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1.
Abstract

Purpose: The fields of competence development and capacity development remain isolated in the scholarship of learning and innovation despite the contemporary focus on innovation systems thinking in agricultural and rural development. This article aims to address whether and how crossing the conventional boundaries of these two fields provide new directions for developing learning and innovation competence in international development.

Design/methodology/approach: Using mixed methods research, this article assesses work environments for experiential learning and innovation, and investigates effective ways of enhancing core competence in agricultural research, education, extension and entrepreneurship.

Findings: Findings suggest that while the focus on input and output indicators are relevant for technological innovation competence development, outcome indicators, such as measures of changes in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learning and innovation, would better serve the purpose of developing organisational and institutional learning and innovation competence.

Practical implications: This research concludes that crossing the conventional boundaries of competence development and capacity development serves as a way to renew the role of education within the innovation systems thinking. However, such an attempt to enhance human capabilities and functionings through education should integrate theory-based, competence-based and experiential learning components as a coherent whole.

Originality/value: This article demonstrates the value of crossing the conventional boundaries of the two seemingly unrelated fields—competence development through education and capacity development through extension—to provide new directions to operationalise innovation systems thinking in agricultural education and extension.  相似文献   

2.
Purpose: This article describes the five-phase process of a leadership development programme conducted with agricultural entrepreneurs who own and manage dairy farms in Sweden. The programme primarily focused on leadership of employees and on self-leadership. The article’s purpose is to present a template for leadership development programmes that can be used in the agricultural sector and in other industry sectors as well. Design/Methodology: The empirical data come from interviews with agricultural entrepreneurs, agricultural advisors and authors of a book on leadership in its various forms. Observations were also conducted of the instruction in the leadership development programme. Findings: First, agricultural entrepreneurs (and possibly entrepreneurs in other sectors) benefit from leadership development programmes in which the concept and practice of self-leadership are emphasized. Second, such programmes are more valuable to participants if other actors (e.g. academics and advisors) are participants. Third, coaches are useful as support for the programmes’ participants. Practical Implications: An implication of this study is the finding that working with the knowledge transfer and dissemination to advisors and entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector can enhance leadership competences in the industry. Role transformation (e.g. advisor to coach) can also enhance the transfer of such leadership competences. Theoretical implications: An implication for theory is to include a self-leadership module in leadership theories about learning leadership in development programmes. Originality/Value: Knowledge transfer and dissemination through leadership development programmes for agricultural advisors and entrepreneurs can have a beneficial effect on industry leadership and management. In addition to the traditional leadership skills that many leadership development programmes teach, such programmes also need to emphasize self-leadership.  相似文献   

3.
ABSTRACT

Purpose: We investigate how the structural conditions of eight different European agricultural innovation systems can facilitate or hinder collaboration and social learning in multidisciplinary innovation networks.

Methodology: We have adapted the Innovation System Failure Matrix to investigate the main barriers and enablers eight countries (England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands and Switzerland).

Findings: Results show some of the recent trends the AKS actors in these countries have experienced and how these have affected their potential to act as collaborators in multidisciplinary innovation networks. Lack of funds, combined with horizontal and vertical fragmentation and the lack of proper evaluation criteria for collaborative innovation networks are among the most important threats we found.

Practical Implications: This study shows that each national AIS has some unique features. This means that the implementation of policies promoting collaboration and social learning (e.g. the European Innovation Partnerships and Operational Groups) should depend on a critical reflection of the existing structural elements of the AIS in each country and whether there is a need for inclusion of new actors, or whether certain innovations for collective goods should be promoted.

Originality: The paper contributes to the ongoing discussion in the scientific literature on the advantages and disadvantages of privatization of extension and advisory services and the shift from thinking in terms of the traditional Agricultural Knowledge System towards a broader Agricultural Innovation System.  相似文献   

4.
Abstract

In this paper we outline an analytical approach to identifying points in the policy process where management intervention to adjust organizational design could enhance delivery of innovation policy over time. We illustrate this approach using an example from native vegetation policy in the state of Victoria, Australia. We then use this approach to interpret recent reviews of the Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program, a policy instrument aimed at enhancing national economic growth by fostering innovation in research and development.

The approach described in this paper is grounded in the idea of policy as a complex and adaptive organizational system.

From the findings it was apparent that reviews of the Australian CRC Program have recognized some of its complex and dynamic properties. However, they have been limited in their capacity to translate this recognition into practical recommendations for organizational design to improve delivery on innovation, particularly in relation to the uptake of research outputs by industries such as agriculture. We propose that this is likely to reflect the bureaucratic foundations of innovation policy and the difficulties associated with changing processes and ways of managing them that have become locked in to the organizational system.

