An analysis of the organizational field of B.C. agriculture was conducted
to explore the politics of the innovation process. Agricultural innovations in
organic farming, synthetic agrichemicals and biogenetic engineering were studied
at the individual, organizational and interorganizational levels. Research
questions regarding the innovation decision—making process, innovation
championship, organizational politics, organization theory and
interorganizational networks were explored.
A total of 137 persons (organic and conventional farmers, BCMAFF employees,
farm organization employees) were interviewed in this research study. Data was
collected via semi—structured interviews, questionnaires, and analysis of
publications to investigate a total of 28 research questions.
Similarities and differences between organic and conventional farmers in
respect to their socioeconomic characteristics, motivations, actions and
environmentalist beliefs were identified. Organic farmers basis for their
innovation adoption decisions was found to be largely informed by their
environmentalist philosophy whereas the primary motivating factor for
conventional farmers was economic rather than ideological.
Case studies of 33 farm organizations (20 conventional and 13 organic) were
conducted. Organizational fields were found to be defined not only in terms of
products, services and geographic location but also in terms of ideology. Within
the conventional agriculture organizational field there was a high degree of
homogeneity in organizational structures and decision making processes as well
as close collaboration with government policy makers. Within the organic
agriculture organizational field there was homogeneity in production practices,
but heterogeneity in organizational structures, goals and decision making
processes based on the radicalness of the environmentalist philosophy of an
organization’s membership. The formation and operation of interorganizational
networks in each organizational field confirmed previous findings of the critical
problems in overorganized and underorganized networks. A longitudinal analysis of organizational politics in the organic
agriculture organizational field revealed that institutionalization processes
engender political contests among competing interests. The successful
championship of an innovative government regulatory system was attributed to the
early use of a wide variety of collaborative and competitive political games.
Opponents’ efforts to neutralize champions’ escalation of commitment during the
later stages of the innovation development process proved to be ineffective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6979 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Egri, Carolyn Patricia |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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