Eco-innovation in agriculture: building a theory from a DSS case study
Author(s)
Avolio, Giulia
Date Issued
July 13, 2017
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
In the last few years, innovation and environmental sustainability become central concepts for both research and companies. Integrating innovation and sustainability can be a key factor to achieve increased growth rates for companies, and a better quality of life for society. Within the agricultural sector all these evidences are especially true. Indeed, it is one of the more related field to the eco-innovation issue.
Given such premises, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the research theme of the eco-innovation to understand which factors influence its diffusion process, namely the adoption and use phases, within the agricultural sector.
In order to reach this objective overcoming the problems faced within this research theme, namely the lack of an adequate theoretical and methodological framework of analysis and the not complete investigation of the eco-innovation process, the Theory building from cases (TBFC) research approach proposed by Eisenhardt in her two key works of Eisenhardt, 1989 and Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007 and aiming to construct or modify theories starting from case studies, has been used.
To do so, four different research questions have been defined. The first research question (RQ1) aims to find a suitable eco-innovation case to study. Through a deductive process starting from the general innovation issue, the specific case of vite.net, a DSS eco-innovation developed for the wine grapes supply chain, has been identified. The second methodological research question (RQ2) aims to understand whether and how the TBFC is the right research approach to analyze such case study. The last research questions belong to the TBFC analysis. The third one, (RQ3) is the more empirical one and strictly related to the case study. It aims to understand which characteristics affect the innovation process, namely adoption and use, of the specific DSS vite.net. The last research question (RQ4) aims to understand, according the existent literature, if the same characteristics influence also the innovation process of a general eco-innovation and, consequently, if they are useful statements to propose a theory about the diffusion of eco-innovation in agriculture.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Ecosistemi e sistemi produttivi
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