature of rural micro-enterprises and highlight the varied activities of such businesses. The implications of the taxonomy are discussed, and important policy implications are identified.
The rapidly urbanizing global south has witnessed drastic changes in rural transformation in which industrial dynamics have played a fundamental role. However, research on rural industrial geography and its influencing factors is limited compared with its urban counterpart. The spatial pattern of rural industry in an ordinary county in China—Xintai—is examined by adopting a multi-level approach. The underlying factors are then explored by situating it into a hybrid historical and geographical process of economy, institution, and society. Results show that: (1) The process of rural industrialization is hierarchically and spatially uneven across the county with the first- and second-tier industrial villages clustering around the central city and along two main roads exhibiting a general pattern of ‘one core and two bands‘. (2) Despite the overall pattern of concentration, rural industry exhibits a polycentric and dispersed distribution at the county and township levels. (3) The resources have continued to play a pivotal role in shaping the current industrial geography of this formerly resource-dependent county, followed by market accessibility, role of government, social capital, and the within-township industrial distribution. This research demonstrates the importance of the multi-level perspective in recognizing and understanding rural industrial geography and reveals its differences in urban and rural areas.
The present study was conducted to determine the occurrence of clinical haemonchosis and methods of controlling Haemonchus contortus and other internal parasites in a communal farming system of Limpopo province, South Africa. Twenty-six sheep and one-hundred and sixty-three goats were evaluated for clinical haemonchosis using the FAMACHA© diagnostic system. Information on the methods of control used by the smallholder farmers was gathered through a questionnaire-based survey that was carried out by interviewing forty-seven Small ruminants farmers (both males and females) of mixed ages. The average FAMACHA© score for the goats was three while for sheep the average score was 2.62. Ninety-eight goats (60%) had a FAMACHA© score of three and above while fourteen sheep (52.4%) had a FAMACHA© score of three and above. There was a high occurrence of haemonchosisin goats compared to sheep (p<0.05). Differences in occurrence between age groups, sex and physiological status were found to not be statistically significant in both small ruminants (p>0.05). The methods of internal parasite control used by the smallholder farmers in the study area were commercial anthelmintic drugs (38.3%), ethno-veterinary based methods (12%) while 46.8% did not control gastrointestinal parasites. It can be concluded that clinical haemonchos is presents a potential challenge in the study area due to a low adoption rate of internal parasite control measures among the farmers interviewed.
Social scientists have long examined the changing role of the individual, and the influence of individualism in social and economic arrangements as well as behavioral decisions. With respect to co-operative behavior among farmers, however, the ideology of individualism has been little theorized in terms of its relationship to the longstanding virtue of independence. This paper explores this relationship by combining analysis of historical literature on the agricultural cooperative movement with the accounts of contemporary English farmers. I show that the virtue of independence is deployed to justify a variety of cooperative (formal and informal) and non-cooperative practices and that, despite apparently alternative interpretations, independence is most often conflated with individualistic premises. That conflation, I argue, leads farmers to see their neighbors as natural competitors: as those from whom which independence must be sought. This has the effect of masking the structural dependencies which farmers face (such as lenders and large purchasers) and limits the alternatives available to them to realize a view of independence that is maintained, rather than opposed, by interdependent collective action. Thus perceived, individualism is an ideological doctrine that succeeds by appealing to the virtue of independence, while simultaneously denying its actual realization.
The recent growing interest in ‘learning’ and ‘knowledge’ as a - maybe the (only) - route to corporate and regional economic success is one facet of the engagement between economic geographers and regional analysts on the one hand and evolutionary and institutional economists on the other. This focus on knowledge is often presented as a dramatic breakthrough, promising radical theoretical reappraisal and opening up exciting new possibilities for the conception, implementation and practise of policy. Recognizing the importance of innovation and knowledge creation to economic success is hardly novel, however. The paper first summarizes the claims made by the proponents of ‘learning’, and some links are drawn between the pre-eminent emphasis that they place upon knowledge and learning and other literatures that analyse ongoing changes in the organization of production and work in contemporary capitalism and which have different emphases. The aim is to situate and contextualize claims about the significance of ‘learning’. These claims are then placed within the context of continuities and changes within capitalism, and the ways in which these have been understood, as a further step in this process of contextualization and situation. Finally, some conclusions are briefly drawn around the limits to learning, and questions of learning by whom, and for what purpose, in the context of the politics and policies of social, economic and territorial development.
