Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T22:51:55.086Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ON-FARM INNOVATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL INDUSTRY: A SENSEMAKING PERSPECTIVE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

JOANNE N. SNEDDON ,
GEOFFREY N. SOUTAR  and
TIM MAZZAROL
JOANNE N. SNEDDON*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia Business School, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6006, Australia
GEOFFREY N. SOUTAR
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia Business School, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6006, Australia
TIM MAZZAROL
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia Business School, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6006, Australia
*
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

In agricultural innovation, the success of widely used technologies is often assumed to have been inevitable. Conversely, the blame for the failure of new technologies that researchers, policy makers and extensionists consider superior to existing solutions is often placed on farmers. However, these assumptions can be challenged by taking a social-constructivist view of on-farm innovation to examine how and why farmers made sense of new technologies and how this sensemaking shaped their use of these technologies over time. The present study took such an approach in its analysis of Australian woolgrowers’ adoption, abandonment, implementation and use of new wool-testing technologies that highlighted the social and dynamic nature of innovation on-farm. On-farm innovation in this case was an evolving, dynamic process that changed over time as woolgrowers made sense of new technologies. The primary message to agricultural innovation researchers, technology developers, policy makers and extensionists is that successful on-farm innovation requires the active, ongoing engagement of industry participants. In order to engage industry participants in the innovation process, sensemakers’ personal identity frames and social context, and how these interpretation frameworks relate to the new technology need to be understood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Agriculture , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 295 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agarwal, R. and Prasad, J. (1999). Are individual differences germane to the acceptance of new information technologies? Decision Sciences 30:361–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002) Agriculture: The wool industry. In Year Book Australia, 2002, ABS, Canberra, ACT.Google Scholar
Barnett, R. and Sneddon, J. (2006a) Best practice pasture utilisation and natural resource management: Review of adoption and current extension activities. COMM. 112, Meat and Livestock Australia, Sydney.Google Scholar
Barnett, R. and Sneddon, J. (2006b) Best practice sheep reproduction: Review of adoption and current extension activities. SHGEN. 114, Meat and Livestock Australia, Sydney.Google Scholar
Biemans, W. G. (1992) Managing Innovations within Networks. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bijker, W. E. (1999) Of Bicycles, Bakelites and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change, 3rd edn.Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P. and Pinch, T. J, (1987). Common themes in sociological and historical studies of technology: Introduction. In The Social Construction of Technological Systems, 9–15 (Eds Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P. and Pinch, T. J.). Cambridge, MA: First MIT Press.Google Scholar
Carletto, C., de Janvry, A. and Sadoulet, E. (1996). Knowledge, toxicity, and external shocks: the determinants of adoption and abandonment of non-traditional export crops by smallholders in Guatemala. Working Paper 791, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Berkley, CA.Google Scholar
Choo, C. W. and Johnston, R. (2004). Innovation in the knowing organisation: A case study of an e-commerce initiative. Journal of Knowledge Management 8:77–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coughenour, C. M. (2003) Innovating conservation agriculture: The case of no-till cropping, Rural Sociology 68:278–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coughenour, C. M. and Chamala, S. (2000) Conservation Tillage and Cropping Innovation: Constructing the New Culture Of Agriculture, Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Souza, I. S. F. and Busch, L. (1998) Networks and agricultural development: The case of soybean production and consumption in Brazil. Rural Sociology 63:349–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douthwaite, B. (1999) Equipment evolution: case studies of change in rice postharvest technologies in the Philippines and Vietnam. PhD thesis, University of Reading.Google Scholar
Douthwaite, B., Keatinge, J. D. H. and Park, J. R. (2002), Learning selection: an evolutionary model for understanding, implementing and evaluating participatory technology development. Agricultural Systems 72:109–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989) Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review 14:532–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenhardt, K. M. and Tabrizi, B. N. (1995) Accelerating adaptive processes: Product innovation in the global computer industry. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40:84–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fincham, R., Fleck, J., Proctor, R., Scarbrough, H., Tierney, M. and Williams, R. (1995). Expertise and Innovation: Information Technology Strategies in the Financial Services Sector. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, S. T. and Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social Cognition, 2nd edn.New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Fleck, J. (1994). Learning by trying: The implementation of configurational technology. Research Policy 23:637–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gioia, D. A. and Chittipeddi, K. (1991) Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal 12:433–448.Google Scholar