The design of policy instruments to deliver innovation, such as the CRC Program, should be informed by a detailed understanding of the dynamics that are mediating between policy objectives and outcomes over time. Dynamics such as the impact of bureaucratic constraints on the flexibility of policy processes and the participants engaged in them. In the absence of this sort of understanding, dynamics that critically affect the capacity of policy instruments to deliver innovation are likely to go unidentified and left to run their own course to an unpredictable and potentially counterproductive end.

While the idea of policy as a complex organizational system is well known, there remains a substantive gap in knowledge as to how thinking about policy in this way might be applied to generate practical options for improving organizational design. The analytical approach described in this paper addresses this gap in knowledge. In the absence of such approaches, the effectiveness of policy instruments such as the CRC Program, which are intended to foster innovation, will continue to be limited by deficiencies in organizational design.  相似文献   

5.
Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to reveal, and contribute to an understanding of, the processes that connect learning and innovation networks in sustainable agriculture to elements of the mainstream agricultural regime. Drawing on the innovations and transition literature, the paper frames the analysis around niche-regime interaction using the notion of niche-regime compatibility.

Design/Methodology/Approach: 17 Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSA) engaged in agricultural food production, non-food and rural development were analyzed. In line with the project's transdisciplinary approach data were collected in a series of participatory workshops.

Findings: Five modes of LINSA-regime interaction are distinguished based on compatibility. The level of LINSA-regime compatibility influences the extent of the diffusion of LINSA ideas and practices into the regime. However, interaction processes within these modes reveal multiple and diverse connections between LINSA and regime entities suggesting a more complex relationship exists.

Practical implications: A range of connecting processes and activities (for example, certification, exemption from regulation, facilitation of networking) can bring about effective LINSA-regime interaction and could be externally supported.

Originality/Value: Empirical evidence from 17 case studies provides valuable insights from a number of different contexts across Europe. By directing analysis of interaction at the level of LINSA (niche project), rather than at the macro level, the study offers an original perspective. It suggests that the transition to sustainable agriculture might be understood as a complex of interactive processes leading to a series of adaptive changes, rather than as regime change.  相似文献   

6.
Abstract

Purpose: The study investigated to what extent local farmers' organisations are spaces where farmers discuss, learn and innovate.

Design/methodology/approach: Two milk collection cooperatives in Morocco were studied. The study analysed the discussion networks, their impacts on farmers' knowledge and innovation, and the performance of collective action at cooperative level.

Findings: In both cooperatives, only two-thirds of the farmers regularly discussed dairy practices with other farmers. Most leaders of one cooperative were acknowledged to be experienced farmers and played key roles as advisors on dairy farming. Farmers' involvement in dialogue networks in this cooperative improved their capacity to innovate in dairy farming, even though their knowledge on some issues related to cattle, health and nutrition was not improved. In the other cooperative, experienced farmers did not share their knowledge and farmers' involvement in dialogue networks at cooperative level had no impact on their knowledge and practices. Dialogue networks and collective action were found to influence each other, since in the first cooperative, collective action was considered by members to be efficient, whereas in the second collective action was limited to milk collection.

Practical implications: The study enabled identification of stumbling blocks which need to be addressed to get local farmers’ organisations involved in farmer capacity-building.

Originality/value: While the importance of local discussion networks for knowledge creation and diffusion is widely acknowledged, taking such networks into account in farmers' capacity-building programmes in developing countries has been hindered by their informality. Combining the analysis of dialogue networks and collective action proved to be a productive way to assess the potentialities of working with farmers' organisations with the aim of establishing a connection with local discussion networks.  相似文献   

7.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse knowledge systems and channels of innovation diffusion in Tajikistan. In particular, I look at the formation of agricultural advisory services (AASs) and how these provide a vital source of knowledge and innovation for farmers during the transition process.

Methodology: Empirically, this paper draws on qualitative, ethnographic research in the agricultural sector of Tajikistan, that is, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with agricultural experts, and a ‘farm diary’ that provided data on farmers’ perspectives regarding access to knowledge and expertise.