The purpose of this work is to develop a systematic understanding of embeddedness and organization networks. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at 23 entrepreneurial firms, I identify the components of embedded relationships and explicate the devices by which embeddedness shapes organizational and economic outcomes. The findings suggest that embeddedness is a logic of exchange that promotes economies of time, integrative agreements, Pareto improvements in allocative efficiency, and complex adaptation. These positive effects rise up to a threshold, however, after which embeddedness can derail economic performance by making firms vulnerable to exogenous shocks or insulating them from information that exists beyond their network. A framework is proposed that explains how these properties vary with the quality of social ties, the structure of the organization network, and an organization's structural position in the network.
This paper focuses on a theoretical modelling of multilateral SME co-operation. A major part of the previous research has been done on dyadic or bilateral relationships between two partners in a vertical chain although new co-operative ventures increasingly involve multiple partners. The objectives of the paper are to accomplish a conceptualization of different types of multilateral co-operation between SMEs as a synthesis of longitudinal empirical observations and selected theoretical discussions of inter-firm co-operation, to bring out possible advantages and prerequisites of successful co-operation of these types, and to show how co-operation can develop from one basic model to another. The main point in the modelling of SME co-operation is that those who plan, promote or build up co-operative arrangements must know right from the beginning what kind of co-operative model a group of firms will strive for, because the prerequisites of successful co-operation are emphasized differently in different types of co-operation. The empirical examples also suggest that co-operation leads to co-operation, i.e. when a company once joins a net, it is more probable that the company gets access to other nets as well. The basic challenge thus is to get the small or medium-sized company to enter its first co-operative arrangement.
Abstract Many analysts of sustainable agriculture have given considerable attention to issues of knowledge production, but in general they have not engaged social movement theory. This neglect is addressed by examining the emergence of intensive rotational grazing as a local expression of the sustainable agriculture movement. Conceptual frameworks drawn from recent contributions to social movement theory are used to describe the cognitive praxis of graziers along technological, cosmological, and organizational dimensions. Contrary to current interpretations, which emphasize the idiosyncratic character of local knowledge in agriculture, this analysis shows that through horizontal forms of organizing and information exchange, graziers overcome the limits of their personal experience and usefully share local knowledge in networks that they have forged expressly for that purpose.
The objective of this paper is to explore the collective organizational forms that prevail in localized systems of production. More precisely, in a study on the governance of groups of small agricultural producers, we found that a club-based organization with a strong internal governance structure presents great advantages. Collective action, contractual relations and organizational trust are important in this governance system. This paper contributes to the discussion on Appellation d'Origine Controîeés (AOCs, Designation of Controlled Origin) and more particularly provides new elements that help to understand the forms of collective organization that prevail in these systems. The amount of research dedicated to AOCs has increased so much that it is no longer legitimate to claim that they are just an obsolete form of local production with no future, or a harking back to the past. Yet, they are still often considered as curiosities, and few studies in the field of economic organization have focused on the organizational methods that prevail in these localized groups of producers. Basing ourselves on a specific example – that of the ComteOC – economic arguments are presented in terms of legitimacy. It is shown (1) that it is possible to analyse the methods of internal organization of an AOC, and (2) that this analysis should be centred on a common good – reputation – that justifies and requires this form of co-ordination and brings into play mechanisms of organizational trust.
This paper explores how knowledge is exchanged between agricultural advisors and farmers in the context of sustainable farming
practices in England. Specifically the paper examines the nature of the knowledge exchange at the encounters between one group
of advisors, agronomists, and farmers. The promotion of best management practices, which are central to the implementation
of sustainable agricultural policies in England, provide the empirical context for this study. The paper uses the notion of
expert and facilitative approaches as a conceptual framework for analyzing knowledge exchange encounters between agronomists
and farmers. Data were derived from semi-structured interviews with 31 agronomists and 17 farmers, in the context of three
initiatives promoting a range of best management practices including (a) targeted use of nitrogen (N), (b) use of nutrients
within manure, and (c) management practices to improve soil structure. The interviews revealed that, although many agronomist–farmer
knowledge exchange encounters are characterized by an imbalance of power, distrust, and the divergence of knowledge, other
encounters provide a platform for the facilitation of farmer learning in their transition to more sustainable practices.
Based on empirical studies of firm exchange activities in business markets, this paper outlines a business network view of
the firm-market relationship, which differs fundamentally from the view assumed by neo-classical economic theory. We define
business networks as sets of connected business relationships. Thus business relationships and connections between relationships
are the critical elements in the business network view. It is assumed, as suggested by the Uppsala internationalization process
model, that an interplay between knowledge and commitment development is the mechanism that drives the relationship and network
development process. Against this background the paper discusses how strategic change is analyzed in literature on alliances
and networks. In conclusion the paper presents a set of propositions about strategy-making in business network settings.
KeywordsBusiness networks–Business relationships–Learning–Commitment–Strategic change–Strategy-making
This paper uses Giddens' theory of structuration to develop the conception of entrepreneurship as an embedded socio-economic process. The qualitative examination of the actions of rural entrepreneurs finds that embeddedness plays a key role in shaping and sustaining business. Being embedded in the social structure creates opportunity and improves performance. Embedding enabled the entrepreneurs to use the specifics of the environment. Thus, both recognition and realisation of opportunity are conditioned by the entrepreneurs' role in the social structure.
Co-operative firms have been the subject of criticism by many economists, who base their arguments on property rights and agency theory: members do not control management, investments are short term, accumulated investments are below the economic optimum, etc. Nevertheless, many co-operative organisations do function well for their members. An analysis of the assumptions underlying the criticism reveals that this is not generally justified. As it focuses mainly on the functioning of capital markets, it disregards the vertically integrated character of the co-operatives, i.e. that their purpose is to counteract market failures on product markets. For many co-operatives, however, the critique is valid. Individual ownership in the form of tradable residual rights is thus motivated in many co-operatives.
The paper reviews key ideas in the firm capabilities literature and shows how they can be usefully extended to develop a conception of collective learning among regionally clustered enterprises. The paper also explores the relationship between codifiable and tacit knowledge in the innovation process, and investigates the claim that tacit knowledge, because it is difficult to transfer in the absence of labour mobility, may constitute a basis for sustained competitive advantage. The closing section uses case study material based on Minneapolis and Cambridge to illustrate the importance for innovation of a regional capability for combining and integrating diverse knowledge, and of the sources of such capabilities as pre-conditions for successful high technology regions.
There is a growing realisation among scholars and policymakers of the role of local contextual factors and circumstances in influencing the behaviour of key economic agents, including the entrepreneur. This approach has stretched the boundaries of academic inquiry well beyond mainstream conceptualisations of economic agency as isolated from its setting. An assumption that underpinned research and policymaking in the new learning is that economic activity is typically socially embedded, which is generally taken to imply local embeddedness. In our paper, drawing upon the findings of extensive research in rural Cumbria, we question this assumption. We argue that in the context of rural Cumbria, the conceptualisation of locality may go beyond territorial notions. This argument does not support a return to the notion of the isolated economic agent, but advocates a move forward to the detailed exploration of the interface between agency and context.
Business owners who traditionally organised their marketing and supply activities through co-operatives are changing their strategic orientation with increased frequency. The result is a “new generation” of co-operatives sweeping through several industries. This article examines how traditional co-operatives differ from the typical investor-owned firm and some of the motivating factors leading to the emergence of the new generation of co-operatives. These new generation co-operatives (NGCs) appear to be organisational hybrids combining aspects of investor ownership and co-operative ownership structures. The article describes differences between the traditional and new generation co-operatives with the objective of providing implications for managers who are faced with the movement toward more entrepreneurial organisations in their industries.
Why do cooperatives continue to emerge given the strong economic disincentives that exist? And why is it that in some communities they are collocated with their commercial counterparts and in others territorial partitioning occurs? In this paper, we develop a community ecology approach that integrates economic and sociological accounts of cooperatives, in an attempt to reconcile these contradictory observations. Using a detailed panel data set for the county-level founding process of cooperatives in the U.S. ethanol industry from 1978 to June 2013, consistent with economic arguments, we find that the founding rate of cooperatives decreases in the presence of high local corporate ethanol production capacity. However, this negative competitive interdependence is attenuated in local communities where: 1) corporations represent a potential threat to the autonomy of local farmers, 2) there is a generally anti-corporate climate, and 3) there is a well-established organizational infrastructure supporting a cooperative ideology. Consistent with sociological theories that emphasize the mobilizing force of ideology, these local conditions spur collective action among farmers to establish cooperatives in response to the local diffusion of corporations. We show further that the diffusion of plants owned by big business (oil and agribusiness) in communities characterized by a general anti-corporate climate, especially promotes greater ideological contestation, and mobilization of resources to form cooperatives.
