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Adoption and learning processes are particularly influenced by change agents and promoters of
innovation and development, such as governmental and foreign development agencies, cooperatives,
non-governmental and community-based organizations, credit providers, input sellers, product buyers
and many more, that provide information about the adoption of innovations deploying a variety of
persuasive mechanisms. Howells (2006) refers to these agents as innovation intermediaries and argues
that they can bring two or more parties together by means of providing information about potential
collaborators, brokering business transactions, mediation of relationships among organizations that
already collaborate and providing access to advice, funding and technical support.
Besley and Case (1994) and Foster and Rosenzweig (1995) have provided evidence on how social learning
and adoption among resource-poor farmers depend on information made unintentionally available to one
individual as a result of the decisions made by other individuals. Conley and Udry (2001) extended this
argument in a study of adoption of innovations in pineapple production in Ghana arguing that farmers
learn by communicating (imperfectly) through social networks. Bandiera and Rasul (2006), in a study of
sunflower adoption in northern Mozambique, model social learning as a non-linear process in which
learning-by-doing effects dominate learning-from-others effects as network size increases. Their findings
oppose the results from Udry and colleagues, suggesting that while adoption is often inhibited by limited
knowledge of a given technology, this barrier can decrease with farmer’s own experience and with his or
her neighbors’ experience.
These findings can also be related to recent advances in rural sociology that put farmers’ behavior
towards innovation in the context of their embeddedness in the local community (Flora, Flora, 1993).
Flora et al. (1997) for example argue that rural communities rich in entrepreneurial social infrastructure (a
particular type of social capital) are more likely to implement economic development projects than those
lacking access to this social infrastructure. This work follows on Granovetter (1985) and Portes and
Sensenbrenner (1993) who could show that economic behavior can be better explained through
embedded relations both within and among firms and individuals.
Another strand of literature discusses the occurrence of innovations in the context of technological
trajectories (Dosi, 1982). The argument is that within a technological trajectory, defined as a field of
application of innovations where certain agents search for improvements only in a given field of
technology (e.g. chemists provide chemical solutions), dynamics of technology-push and market
(demand)-pull can occur. Technology push means that innovations are pushed through R&D, production
and sales operations. In contrast, an innovation based upon market pull is developed by users or in
consideration of user/consumer needs where the consumer requests the product and "pulls" it through
the delivery channel. The (innovation trajectories) approach goes back to the idea of Dosi et al. (1994)
who argued that and combines it with insights on technology trajectories in industry development
(Kumaresan, Miyazaki, 2001) and the involvement of multiple agents in innovation development (World
Bank, 2006). Information on the schemes- we use the term “innovation trajectories” in the following to
depict the dynamics of exchange relationships - has been gathered from various experiences of the
authors with extension and advisory services on three continents . Six main distinctive innovation
trajectories were identified.
Finally there is a large body of literature that discusses the dynamics of innovation and upgrading in the
context of value chains. Humphrey and Memedovic (2006), for example, discuss the knowledge flows
within value chains, particularly from large buyers to small suppliers, providing a basis for upgrading and
ask: To what extent do knowledge flows along value chains support upgrading, and what complementary
flows are required to sustain upgrading? The response they find is that value chain linkages offer the
prospect of private-sector knowledge transfers that should provide up-to-date and relevant information
for producers, processors and exporters in developing countries. Humphrey and Schmidt (2000) argue
that upgrading requires more than the passive acquisition and circulating of knowledge. Humphrey (2003)
adds that firms learn from contact with new markets, and to the extent that insertion into value chains
creates significant information flows between producers and buyers, this effect is magnified but it
depends upon how this knowledge is used. Lack of timely and accurate market information, as well as lack
of understanding of market trends and consumers, presents difficulties for firms in developing countries
to participate in global value chains.
An UNCTAD (2002) report analyzes the upgrading opportunities in the coffee chain in developing
countries. The material flows in the coffee value chain are relatively simple, consisting of growing and
initial processing on the farm, processing up to the green bean stage, exporting, shipping, importing,
roasting and retailing. This chain is comparatively simple because only a limited number of final products
can be obtained (i.e. instant, ground and roasted coffee) for final consumption and there are only very
few inputs needed along the chain for the final product.
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