Findings: Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the civil war in Tajikistan, knowledge available to farmers can be described as a mix of traces and fragments originating from the Soviet agricultural and educational system represented by universities, research institutes and academies of science, on the one hand, and Western-style knowledge, mainly introduced by development agencies, on the other. Donors are relatively new actors in the field of knowledge dissemination, but they are nevertheless very important ones. Under the ‘development’ framework, that is, rhetorical, organisational and infrastructural development, different donors play their own parts, some of them geo-political. At the same time they provide support for the functioning of local non-governmental organisations and help to maintain them accordingly, and they are also used by Tajik political actors for their own purposes.

Practical implications: From this discussion, practical suggestions are made on how AASs could be organised in Tajikistan, namely on existing assets, traditions and networks, thus reflecting the interplay between the main actors and local needs.  相似文献   


8.
Purpose: In this paper, we explore the strategic role of Multi-stakeholder processes (MSP) in agricultural innovations and how it has impacted livelihood assets’ (LAs) capital dynamics of stakeholders in platforms in West Africa.

Design/Methodology/Approach: We demonstrate how LA capitals and socio-economic dynamics induced by MSP can enhance cassava production efficiency but also create opportunities and challenges that influence platform dynamics and impacts. We use a multistage sampling procedure and sustainable livelihood model (e.g. stochastic frontier functions and Tobit regression) to analyse LA capital dynamics of the stakeholders.

Findings: We showed that the LA of the MSP participants (0.72) was found to be significantly higher (χ2?=?3.732, p?Practical implications: We recommend the institutionalization of MSP in the Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) with more extension follow-up services so as to adequately and appropriately unleash the potentials in social capital networks that enable the development, effective dissemination and adoption of agricultural innovations.

Theoretical implications: This study suggests that soft-transfer of technologies seems to dominate at MSP inception. But at maturity, the results of the struggle between researchers and farmers would lead to co-reaction and community-based research. Consequently, the knowledge and power dynamics that take place within the MSP should be considered the centre of co-construction and platform dynamics.

Originality/Values: The study provided a practical experience on how MSP can be institutionalized in the AR4D programmes to support agricultural innovation systems and foster pro-poor growth and livelihoods.  相似文献   

9.
This article discusses the emergence of a European E-Learning Area (EELA) as a consequence of three factors that can be observed in the e-learning developments over the past decade. The first factor consists of the carving of a policy sector in e-learning via formal instruments such as the eLearning Programme, the Lifelong Learning Programme and an array of other e-learning policy stipulations embedded in larger policy instruments at European level (e.g. Framework Programme). The second factor is represented by the mainstreaming of e-learning activities, both through formal and informal measures across multiple domains. Finally, the proliferation and consolidation of interlinked networks of practice as incubators of e-learning innovation and sharing of expertise act as the third factor in the shaping of EELA. The conceptualisation of EELA is substantiated through an analysis of the European e-learning policy documentation and the findings of a questionnaire distributed to the coordinators of projects under the eLearning Programme. In light of the findings, theoretical and practical implications for EELA as a nascent policy domain are explored and offered as a basis for further debate on this theme.  相似文献   

10.
ABSTRACT

Purpose: Little is known about effective ways to operationalize agricultural innovation processes. We use the MasAgro program in Mexico (which aims to increase maize and wheat productivity, profitability and sustainability), and the experiences of middle level ‘hub managers’, to understand how innovation processes occur in heterogeneous and changing contexts. Design/methodology/approach: We use a comparative case study analysis involving research tools such as documentary review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and reflection workshops with key actors. Findings: Our research shows how a program, that initially had a relatively narrow technology focus, evolved towards an innovation system approach. The adaptive management of such a process was in response to context-specific challenges and opportunities. In the heterogeneous context of Mexico this results in diverse ways of operationalization at the hub level, leading to different collaborating partners and technology portfolios. Practical implications: MasAgro experiences merit analysis in the light of national public efforts to transform agricultural advisory services and accommodate pluralistic agricultural extension approaches in Latin America. Such efforts need long-term coherent macro level visions, frameworks and support, while the serendipitous nature of the process requires meso-level implementers to respond and adapt to and move the innovation process forward. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the debate on how to operationalize large programs by showing that the innovation support arrangements enacted in the field should allow for diversity and have a degree of flexibility to accommodate heterogeneous demands from farmers in different contexts as well as continuous changes in the politico- institutional environment.  相似文献   

11.
Abstract

Purpose: This article reviews the experience of ICT applications as a tool for putting research derived knowledge into use for innovation in South Asia.

Design/methodology/approach: The article uses the contemporary understanding of communication and innovation in reviewing the experience of ICTs in putting new knowledge into use in South Asia.

Findings: The findings from this study suggest that ICTs in general have not contributed effectively to the challenge of putting new knowledge into use as they are mostly used to support traditional communication tasks — such as information dissemination and training. The article argues that this under-utilisation of the potential of ICTs could be due to: a lack of appreciation of the new communication-intermediation tasks required for innovation, underestimation of the roles of intermediaries and their capacities for innovation and lack of networks needed for communities to make use of the information provided through ICTs.

Practical implications: Although the understanding of communication, innovation and extension has changed substantially in the past two decades, there is still a big gap between theory and practice. This article contends that this gap needs to be bridged if ICTs are to effectively contribute to putting new knowledge into use.

Originality/value: The article manifests the necessity for ICT based initiatives to be embedded into the renewed understanding of communication and innovation and it moves ICT related debates from merely a success story to a pragmatic world of communication and innovation process.  相似文献   

12.
Abstract

Purpose: This review paper presents an overview of changes in agricultural extension on a global scale and helps to characterise on-going developments in extension practice.

Design/methodology/approach: Through a critique and synthesis of literature the paper focuses on global political changes which have led to widespread changes from production- to market-oriented extension systems and goes on to discuss pressures on unsustainable public extension systems to reform.

Findings: It is estimated that there are over 800,000 official extension personnel globally, most of whom work in the public sector in developing countries. This review highlights the important consequences for developing countries of global extension reform and the high percentages of farmers reliant on agriculture, making effective agricultural extension a key strategy in tackling poverty and strengthening rural development. It outlines the manner in which governments around the globe have experimented with alternative approaches to extension reform, such as privatisation and cooperatives, and demonstrates how public sector extension has come to be viewed as problematic.

Practical implications: This paper identifies the practical realities of adopting alternative approaches to extension, especially in the context of poverty. It considers the challenges in reforming extension to act as facilitator and enabler, rather than as service provider, and the difficulties in moving towards reforms that promote pluralism and innovation.

Originality/value: This paper contributes to current global debates on reforming agricultural extension by providing learning of how extension services have changed. The paper provides new insights from which lessons can be drawn for future extension reform.  相似文献   

13.
Abstract

Purpose: This case study deals with the implementation methodology, innovations and lessons of the ICT initiative in providing agricultural extension services to the rural tribal farming community of North-East India.

Methodology: This study documents the ICT project implementation challenges, impact among farmers and briefly indicates lessons of the e-agriculture project.

Findings: The e-agriculture prototype demonstrated that the Rs. 2,400 (USD 53) cost of the extension services to provide farm advisory services was saved per farmer per year, expenditure was reduced 3.6 times in comparison with the conventional extension system. Sixteenfold less time was required by the farmers for availing the services and threefold less time was required to deliver the services to the farmers compared with the conventional extension system. However, this article argues that in less developed areas, information through ICTs alone may not create expected development. Along with appropriate agricultural information and knowledge, field demonstrations and forward (farm machinery, manure, seeds) and backward linkages (post-harvest technology and market) need to be facilitated with appropriate public–private partnership between knowledge and other rural advisory service providers for agricultural development.

Practical implications: This article lists a number of practical lessons which will be useful for the successful planning and implementation of e-agriculture projects in developing countries.

Original value: This article is a first case study on ICTs for agricultural extension initiatives among the tribal farmers who dominate the less developed North-East India.  相似文献   

14.
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15.
Abstract

Purpose: This article analyses the role, approach, issues and opportunities faced by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the promotion of agriculture in Timor Leste from independence through to the countrywide roll out of a public extension service in 2009.

Design/methodology/approach: The research draws on semi-structured interviews with NGO personnel, local, national and international, actively involved in agricultural development to ascertain how organisations engage with communities, their objectives, inputs, coverage and impacts. The analysis is based on the framework developed by Birner et al. (2009) for pluralistic advisory services, and the discussion is framed by contemporary NGO discourse.

Findings:This article argues that NGOs have a central role in agricultural development, with particular advantages that can be built upon, however there must be explicit acknowledgement of the complex nature of the NGO and civil society, and a critical awareness of the need for strategic thinking, communication and coordination for effective aid.

Practical implication: NGOs play a central role in agricultural development. There is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the opportunities and limitations of the NGO sector, both as service providers but also more broadly as part of civil society.

Originality/value: Funding directed to the NGO sector for implementation of development projects is prolific. There is substantial discourse on partnerships between NGOs and other actors. However, little of the debate appears within discussions on agricultural service provision.  相似文献   

16.
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17.
Abstract

Purpose: This article outlines the development of extension as a discipline in Australia, its organization, and the ideological changes that have occurred from the second half of the nineteenth century through to the present.