The recent growing interest in 'learning' and 'knowledge' as a - maybe the (only) - route to corporate and regional economic success is one facet of the engagement between economic geographers and regional analysts on the one hand and evolutionary and institutional economists on the other. This focus on knowledge is often presented as a dramatic breakthrough, promising radical theoretical reappraisal and opening up exciting new possibilities for the conception, implementation and practise of policy. Recognizing the importance of innovation and knowledge creation to economic success is hardly novel, however. The paper first summarizes the claims made by the proponents of 'learning', and some links are drawn between the pre-eminent emphasis that they place upon knowledge and learning and other literatures that analyse ongoing changes in the organization of production and work in contemporary capitalism and which have different emphases. The aim is to situate and contextualize claims about the significance of 'learning'. These claims are then placed within the context of continuities and changes within capitalism, and the ways in which these have been understood, as a further step in this process of contextualization and situation. Finally, some conclusions are briefly drawn around the limits to learning, and questions of learning by whom, and for what purpose, in the context of the politics and policies of social, economic and territorial development.
In this paper, we develop an analysis of the processes by which individual experiments are shared within a group of farmers. Based on observations from a community of practice organized around direct seeding techniques, we question the ways in which these local experiences, situated in contrasting physical and social contexts are made into a discourse available for others. We use the conceptual frameworks of the sociology of science and technology and pragmatic sociology, which can account for the tests and processes that ensure the standardization of experience and increased genericity. We show that the use of the analytical framework of the sociology of translation, originally conceived around the study of laboratory practice, opens interesting and useful avenues of research to study the dynamics of other forms of knowledge than the scientific.
This paper explores the role of various social ties in building trust and providing opportunities for information acquisition and knowledge exchange (IAKE). Social capital is used as a vehicle to explore the relationships between farmers and their advisors using bovine tuberculosis (bTB), a major disease facing the English cattle industry, as a case study. Much research on social capital and IAKE has been conducted within the field of rural sociology, but very little relates specifically to bTB. Exploratory findings suggest that trust provides an essential catalyst enabling passive information to be transformed into usable knowledge. Levels of ‘linking’ social capital between farmers and the government were found to be low, engendered by high levels of distrust and a lack of confidence in the information provided. In comparison, high levels of ‘bridging’ social capital between farmers and vets were found, brought about by long-term, regular and consistent contact, associated with high levels of trust and knowledge transfer. ‘Bonding’ social capital was also important in encouraging knowledge exchange among farmers, although overly close ties were shown to potentially lead to the emergence of exclusive networks and, consequently, the development of distrust. The implications for bTB policy and further research are discussed.
This paper explores the expertise of field-level advisors in rural land management. The context is the English uplands and negotiation over a Higher Level Stewardship agreement. An observed encounter between a hill farmer, his retained land agent, and an ecologist working for Natural England illustrates the multiple roles that field-level advisors have in regulating, directing, and influencing contemporary land management. The paper draws on field notes taken during work shadowing and in-depth interviews, to reflect upon the relationships that constitute field expertisenot only between farmer and advisor, but amongst the advisors too (and those who advise them). We argue that expert–expert interaction and the emergence of networks of practice are crucial to the development of field expertise and are key factors in the increasing complexity of the decision making underpinning contemporary land management. Keywords: field expertise, farm extension, rural land management, expert–expert interaction, networks of practice
Reflexive Modernity is bringing myriad ‘flexible spaces’ into being in which socio-economic development can be animated and even defined. The act of territorial identity construction utilises historical and cultural resources and thus represents an emerging form of local governance. The paper examines how this focus on cultural–territorial identity feeds back to the psychological well-being of individuals, both within and without the locality. Reflexive Modernity helps us to understand the dialectical relations between Self-identity and broad social change. The geographical focus is simultaneously global and local. Against this backdrop, actors are engaging with Reflexive Modernity through various forms of strategic intervention. This paper supports calls for a change on emphasis, away from rural development and towards territories or disadvantaged social groups.
There is an increasing concern for the notion of ‘embeddedness’ of economic activity; yet the conceptualization of the concept and its operationalization remain underdeveloped. First, embeddedness may concern, on the one hand, the structure of relations that tie economic actors together (structural embeddedness) and, on the other hand, the social strands supplementing economic strands in each relation (substantive embeddedness). In this paper, a network framework is outlined which proposes several layers or ‘orders’ of embeddedness. Focusing on small firms, the point of departure is individual exchange relationships as personal ties combining economic and social concerns. First-order embeddedness concerns the localized business networks created by combining these dyadic relations. Second-order embeddedness is achieved when considering also the memberships of business persons in economic and social local institutions while third-order embeddedness concerns the special cases where these institutions bridge gaps between firms. The network model is operationalized and applied to a small Swedish industrial (furniture) community, its firms and economic/social institutions. The findings generally support the applicability of the model and demonstrate the supplementarity of different layers/orders of embeddedness. Further research challenges are deduced and implications for practitioners are provided.
Agricultural cooperatives have changed considerably in recent decades. In witnessing these structural changes, scholars have proffered analyses of non-traditional ownership models focusing on residual claim rights. As a result, crucial information on the allocation of control rights in cooperatives is missing. This paper makes a contribution to this literature and shed light on alternative ownership-control models adopted by agricultural cooperatives in different regions across the world. In each of these models we describe the allocation of formal control rights and, in particular, the allocation of decision management and decision control rights. In doing so, we provide empirical evidence on the “separation of ownership and control” in agricultural cooperatives. We also analyze each of the governance models in terms of the associated ownership costs, including risk bearing costs, the costs of controlling managers, and collective decision making costs. This analysis enable us to identify potential inefficiencies and understand the forces influencing the organizational efficiency and effectiveness of each cooperative model.
It is commonly held that trust is a crucial mechanism for coordination and control in cooperatives. The elusive nature of trust is also emphasised. What seems to be less discussed is where trust and distrust come from, as well as the shifting conditions under which trust is developed, maintained and sometimes disposed of. This article explores one trust-making mechanism which seems to be of particular interest in cooperatives and other membership-based organisations. The mechanism in question is members' identification to the cooperative organizations. The empirical test supports the proposition that strong identification is a significant trust-making mechanism in cooperative organizations.
Drawing on recent studies of the importance of social networks and embeddedness in affecting the operation of businesses, this article reports the results of an empirical study of the social networks maintained by business owners located in three small towns in the highly peripheral Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Through a combination of a large-scale postal questionnaires and qualitative semi-structured interviews, the study found that, although business owners in all three towns place importance on maintaining embedded ties, there are differences between the towns in terms of the characteristics of the social networks maintained by owners. The respondents suggest several explanations for these differing patterns, including the number of in-migrants in the local area and the cultural characteristics of local people. The article discusses the implications of these patterns for the future development of the businesses and the towns in which they are located. In particular, it is argued that the strength of local social networks maintained by owners in very remote Wick may serve to hamper both their future business development and that of the wider local economy.
The article analyses the recent evolution of rural social co-operation in Italy through study of a representative sample of enterprises. The results of the research highlight the innovative features of such co-operatives and the role that they can perform in the development of the rural and social economy. The article also explores the social, economic and cultural factors that have favoured the emergence of social co-operatives, furnishing an original contribution to the study of change processes in the social economy sector and in the revitalisation of the rural economy.
This paper explores the impact of individual group members" heterogeneous characteristics, resources and strategies on their level of cooperation on defining the future regulation of Geographical Indications (GIs). By following a "grounded theory" approach, this study combines qualitative evidence from an in-depth study on the "Prosciutto di Parma" Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Consortium with quantitative evidence based on data collected from 94 Consortium members and analysed through path modelling. Results confirm that 1) "Prosciutto di Parma" Consortium members have highly and increasingly heterogeneous characteristics, assets and strategies and that 2) higher heterogeneity negatively affects members" agreement on the future level of restrictiveness of "Prosciutto di Parma" PDO as GI and therefore the effectiveness of the collective action. Overall, these findings give light to another internal barrier that may threaten producers" opportunity of profiting from the use of established and highly recognized GIs. Managerial and policy implications for both "Prosciutto di Parma" Consortium members and other groups governing established and highly recognized GIs are drawn.
This paper examines the processes and causes of inter-firm network success and failure, defined in terms of the ability of networks to become a sustained and valued form of business activity for their members. The paper examines four different case study network initiatives: (1) a failed informal "new entrepreneurs" network"; (2) a successful informal "local cluster group"; (3) a failed formal "defence contractors" network"; and (4) a successful formal "small-firm technology group". It is shown that networks in business are often consciously developed and maintained by those managing directors who have recognized the importance of co-operative activities for achieving competitive advantage for their companies. The best network support consisted of brokers who are able to mix and overlap the "hard" business and "softer" social interests of participants. The case studies indicate that it is formal groups that are the most potent form of inter-firm network, but that it is through an initially informal structure that they are best facilitated. It is concluded that both economic and social rationalities are at play in the motivation of firms to join networks, and that their success is closely connected to pre-existing commonality between members.
Abstract Sustainable development demands institutions manage the conflicts and struggles that inevitably arise over material and ideal interests. While current cooperative theory privileges the economic element, a political economy of cooperation emphasizes cooperatives' tentative bridging of economic and political spheres with a democratic ethos. The cooperatives' democratic political structure exists in tension with a capitalist economic structure and other sites of friction. These contradictions are: in the realm of social relations, between production and consumption; in the realm of spatial relations, between the local and the global; and in the realm of collective action, between cooperatives as both traditional as well as new social movements. Where neo-classical economic models seek to eliminate or reduce these tensions, political economy views these tensions as functional to sustainability by creating an “institutional friction” that facilitates innovation, flexibility and long-term adaptability. This political economy of cooperation is intended as a step toward the development of a multidimensional sociology of cooperation.
This study reports on New Zealand dairy farmers’ access to and use of information as mediated through conditions of risk and trust within the context of their interpersonal social networks. We located participants’ reports of their information use within their perceived environments of trust and risk, following Giddens's [1990. The consequences of modernity. Polity Press, Stanford, CA] typology of trust and risk in pre-modernity and modernity. The research participants were constant users of interpersonal and print information from numerous sources, and monitored their incoming data in the light of strategic needs, reflecting their roles as both farming practitioners and business owners. Socio-spatial knowledge networks (SSKNs) combine individuals’ explanatory cognitive models of information acquisition and use with a micro-geographical analysis of their interpersonal networks. The participants showed characteristics of pre-modern, modern and even post-modern society in respect of their use of complex interactional forms, as well as a blending of individualistic and communitarian practices and concerns in their professional and personal lives.
One of the key factors for the success of development strategies in rural areas is the setting up of appropriate governance patterns, whose main outcome is a fluid communication between public and private organisations and an effective integration of objectives and policies.Through a ‘post-rural’ approach, this paper aims to analyse an attempt to reconfigure patterns of governance taking place in a well-known rural area, the Chianti (Tuscany, Italy). The Chianti can be considered as a typical example of a post-rural area, characterised by a highly complex civil society, with a large number of organisations representing their constituencies’ interests, which strongly characterise the local social and economic processes. In this area wine is the most important industry, both for its weight in terms of added value and employment but also for the multiplier effects that its reputation has on the overall economy, and local wine elites have historically had a strong hold on local society. Along with rural change leading to social and economic diversification and growing administrative complexity, the dominance of wine elites is challenged by a coalition of actors led by the mayors of the local municipalities.The resulting struggle for hegemony is played out through an intense inside/outside interaction, which contributes to continuous attempts to redefine local identities. The paper explores the role that the building of social representations of rurality by local elites plays in the creation of new rural governance patterns in the area.
Over the last ten years or so a large number of new cooperative enterprises have been established in Sweden in many different areas of activity. The research project reported here concerns the effects which these enterprises have on local economic development. More precisely, attention is focused on the impact of the cooperatives on (1) local employment, (2) the local infrastructure, and (3) the geographical pattern of buying, i.e., how the new cooperatives distribute their purchases of goods and services among local, regional and national suppliers. Six cooperatives are investigated, all of which are located in Jämtland, a county in northern Sweden. The cases include two commercially operating enterprises, two whose operations belong to the public sector, one housing cooperative and one community cooperative. Five of the studied units have created local employment, varying between 2 and 10 full-time jobs. This represents a substantial contribution in the small rural villages where the cooperatives are located. As regards the local infrastructure, the research interest is concentrated on the significance of the new enterprises in preserving the school, the shop and the communications of the village. Here the impact is effected in two ways; (1) by creating jobs and income, thereby strengthening the population base for the service institutions, and (2) by influencing municipal decision-makers. As for the pattern of buying, very small shares — between 0 and 17% — go to local suppliers. Instead, the effects appear at the regional level, with between 38 and 100% of the purchases being made from suppliers in the rest of the county.
Drawing on the UK research project, ‘Farmers’ understandings of GM crops within local communities’, this paper considers the application of the concepts of communities of practice and networks of practice in the agricultural context. A brief review of theories about communities of practice and networks of practice is given and some of our findings are discussed in the context of those theories.Farmers were found to be a particular type of network of practice, characterised by a weak organisational framework but with a relatively stable network of other communities of practice (or networks of practice) they interact with, which we have called a ‘web of influencers on practice’. Together, farmers’ network of practice and their web of influencers on practice represent the whole environment in which learning may occur, and so provide insights into their social learning system. Most farmers have to work at the boundary of their network of practice and their web of influencers, which creates a significant load on their knowledge management. This is in contrast to other networks of practice where only some members take on this boundary brokering role. The paper concludes that these theories (on networks and communities of practice) provide a useful lens through which to view farmers and their practice, highlighting important points for policy. However, in such contexts these theories need to be extended to include the role of a broader ‘web of influencers on practice’.
