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

Abstract

Purpose: Explore advisor understanding of their roles in advisory systems characterised by differing mixes of public and private funding and delivery. Methodology: A systems perspective of advisory system governance is combined with an individual perspective of advisor roles. Data from a survey of 38 Australian, 19 New Zealand, 606 Argentine and 279 Brazilian respondents were analysed for statistical differences. Findings: In all contexts, advisor priorities reflect state or industry goals. Where there is more private funding and delivery, advisors also prioritise farmer commercial goals. Under public extension funding and delivery, group methods and capacity building are emphasised to reach many farmers and realise public goals. Practical implications: Advisors play a crucial role in reconciling competing national, industry and farmer goals at the farm-level. This emphasises participatory methods and intermediary positions in the advisory system to facilitate dialogue and support farmers to realise competing goals. A policy implication is public and industry funding is needed for advisors to engage with public and industry organisations to understand and contribute to policies and objectives they will be advising on. Theoretical implications: Combining a systems perspective of country-level advisory system governance with an individual perspective of advisor roles highlights that advisor understanding of their roles are related to the public governance context in which they operate. Originality/value: The advisor understanding of their roles in the advisory system is related to different governance of pluralistic advisory systems. This contributes to articulating advisory policies and practices to support coordination and inclusion in pluralistic advisory systems.

Grasping the digital transformation of agri-food systems through responsible sense-making

“…This thesis consists of multi-site qualitative research, which will be described in more detail in each of the chapters. The locations of, in particular, Chapter 2 and 3, namely New Zealand and the Netherlands, were chosen because both countries are digitally advanced (Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017;European Commission, 2020b), they are similar with regards to their economic approach to agriculture, aiming to increase exports through more collaboration between research, industry and government and having (largely) privatised AKIS (Knierim et al, 2017a;Ministry for Primary Industries, 2012;Turner, Landini, Percy, & Pires Gregolin, 2021). Policies like the Top sectors in the Netherlands (Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2016) and the Industry Transformation Plans in New Zealand (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, 2020) are examples of this.…”

“…This enables them in their capabilities to grasp 'the digital' and its effects (Dufva & Dufva, 2019;Fielke et al, 2021;Rijswijk et al, 2019), and turns this into 'responsibilisation capability'. It also enables highlighting a wider range of relevant actors and the (ir)responsibilities they have, and what this implies for designing the arenas in which RRI can be enacted, e.g., Living Labs, Transformation Labs , Innovation Platforms (see Pereira et al, 2020;Turner et al, 2020). Beyond an initial RRI exercise, given the relational nature of and complex interactions in SCPS which affect transformation dynamics (Kok et al, 2021), and beyond initial phases of design, technology development and implementation, this could also be a continuous reflection in the process of what has been dubbed 'responsible scaling' (Wigboldus et al, 2016).…”

“…This thesis adds a digital perspective to the field of organisation studies in general, but also to literature that deals with organisational changes in agricultural research and advisory service organisations (Albaladejo et al, 2007;Labarthe & Laurent, 2013;Nettle et al, 2018;Prager et al, 2016;Turner et al, 2021), by applying the concept of digi-grasping as a new way of sense-making at an organisational level. In this thesis I have shown that digitalisation impacts the organisational identity and that organisations have different abilities to digi-grasp.…”

“…So it is just trying to get rid of that [paper], and because of that it is also allowing people to focus on what is happening now and trying to make more informed decisions at a more timely fashion." -Project manager at a cooperative company in New Zealand, 2017 This quote from the first interviews as part of this PhD shows that at that time digitalisation was a term equated with digitisation, i.e. the "technical conversion of analogue information into digital form" (Autio, 2017, p. 1).…”

“…Both Chapters 2 and 3 also convey that preconceived notions about certain tasks belonging to a particular actor are challenged by digitalisation, resulting in the blurring of roles, responsibilities and boundaries between (public and private) organisations (see also Eastwood, Klerkx, & Nettle, 2017;Nettle et al, 2018;Turner et al, 2020). This is further exacerbated by new actors, such as technology providers and start-ups, entering the AKIS or value chain and the changing roles and influence of incumbent organisations (Ingram & Maye, 2020;.…”