Digital Innovation and the Becoming of an Organizational Identity

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

“…Earlier studies on the impact of digitalisation on AKIS actors show that digitalisation requires a change in capabilities and roles of, in particular, farm advisory services Fielke et al, 2021). As shown in Chapter 2, and indicated by other authors (Nettle et al, 2018;Obwegeser & Bauer, 2016;Utesheva, Simpson, & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2017), is it that digitalisation not only requires a change in capabilities and roles of AKIS actors, but ultimately also a change in the 163 intangible aspects of their organisational identity (such as their purpose and values). This thesis adds to these previous insights that being aware of the opportunities of digitalisation could lead to a virtuous cycle as shown in Figure 6.3.…”

“…Although the terminology around digital technologies has evolved over the past years, and the body of work has grown exponentially, what has not changed is the need to understand what impact digital technologies have on individuals, organisations and society as a whole (see for example Balsmeier & Woerter, 2019;Carolan, 2020a;Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017;Floridi, 2014;George & Paul, 2020;Obwegeser & Bauer, 2016;Robinson et al, 2015) and how society, and the individuals and organisations within it, shape the digital transformation Jakku et al, 2019;Jonsson, Mathiassen, & Holmström, 2018;Wittman, James, & Mehrabi, 2020). While the adoption of precision agriculture and digital technologies on farm and related advisory and extension services has been for more than a decade (Aker, Ghosh, & Burrell, 2016;Anastasios, Koutsouris, & Konstadinos, 2010;Eastwood, Ayre, Nettle, & Dela Rue, 2019;Eastwood, Chaplin, Dela Rue, Lyons, & Gray, 2016;Eastwood, Jago, et al, 2016;Eastwood & Renwick, 2020;Floridi, Bartolini, Peerlings, Polman, & Viaggi, 2013;Higgins, Bryant, Howell, & Battersby, 2017;Kutter, Tiemann, Siebert, & Fountas, 2009;Reichardt, Jürgens, Klöble, Hüter, & Moser, 2009;Tey & Brindal, 2012), there are still many (known and unknown) unknowns (Logan, 2009;Pawson, Wong, & Owen, 2011;Rumsfeld, 2002) related to, for example, digital policy making, digital agricultural systems and transitions, or digital agriculture geography (Klerkx et al, 2019).…”