This paper assesses the potential of environmental co-operatives (EC) to deliver environmental benefits and an integrated and strengthened rural economy in the UK. It is based on research into Dutch EC, which have about 10,000 members, of which a quarter are non-farmers. The paper details the benefits EC have delivered to their members, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, the environment and the rural economy using evidence drawn from interviews with farmer and non-farmer members, farmer non-members, policy makers and academics connected with seven EC. It pays particular attention to the benefits and disadvantages of allowing non-farmer membership. It is argued that EC would be a valuable additional instrument to help deliver landscape-scale environmental, regional and rural policy objectives. However, Dutch EC have received important political and, particularly in their start-up stage, financial support, and similar support would be needed in the UK—it is argued this may be more readily available if UK EC will offer non-farmer membership. Appropriate support could be provided through developments to the Environmental Stewardship Scheme's higher level tier, by safeguarding and extending the spirit of the LEADER plus programme (which explicitly supports collective action) to the delivery of environmental benefits, and/or by encouraging the development of locally based social enterprises.
Qualification schemes have become popular tools for supporting regional foods, yet little is understood about the impacts they have on the rural development contribution of such foods. Qualification processes may stimulate new networks and community actions, but they may also be incompatible with strategies of extended territorial development because of their foundation in theories of competitive advantage. To explore these issues, the evolution is traced of three cases of regional food production, where local actors pursue the opportunity to qualify products under EEC Regulation 2081/92. The results reveal, in practice, the different experiences that can evolve under the same qualification mechanism, and also how the consequences for rural development can vary. The paper concludes with analysis of factors influencing the involvement and behaviour of actors in regional food qualification, and what these infer for the rural development approach pursued.
Taking the differentiating countryside as a major feature of rural spatial change, this paper explores some of the key development spheres which are influencing the process of differentiation with reference to the British case. Combinations of local and non-local networks, supply chains and regulatory systems incorporate different rural spaces. Four particular development spheres: mass food markets, quality food markets, agriculturally related changes and rural restructuring implicate, in their different combinations, the different rural spaces. This analytical framework raises some important concerns for the governance of differentiating rural space in its regional context. In particular, it suggests that notions of integration and holism of rural spaces will be difficult to achieve; and that governance and regulation becomes highly variable according to the relative significance of local/non-local networks. In conclusion, the implications of the analysis are examined in relation to the growing rural development policy discourse. This suggests the need for more regionally and spatially orientated policy which is more customized to the internal and external conditions different regional-rural spaces experience.
The terms “relationships” and “networks” are widely used in academic discussion of business practice and have become increasingly common in the conversions between managers themselves. This paper starts with a description of some aspects of business networks and relationships and highlights the questions that they pose for practitioners. The paper suggests that an understanding of these questions require an appreciation of a number of paradoxes that are intrinsic to the nature of business networks. The paper explores each of these paradoxes and draws out their managerial implications. It uses these paradoxes to provide an answer to the question; “How should companies interact in business networks?”
The network concept has become widely utilised in socioeconomic studies of economic life. Following the debates around exogenous and endogenous development, networks may also have particular utility in understanding diverse forms of rural development. This paper assesses whether networks provide a new paradigm of rural development. It seeks to capture a series of differing perspectives on economic networks — including political economy, actor-network theory and theories of innovation and learning — and attempts to show how these perspectives might be applied to different types of rural areas. The paper demarcates two main “bundles” of networks: “vertical” networks — that is, networks that link rural spaces into the agro-food sector — and “horizontal” networks — that is, distributed network forms that link rural spaces into more general and non-agricultural processes of economic change. It is argued that rural development strategies must take heed of network forms in both domains and that rural policy should be recast in network terms.
This paper examines the impact of the globalisation of the farmed salmon commodity chain upon farmed salmon production in the western Norwegian municipality of Austevoll. On the basis of field research conducted in 2002 and 2003, we conclude that salmon farming in Austevoll has responded to the challenges of ‘buyer-driven’ food chains by virtue of its history as a seafood cluster. Despite the vertical relations assumed in the literature on ‘buyer-driven’ food chains, the horizontal relations in Austevoll have proven resilient in this era of ‘homogenised globalisation’. Nevertheless, recent changes in the global farmed salmon supply chain may result in the imposition of vertical relations in the Austevoll cluster. We conclude with suggestions for incorporating the literatures on global food chains and industrial clusters in the study of seafood production and global markets.
The concept of collective mind is developed to explain organizational performance in situations requiring nearly continuous operational reliability. Collective mind is conceptualized as a pattern of heedful interrelations of actions in a social system. Actors in the system construct their actions (contributions), understanding that the system consists of connected actions by themselves and others (representation), and interrelate their actions within the system (subordination). Ongoing variation in the heed with which individual contributions, representations, and subordinations are interrelated influences comprehension of unfolding events and the incidence of errors. As heedful interrelating and mindful comprehension increase, organizational errors decrease. Flight operations on aircraft carriers exemplify the constructs presented. Implications for organization theory and practice are drawn.
