Final Report Summary - CABIS (Capacity and dynamics of agribusiness innovation systems)
This research project aimed to enhance our understanding of factors causing limitations in innovation capacity and innovation competitiveness in ABIS developing country contexts. This project used new institutional economic sociology, new sociological institutionalism, innovation, social network, and constructivist and social learning as lens for analysing 1) how are individual actors’ innovation-oriented practices influenced by multiple embeddedness and institutional environments; 2) what characterize relationships between individual actors’ innovation-oriented practices such as innovation, networking, learning and business practices; and 3) how these practices, in turn, influence innovation performance and competitiveness of ABIS in Vietnam and Tanzania.
Results showed that institutional uncertainties imposed by ‘institutional voids’ result in a strong short-term innovation practices in both Vietnamese and Tanzanian AIBS. In the case of Vietnamese ABIS, uncertainties imposed by i.e. the dilemma of a ‘market economy under socialist guidance’, inconsistent socio-economic development policies, and the state-private discriminatory legal framework lead to a mismatch of innovation orientations between actors in different domains. For instance, value chain actors such as farmers and SMEs emphasize cash flow-oriented incremental and process-oriented innovations for survivals, while knowledge generation and transfer actors such as researchers and extensionist focus on innovation for demand-driven development. In the case of Tanzanian ABIS, uncertainties imposed by i.e. the weak political will from the government, the externally-driven agricultural market liberalisation in the second-generation of economic reform and ambivalent private-sector development framework lead to hot resistance to be proactive in innovation of significant ABIS actors. Knowledge generation actors such as researchers, for example, conduct either adaptive research that gears towards testing existing research results from various international sources or mission-research that is ordered by international agricultural research institutes. Value chain actors emphasize me-too and cash flow-oriented innovation. It is found in both cases that value chain actors encounter significant problems when aiming to obtain resources for innovation and business development from public actors. It results in the predominant normative and cognitive institutions such as social norms, trust, and sentiment-based relationship in leading ABIS actors’ innovation-oriented practice.
Relationship between individual actors’ innovation, networking, learning and business practices is characterized by mutual influence each other and causal relations. Individual actors’ short-term innovation practices lead to the predominance of in-formalized and individualistic networking behaviours, the lack of organizational and system learning for innovation and knowledge acquisition, and the weakness of business rationality. These short-term innovation-oriented practices and their mutual relationships are likely to impact actors’ innovation competences negatively and jeopardize ABIS actors’ business performance. It, in turn, threatens the innovation capacity, and competitiveness, and sustainability of ABISs in both countries studied. While strengthening Vietnamese ABIS’s innovation competitiveness lays its hope on individual actors’ capability to move beyond influences of normative and cognitive institution mechanisms in leveraging the existing practices to obtain supports from other actor, it needs individual actors’ capability to create driving forces for a more internally-driven liberalisation and to take ownership and pro-activeness in the innovation-oriented practices in the case of Tanzanian ABIS.
To conclude, the dynamic development under the poor physical, institutional voids, predominance of normative and cognitive institution and market mechanisms, weak multi-stakeholder partnership and network coordination, short-term innovation-oriented practices, and limited ability to continuously learning and inefficient use of knowledge limits the innovation capacity and innovation competitiveness of ABIS in profound political transition countries like Vietnam and Tanzania.
In terms of impacts, the project achieved several social and scientific impacts. First, a policy dialogue forum/network was established after the organization of policy feedback workshop for relevant stakeholders in Vietnam. The forum/network is hosted by Department of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Minh City, Ministry of Science and Technology, involving representatives from Department of Science and Technology and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ho Chi Minh City and other eleven provinces in Southern Vietnam. Through this forum/network, science and technology policy makers and implementers have been discussed and shared information related to how to overcome challenges in innovation processes for strengthening knowledge commercialization, and what management mechanisms should be tested and recommended to the Government for an increasing of innovation performance.
Second, Agribusiness-oriented research networks have been established with research institutes and universities in Tanzania and Vietnam. These networks connect a number of researchers in Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Dar es Salaam, Dakawa Research Institute, Ilonga Research Institute in Tanzania as well as Plant Protection Research Institute, National Institute of Animal Husbandry, Institute for Agricultural Environment, Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, Southern Fruit Research Institute, HCM Nong Lam University, Can Tho University, An Giang University in Vietnam. In these networks, awareness and concerns about possibility for research commercialization through addressing value chain actors’ innovation needs have been raising among researchers.
The project’s ethics-related issues had been managed through (1) obtaining collaboration letters and research permit from partner-organization and governmental agencies to show researcher’s respect to the national law and regulations as well as commitment to mutual benefits and long-term collaboration with partner-institutions in Vietnam and Tanzania; (2) establishing collaborations towards mutual benefits with partner-institutions to avoid obstruction during data collection process that caused by political system; (3) adopting an interdisciplinary research approach to overcome the limited accessibility to diverse information sources and to increase reliability of data and results; (4) organizing a feedback workshop for disseminating research findings and results to the relevant stakeholders, enhancing the likelihood of achieving the project’s practical implications in Vietnam; (5) ensuring the commitment to high quality of the research as well as ethics in research through a good management of data, honesty of data, minimisation of bias, avoidance of raising expectation, keeping the promises and agreements, sharing data and results, and responsibility for publication and dissemination of research findings; and (6) agreeing on intellectual property rights with involved institutions and researchers following the commitment to guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review.
Involvement of other actors and spread of awareness were achieved through (1) establishment of agribusiness-oriented research networks, involving a number of researchers from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Dar es Salaam (UDS), Dakawa Research Institute, Ilonga Research Institute in Tanzania as well as Plant Protection Research Institute, National Institute of Animal Husbandry, Institute for Agricultural Environment, Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, Southern Fruit Research Institute, HCM Nong Lam University, Can Tho University, An Giang University in Vietnam to raise awareness and concerns about possibility for research commercialization through addressing value chain actors’ innovation needs among involved researchers; and (2) establishment a policy dialogue forum/network hosted by Department of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, involving representatives from Department of Science and Technology, and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in twelve cities/provinces in Southern Vietnam to ensure the dialogue and exchange information related to how to overcome challenges in innovation processes for strengthening knowledge commercialization, and what management mechanisms should be tested and recommended to the Government for an increasing of innovation performance.
Research findings will be continuously used and disseminated using different means. First, it is a plan to finish two under-prepared manuscripts and submit to scientific peer-review journals at the end of 2014. Second, a policy feedback workshop will be organized for relevant stakeholders in Tanzania in August 2014. Third, collaboration with AgTraIn and UniBrain programmes, and Food Policy Research Group in the host institutions will be continued through join-research and publications on how knowledge has been transferred and disseminated in the incubator context in Africa, teaching Value Chain in Developing countries Course for Agricultural Development Master program, and supervising MSc and PhD students that do research in the agribusiness and value chain areas. Fourth, collaborations with researchers in SUA and UDS in Tanzania will be continued, primarily focusing on supervision of PhD and MSc students doing research in Value chain and ABIS areas.
Results showed that institutional uncertainties imposed by ‘institutional voids’ result in a strong short-term innovation practices in both Vietnamese and Tanzanian AIBS. In the case of Vietnamese ABIS, uncertainties imposed by i.e. the dilemma of a ‘market economy under socialist guidance’, inconsistent socio-economic development policies, and the state-private discriminatory legal framework lead to a mismatch of innovation orientations between actors in different domains. For instance, value chain actors such as farmers and SMEs emphasize cash flow-oriented incremental and process-oriented innovations for survivals, while knowledge generation and transfer actors such as researchers and extensionist focus on innovation for demand-driven development. In the case of Tanzanian ABIS, uncertainties imposed by i.e. the weak political will from the government, the externally-driven agricultural market liberalisation in the second-generation of economic reform and ambivalent private-sector development framework lead to hot resistance to be proactive in innovation of significant ABIS actors. Knowledge generation actors such as researchers, for example, conduct either adaptive research that gears towards testing existing research results from various international sources or mission-research that is ordered by international agricultural research institutes. Value chain actors emphasize me-too and cash flow-oriented innovation. It is found in both cases that value chain actors encounter significant problems when aiming to obtain resources for innovation and business development from public actors. It results in the predominant normative and cognitive institutions such as social norms, trust, and sentiment-based relationship in leading ABIS actors’ innovation-oriented practice.
Relationship between individual actors’ innovation, networking, learning and business practices is characterized by mutual influence each other and causal relations. Individual actors’ short-term innovation practices lead to the predominance of in-formalized and individualistic networking behaviours, the lack of organizational and system learning for innovation and knowledge acquisition, and the weakness of business rationality. These short-term innovation-oriented practices and their mutual relationships are likely to impact actors’ innovation competences negatively and jeopardize ABIS actors’ business performance. It, in turn, threatens the innovation capacity, and competitiveness, and sustainability of ABISs in both countries studied. While strengthening Vietnamese ABIS’s innovation competitiveness lays its hope on individual actors’ capability to move beyond influences of normative and cognitive institution mechanisms in leveraging the existing practices to obtain supports from other actor, it needs individual actors’ capability to create driving forces for a more internally-driven liberalisation and to take ownership and pro-activeness in the innovation-oriented practices in the case of Tanzanian ABIS.
