Innovation networks to stimulate public and private sector collaboration for advisory services innovation and coordination: the case of pasture performance issues in the New Zealand dairy industry

Abstract

Purpose: An innovation network, called the Pasture Improvement Leadership Group (PILG), was formed to improve the quality and consistency of advice provided to dairy farmers in New Zealand, after they expressed dissatisfaction with their pastures. The aim of this paper is to better understand the challenges of forming and maintaining networks to coordinate advisory services, with a focus on the dynamics between public and private sector actors. Methodology: The concept of innovation networks is used to describe the PILG, as well as to diagnose the effectiveness of the PILG, and to identify and discuss critical success factors for the development of an innovation network involving public and private sector actors. Findings: Six critical success factors were identified, such as: a sense of urgency and willingness to work together; sharing a common vision; a broad representation of the involved or affected stakeholders; and having a neutral innovation broker. Challenges remain around the level of interaction and the different incentives of public and private sector actors. Theoretical implication: This work suggests that not only the formation of an innovation network requires careful consideration regarding the purpose, governance, and the type of actors involved, but that the maintenance of an innovation network is equally important. Practical implication: The results have been influential within DairyNZ, providing evidence that innovation networks are effective and consequently are being applied more widely in the New Zealand dairy industry. Originality/Value: This is the first New Zealand study into the development of innovation networks aimed at collaboration between public and private sector actors in a highly privatised extension system and contributes to the emerging body of work on coordination in pluralistic extension systems. ARTICLE HISTORY

Advisor understanding of their roles in the advisory system: a comparison of governance structures in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand

“…Previous research (Knuth and Knierim 2013;Rijswijk and Brazendale 2017;Nettle, Crawford, and Brightling 2018;Paschen et al 2017) suggests that in the absence of public policy encouraging and funding institutional coordination, privately funded commercial advisors tend to limit cooperation with other advisors and are poorly connected with the R&D system and public authorities. Lower levels of cooperation among commercial advisors, and withholding of information, is related to advisors viewing their technical knowledge as their competitive advantage (Compagnone and Simon 2018;Cerf et al 2017;Knuth and Knierim 2013).…”

“…Lower levels of cooperation among commercial advisors, and withholding of information, is related to advisors viewing their technical knowledge as their competitive advantage (Compagnone and Simon 2018;Cerf et al 2017;Knuth and Knierim 2013). Additionally, commercial advisors have been found to lack the time and resources to maintain connections with research organisations and public authorities (Knuth and Knierim 2013;Labarthe and Laurent 2013;Rijswijk and Brazendale 2017;Nettle, Crawford, and Brightling 2018). Other authors (Davis, Babu, and Ragasa 2020) have found this to also be the case with public providers due to a lack of time to search for additional knowledge.…”

“…food security, farmer wellbeing and family farming) (Davis, Babu, and Ragasa 2020). These are not public or industry-good priorities in New Zealand or Australia, where the emphasis is on improving agribusiness performance and environmental outcomes (Paschen et al 2017;Rijswijk and Brazendale 2017).…”

Trust formation in agri-food institutional support networks

“…Advisors have to deal with bureaucratic practices (Juntti and Potter, 2002) and the pressure on agriculture departments to improve scheme performance. Third, the success of networks requires impartiality and a neutral broker (Laschewski et al, 2002;Rijswijk and Brazendale, 2017), where the advisor should seek to be neutral in their interactions with clients, whilst also performing a guiding or steering function for the network (Klerkx and Leeuwis, 2009). Research has found that there can be some difficulty in convincing farmers and land managers of the value of external expert knowledge where there is the tendency of farmers not to trust "scientific" expertise or Government, generally (Oreszczyn et al, 2010;Fisher, 2013).…”

“…As such, there have been calls for differentiated support for rural enterprises where needs are not being met by existing programmes at national or regional levels (Smallbone et al, 2003;Martin et al, 2013) and particularly in relation to the need for local and specific support for farm businesses (McElwee, 2010). Moreover, recent studies indicate a degree of competition rather than collaboration and coordination between business support agencies in agricultural systems (Cerf et al, 2017;Faure et al, 2017;Rijswijk and Brazendale, 2017). These developments raise important questions about the nature of trust in rural support networks, and how it is formed and indeed lost in advisor/institution and client interactions.…”