Griffith, T. L. (1999). Technology features as triggers for sensemaking. Academy of Management Review 24:472–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerin, L. J. and Guerin, T. F. (1994). Constraints to the adoption of innovations in agricultural research and environmental management: A review. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 34:549–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hair, J. F., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L. and Black, W. C. (1998) Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th edn.Uer Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Lax, J., Jackson, N. and Dryden, J. (1995). Price premiums for additionally measured Merino fleece wool. In Proceedings of the 11th Conference of the Australian Association of Animal Breeding and Genetics. Armidale, NSW.Google Scholar
Lindner, R. K. (1987). Adoption and diffusion of technology: an overview. Technological Change in Postharvest Handling and Transportation of Grains in the Humid Tropics: Proceedings of an International Seminar Held at Bangkok, Thailand, 10–12 September 1986, 144–151.Google Scholar
Louis, M. R. (1980). Surprise and sensemaking: What newcomers experience in entering unfamiliar organizational settings. Administrative Science Quarterly 25:226–251.Google Scholar
Miller, W. L. and Morris, L. (1998). Fourth Generation R&D: managing knowledge, technology, and innovation. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.Google Scholar
Moser, C. M. and Barrett, C. B. (2003). The disappointing adoption dynamics of a yield-increasing, low external-input technology: The case of SRI in Madagascar. Agricultural Systems 76:1085–1100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neill, S. P. and Lee, D. R. (2001). Explaining the adoption and disadoption of sustainable agriculture: The case of cover crops in Northern Honduras, Economic Development and Cultural Change 49:793–820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niosi, J. (1999). Fourth-generation R&D: From linear models to flexible innovation. Journal of Business Research 45:111–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J. and Gash, D. C. (1994). Technological frames: Making sense of information technology in organizations. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 12:174–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preece, D. A. (1989). Managing the Adoption of New Technology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Productivity Commission (2005). Trends in Australian Agriculture. Productivity Commission, Canberra.Google Scholar
Qamar, K. (2002). Global trends in agricultural extension: Challenges facing Asia and the Pacific region, Paper presented at the FAO Regional Expert Consultation on Agricultural Extension, Research-Extension-Farmer Interface and Technology Transfer in Bangkok, Thailand 16–19 July 2002.Google Scholar
Rice, R. E. and Contractor, N. S. (1990). Conceptualizing effects of office information system: A methodology and application for the study of alpha, beta and gamma changes. Decision Sciences 21:301–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, E. M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations, 5th edn.New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Ruttan, V. W. (1996). What happened to technology adoption-diffusion research? Sociologia Ruralis 36:51–73.Google Scholar
Seligman, L. (2000). Adoption as sensemaking: toward an adopter-centered process model of IT adoption. In Proceedings of the Twenty First International Conference on Information Systems, December 2000, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 361–370.Google Scholar
Sommerville, P. J. (2002). Wool metrology: Past and current trends and future requirements. Wool Technology and Sheep Breeding 50:853–860.Google Scholar
Sproull, L. S. and Hofmeister, K. R. (1986). Thinking about implementation. Journal of Management 12:43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starbuck, W. H. and Milliken, F. J. (1988). Executives perceptual filters: What they notice and how they make sense. In The Executive Effect: Concepts and Methods for Studying Top Managers, 35–65 (Ed. Hambrick, D. C.). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Sumberg, J. and Reece, D. (2004). Agricultural research through a new product development lens. Experimental Agriculture 40:295–314.Google Scholar
Swanson, E. B. (1994). Information systems innovation among organizations, Management Science 40:1069–1092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, K., Juska, A. and Busch, L. (1999). Globalization of agriculture production and research: The case of the rapeseed subsector. Sociologia Ruralis 39:54–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanclay, F. (1994). A crisis in agricultural extension? Rural Society. 4:10–13.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd edn.Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. (1990). Technology as equivoque: Sensemaking in new technologies. In Technology and Organizations, 1–44 (Eds Goodman, P. S. and Sproull, L. S.). San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Wool Industry Future Directions Task Force (1999). Diversity and Innovation for Australian Wool: Report of the Wool Industry Future Directions Task Force.Google Scholar
Woolmark Business Intelligence Group (2004). A Global Strategic Market Analysis and Outlook for Australian Wool. Australian Wool Innovation Ltd, Sydney.Google Scholar
Yin, R. K. (1994). Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 2nd edn.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar