he aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the roles of individuals and the importance of their social contexts in shaping the dynamics of technological diffusion in the agricultural sector. When justifying the different rates of innovation adoption, existing literature reviews overemphasize either the drivers of techno- logical changes enacted by farmers' agentic behaviour or the cognitive processes of individual farmers and their social contexts (structures). However, they continue to have a fragmented view of how local social systems and the agentic behaviour of individual actors influence the evolution of technological regimes, and they lack the ability to describe a purposeful interplay between agency and structures. We present an integrative review of the most relevant papers published in the last 20 years and discuss the impact of structures and agency emerging from local social systems on the local innovation process and, as a result, the evolution of technological regimes. The identified macro categories describe the main processes affecting individuals' abilities to mobilize and manage local resources for innovation, allowing us to critically assess the stock of previous developments from a new perspective and identify novel research avenues. 1. Introduction The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly states that scaling up agricultural innovation requires more than new technology. Governments, in collaboration with academia, civil society, farming organizations, and the private sector, must create the conditions for the innovation process to thrive by connecting these various actors, strengthening the capacity of farmers and other stakeholders, and providing incentives for innovation. Indeed, institutions can be viewed as a prerequisite for a strategic agency to act, while institutionalized structures shaping individuals' social embeddedness in the social network, informal rules, and taken-for-granted scripts can be interpreted as conditions of pressures on strategic agents who, identifying con- straints in the achievement of efficient outcomes, may violate institu- tionalized rules, structures, and strategies. Therefore, institutions can play a dual role by providing both a foundation for strategic agency to act in a complex system and a groundwork for emergent and better options to flourish while violating established institutions. In the same vein, we contend that the processes of democratization of innovation, in which people are encouraged to mobilize and manage their own resources with institutions acting as enablers, pass through a dynamic interplay between institutional pressures, strategic agency, and the organizational change that farmers embrace or may drive through the “embedded process of social engagement” facilitating people in- teractions (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998a, 1998b: 962–963). Its analysis necessitates an integrative approach in which both structures and agency are presented as drivers of the evolution of an innovation regime, as they destabilize each other while remaining interdependent and controlled by a political-strategic process in which institutions, elites, and structure collaborate (Collier, 1999). Previous literature reviews on agricultural innovation have placed a strong emphasis on the drivers of technological changes enacted by farmers' agentic behaviour. When justifying the different rates and fre- quencies of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector, some other literature reviews have begun to pay attention to the cognitive processes of individual farmers and their social contexts (structures) (see for instance Molina-Maturano et al., 2019, El Bilali, 2018, Devaux et al., 2018). However, they continue to have a fragmented view of how local social systems and the agentic behaviour of individual actors influence the evolution of technological regimes, and they lack the ability to

An integrative review of innovations in the agricultural sector: The roles of agency, structure, and their dynamic interplay / Annosi, M. C.; Raez, R. M. O.; Appio, F. P.; Del Giudice, T.. - In: TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE. - ISSN 0040-1625. - 185:(2022), pp. 122035-122057. [10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122035]

An integrative review of innovations in the agricultural sector: The roles of agency, structure, and their dynamic interplay

Del Giudice T.
Ultimo
2022

Abstract

he aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the roles of individuals and the importance of their social contexts in shaping the dynamics of technological diffusion in the agricultural sector. When justifying the different rates of innovation adoption, existing literature reviews overemphasize either the drivers of techno- logical changes enacted by farmers' agentic behaviour or the cognitive processes of individual farmers and their social contexts (structures). However, they continue to have a fragmented view of how local social systems and the agentic behaviour of individual actors influence the evolution of technological regimes, and they lack the ability to describe a purposeful interplay between agency and structures. We present an integrative review of the most relevant papers published in the last 20 years and discuss the impact of structures and agency emerging from local social systems on the local innovation process and, as a result, the evolution of technological regimes. The identified macro categories describe the main processes affecting individuals' abilities to mobilize and manage local resources for innovation, allowing us to critically assess the stock of previous developments from a new perspective and identify novel research avenues. 1. Introduction The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly states that scaling up agricultural innovation requires more than new technology. Governments, in collaboration with academia, civil society, farming organizations, and the private sector, must create the conditions for the innovation process to thrive by connecting these various actors, strengthening the capacity of farmers and other stakeholders, and providing incentives for innovation. Indeed, institutions can be viewed as a prerequisite for a strategic agency to act, while institutionalized structures shaping individuals' social embeddedness in the social network, informal rules, and taken-for-granted scripts can be interpreted as conditions of pressures on strategic agents who, identifying con- straints in the achievement of efficient outcomes, may violate institu- tionalized rules, structures, and strategies. Therefore, institutions can play a dual role by providing both a foundation for strategic agency to act in a complex system and a groundwork for emergent and better options to flourish while violating established institutions. In the same vein, we contend that the processes of democratization of innovation, in which people are encouraged to mobilize and manage their own resources with institutions acting as enablers, pass through a dynamic interplay between institutional pressures, strategic agency, and the organizational change that farmers embrace or may drive through the “embedded process of social engagement” facilitating people in- teractions (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998a, 1998b: 962–963). Its analysis necessitates an integrative approach in which both structures and agency are presented as drivers of the evolution of an innovation regime, as they destabilize each other while remaining interdependent and controlled by a political-strategic process in which institutions, elites, and structure collaborate (Collier, 1999). Previous literature reviews on agricultural innovation have placed a strong emphasis on the drivers of technological changes enacted by farmers' agentic behaviour. When justifying the different rates and fre- quencies of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector, some other literature reviews have begun to pay attention to the cognitive processes of individual farmers and their social contexts (structures) (see for instance Molina-Maturano et al., 2019, El Bilali, 2018, Devaux et al., 2018). However, they continue to have a fragmented view of how local social systems and the agentic behaviour of individual actors influence the evolution of technological regimes, and they lack the ability to
2022
An integrative review of innovations in the agricultural sector: The roles of agency, structure, and their dynamic interplay / Annosi, M. C.; Raez, R. M. O.; Appio, F. P.; Del Giudice, T.. - In: TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE. - ISSN 0040-1625. - 185:(2022), pp. 122035-122057. [10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122035]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/908372
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