To conclude, the dynamic development under the poor physical, institutional voids, predominance of normative and cognitive institution and market mechanisms, weak multi-stakeholder partnership and network coordination, short-term innovation-oriented practices, and limited ability to continuously learning and inefficient use of knowledge limits the innovation capacity and innovation competitiveness of ABIS in profound political transition countries like Vietnam and Tanzania.
In terms of impacts, the project achieved several social and scientific impacts. First, a policy dialogue forum/network was established after the organization of policy feedback workshop for relevant stakeholders in Vietnam. The forum/network is hosted by Department of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Minh City, Ministry of Science and Technology, involving representatives from Department of Science and Technology and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ho Chi Minh City and other eleven provinces in Southern Vietnam. Through this forum/network, science and technology policy makers and implementers have been discussed and shared information related to how to overcome challenges in innovation processes for strengthening knowledge commercialization, and what management mechanisms should be tested and recommended to the Government for an increasing of innovation performance.
Second, Agribusiness-oriented research networks have been established with research institutes and universities in Tanzania and Vietnam. These networks connect a number of researchers in Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Dar es Salaam, Dakawa Research Institute, Ilonga Research Institute in Tanzania as well as Plant Protection Research Institute, National Institute of Animal Husbandry, Institute for Agricultural Environment, Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, Southern Fruit Research Institute, HCM Nong Lam University, Can Tho University, An Giang University in Vietnam. In these networks, awareness and concerns about possibility for research commercialization through addressing value chain actors’ innovation needs have been raising among researchers.
The project’s ethics-related issues had been managed through (1) obtaining collaboration letters and research permit from partner-organization and governmental agencies to show researcher’s respect to the national law and regulations as well as commitment to mutual benefits and long-term collaboration with partner-institutions in Vietnam and Tanzania; (2) establishing collaborations towards mutual benefits with partner-institutions to avoid obstruction during data collection process that caused by political system; (3) adopting an interdisciplinary research approach to overcome the limited accessibility to diverse information sources and to increase reliability of data and results; (4) organizing a feedback workshop for disseminating research findings and results to the relevant stakeholders, enhancing the likelihood of achieving the project’s practical implications in Vietnam; (5) ensuring the commitment to high quality of the research as well as ethics in research through a good management of data, honesty of data, minimisation of bias, avoidance of raising expectation, keeping the promises and agreements, sharing data and results, and responsibility for publication and dissemination of research findings; and (6) agreeing on intellectual property rights with involved institutions and researchers following the commitment to guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review.
Involvement of other actors and spread of awareness were achieved through (1) establishment of agribusiness-oriented research networks, involving a number of researchers from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Dar es Salaam (UDS), Dakawa Research Institute, Ilonga Research Institute in Tanzania as well as Plant Protection Research Institute, National Institute of Animal Husbandry, Institute for Agricultural Environment, Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, Southern Fruit Research Institute, HCM Nong Lam University, Can Tho University, An Giang University in Vietnam to raise awareness and concerns about possibility for research commercialization through addressing value chain actors’ innovation needs among involved researchers; and (2) establishment a policy dialogue forum/network hosted by Department of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, involving representatives from Department of Science and Technology, and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in twelve cities/provinces in Southern Vietnam to ensure the dialogue and exchange information related to how to overcome challenges in innovation processes for strengthening knowledge commercialization, and what management mechanisms should be tested and recommended to the Government for an increasing of innovation performance.
Research findings will be continuously used and disseminated using different means. First, it is a plan to finish two under-prepared manuscripts and submit to scientific peer-review journals at the end of 2014. Second, a policy feedback workshop will be organized for relevant stakeholders in Tanzania in August 2014. Third, collaboration with AgTraIn and UniBrain programmes, and Food Policy Research Group in the host institutions will be continued through join-research and publications on how knowledge has been transferred and disseminated in the incubator context in Africa, teaching Value Chain in Developing countries Course for Agricultural Development Master program, and supervising MSc and PhD students that do research in the agribusiness and value chain areas. Fourth, collaborations with researchers in SUA and UDS in Tanzania will be continued, primarily focusing on supervision of PhD and MSc students doing research in Value chain and ABIS areas.