Design/Methodology/Approach: It considers the evolution of extension across the different states of Australia from a national perspective and describes how the research development and extension (RD&E) complex has rotated through cycles of crises, highs, awakenings in thought and practice, and periods where achievements and institutions unravel.

Findings: Discussed is the tension between public and private sector extension, as well as the successes and failures of various paradigms. It considers the impacts of different agricultural policy on Australian agricultural RD&E across the decades. In particular it deals with the current ‘unravelling’ of the agricultural RD&E system in Australia, and tries to anticipate future demands on agricultural extension and how these services might be delivered into the future.

Practical Implications: The article challenges the reader to consider the discipline of extension as a subset of the greater society in which it exists. It provides an insight into how the agricultural research, development and extension capacity of a nation can be observed to ebb and flow over generations in accord with the rhythm of society.

Originality/Value: The article presents a perspective that has not been fully captured or understood until now.  相似文献   

18.
Abstract

Purpose: Communication for Development (C4D) is a new academic discipline and profession for addressing human dimension concerns in development, such as local participation, integration and capacity building, which are the main issues limiting aid effectiveness. However, my experience in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Africa and where a multitude of international development experts attempt to bring about change have, perhaps, never heard about C4D. When the concept was explained, these officials felt C4D was precisely what Malawi and developing countries, need. It left me feeling that the success rate of poverty-reduction programming could be greater if C4D education was provided for development decision-makers and field staff, especially agricultural extension workers.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a critical review of the literature on the role of agricultural extension education in development, focusing on how C4D can strengthen extension performance.

Findings: The study found that development policymakers in Malawi, governmental, nongovernmental, bilateral and multilateral, support the C4D idea once they become knowledgeable about it.

Practical implications: Therefore, the practical implication is that educating policymakers about C4D will increase donor investments in pilot C4D projects, a strengthening of agricultural extension systems, and success of poverty-reduction programs.

Originality/value: It is hoped that readers will find the C4D strategy stimulating, the author's experience enlightening, and the C4D proposal an innovative way of improving aid effectiveness.  相似文献   

19.
Purpose: We assess farm technology adoption in an integrated analysis of social networks and innovation in plantain production in Ghana. The paper explores the strength of social networks in the agricultural innovation systems (AISs) and the effect of AISs on adoption of improved farm technology.

Methodology/Approach: The paper uses social network analysis (SNA) tools to identify, map and analyze the AISs and the two-stage Heckman selection model. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods allows testing the differential effects of social networks on technology adoption.

Findings: We find weak innovation systems in the study area. Farmers are central in the social networks but have little to no influence in the innovation system perspective. Social network capital plays a critical role in improving adoption of improved farm technology.

Practical implication: Focal farmers are important actors disseminating farm technology. They should be supported by policies to interact more effectively with research and extension agents. Strengthening the role of social networking in the innovation system will enhance adoption of improved farm technology.

Theoretical implications: The inclusion of SNA indicators in the adoption model is a novel approach for quantifying the effect of the innovation system and contributes to understanding the roles of different actors. Further validation of the SNA indicators is needed for a comprehensive analysis of the innovation system.

Originality/value: The innovation system approach is useful for researchers and policy-makers by encouraging them to consider new innovation actors and relationships in technology development and dissemination. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods can help to identify starting points for policies to promote innovations among farmers.  相似文献   


20.
Abstract

This paper examines how post-secondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening the capacity to innovate—to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant to smallholder farmers and other agents. Using the AET system in Mozambique as a case study, this paper examines the role of AET within the context of an agricultural innovation system. This innovation systems perspective offers an analytical framework to examine technological change in agriculture as a complex process of interactions among diverse actors who generate, exchange, and use knowledge, conditioned by complex social and economic institutions. The paper argues that while AET is conventionally viewed as key to the development of human capital, it also has a vital role to play in building the capacity of organizations and individuals to transmit and adapt information, products and processes, and new organizational cultures and behaviors. The paper emphasizes the importance of improving AET systems by strengthening the capabilities of organizations and professionals; changing organizational cultures, behaviors, and incentives; and building innovation networks and linkages. The paper offers several recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of AET for agricultural innovation and development. Key reforms include aligning the mandates of AET organizations with national development aspirations; inducing change in the cultures of AET organizations through the introduction of educational programs and linkages beyond the AET system; and enhancing innovative individual and organizational capacity by improving incentives to forge stronger links between AET and other stakeholders.  相似文献   

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