A wine route can be seen as a network established around the theme of wine. The impressive economic impact that the establishment of the Costa degli Etruschi wine route has had on the farms involved is traced back in this article to the collective action that produces synergies and coherence. Synergies can be defined as linkages between two or more entities, whose joint effort produces quantitatively and qualitatively higher effects than those produced by the efforts of the same entities alone. Coherence is a quality belonging to the elements that constitute the context of action in successful rural development practices: natural and man-made environment, social networks, and symbolic systems. The process of creating coherence is not without conflict, and the article contends that the establishment of coherence needs a hegemonic strategy that involves all sources of empowerment and particularly cultural codes.
Farm veterinarians are part of the knowledge-based economy in which professionals earn their livelihood by selling their expertise directly to clients. They face complex and ever-changing calls on this expertise. How do they keep their knowledge of livestock health and production up to date in practice?
Increasingly, partnerships and other cooperative forms of governance are common-place in addressing problems of environmental management in rural landscapes. These forms of governance are multi-dimensional in the policy instruments employed; the make-up of actors; and, the types of rationalities that actors use to debate the problem and proposed solutions. This paper pursues the question of how different modes of social action, represented in argumentative claims of participants, influence social coordination in these governance arenas. An empirical study is presented of agri-environmental governance in Australia where actors debate planning and policy initiatives to reduce diffuse water quality impacts from farms on the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. Forester's conceptualisation of practical social action which locates communicative action in the 'real world' of interest-based planning contexts, is used as an analytical frame to identify: (i) the type of claims made by governments, farmer groups and other actors in argumentation; (ii) the claims association with communicative, strategic and instrumental modes of action; and, (iii) their consequence for social coordination in formation and maintenance of inclusive, legitimate and viable forms of governing. The study finds that the interconnected character of claims made by actors, and the ready switching between modes of action observed, point to a situated and dynamic expression of rationality within these contested and prolonged debates on how to legitimately and effectively govern rural environments. 2010.
With this paper we aim to analyse how new entrepreneurial strategies are emerging in the field of agricultural cooperatives within the Region of Valencia (Spain), and how these strategies are characterised through the lens of the agrarian-based rural development model. Initial results show that these strategies have the potential to strengthen the role of cooperatives in rural economic development as they add value to specific territorial resources, create new ties with other local and nonlocal actors, and diversify the economy of rural areas. Nevertheless, the cooperative (collective) nature of these organisations can also create decision-making and investment problems, as they can divide the interests of their social base.
A characteristic of studies seeking to explain the structure and operation of networks is the use of Granovetter's strong and weak tie hypothesis. Whilst this hypothesis has become an established paradigm, questions and disagreements arise over its applicability at demonstrating the real use and value of each tie. This study extends the work of Granovetter. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach to explore in-depth the networking activities of fourteen respondents, it aims to enhance understanding about the role of ties, how they are used and activated for business activity. Findings demonstrate that it is strong ties that are instrumental for business activity and used extensively to provide knowledge and information but also to maintain, extend and enhance business and personal reputations. Unless activities require their reactivation and manifestation, strong ties remain latent and dormant within the network. Strong ties also provide the mechanism to invoke 'weak' ties, represented by nodes operating in a wider social context. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.
An analysis of the definitions provided so far in the literature shows ambiguities in the conceptualization of collective learning. A parallel analysis of the concepts of learning and collective learning is provided, and similarities and differences underlined. One of the main distinguishing features of collective learning is embedded in the element of 'club externality', while 'continuity' and 'dynamic synergies' are common properties of learning and collective learning. These reflections lead to some interesting empirical questions which are investigated in the empirical part of the paper. In particular, the empirical analysis addresses the questions: (1) is it true that collective learning is not the result of co-operative behaviour, but of a collective behaviour; and (2) is it true that collective learning is the way of achieving new creative resources for SMEs in local areas, and not other kinds of learning? The empirical analysis is based on three Italian high technology milieux. Descriptive and interpretative statistical methodologies are used in this part of the paper.
Business cooperation and networking have been posited as crucial elements within successful approaches to local economic development. With the aid of a case study from the North East of England, the authors explore issues surrounding network formation and facilitation. They raise questions concerning the nature of local business communities and the potential of local business networks to represent these communities legitimately and to reflect patterns of social and economic differentiation. They also demonstrate how attempts to promote or utilise local cooperation must include awareness of the implications of policy intervention. This is of particular importance in a political context where there are efforts to promote 'local' initiatives below the existing level of local authorities.