A conceptual framework to evaluate the impact of innovation platforms on agrifood

value chains development

Jean-Joseph CADILHON

138th seminar of the European Association of Agricultural Economists on pro-poor innovations in food supply chains

Ghent, Belgium, 11-13 September 2013

Outline of presentation

• Definition of innovation platform

• Objectives of innovation platforms

• Research questions

• Literature review to construct the conceptual framework

• Presentation of the conceptual framework

• Monitoring and evaluation setup

• Data collection and analysis tools

• Discussion

Definition of innovation platform

Innovation platforms are equitable, dynamic spaces

designed to bring heterogeneous actors together to

exchange knowledge and take action to solve a

common problem

(ILRI 2012)

Objectives of innovation platforms

According to the concerted decision of members:

• Boosting productivity

• Managing natural resources

• Improving value chains

• Adapting to climate change

(Homann-Kee Tui et al, In press)

Objectives of innovation platforms: improving value chains

• Advocacy of industry interests in policy making circles

• Collective promotion of products

• Concerted setup of quality standards

• Research and development, technology uptake

• Capacity building

• Market regulation activities

• Market information and statistics

• Arbitration of chain conflicts

• Limiting transaction costs (collective negociation, price setting)

• Setting production targets and allocating production share among members for specific quality products

(Cadilhon & Dedieu 2011)

Research questions

1. Can the impact of innovation platforms on the

objectives set by their members be measured?

2. Does performance vary according to the setup

of the platform?

Literature review to construct the conceptual framework

Based on three socio-economic theories:

• Structure – Conduct – Performance

• New Institutional Economics

• Supply Chain Management and Marketing

An elegant economic framework: Structure – Conduct – Performance

• Developed by Bain in an industrial setting (1959)

• Posits link between market structure

• Number of players

• Market share of players

• And the performance of the market

• Price correlations between different physical markets

• Prive variations

• Equity of margin distribution among market players

• The conduct of the players in the market

• Competition

• Collusion

• Price fixing

• Raising barriers to entry

Keep the elegant logic Address the flaws of the SCP framework

• Utilized in developing country settings to make propositions for new market infrastructure, with mixed results

• The model benchmark for the best market conditions is the pure and perfectly competitive market, virtually inexistent in real markets with real people

• SCP completely negates larger environmental influences on the marketing system

• Relies on price data as primary indicator of market performance, always difficult to collect reliably

Inputs from New institutional economics

This framework fully recognizes the uncertainty that

is endemic in the food industry:

• Technical and economic characteristics of the product

• Seasonality of production

• Weather instability

• Unstable food markets

(Hobbs 1996, Valceschini 2002)

Inputs from New institutional economics

• NIE posits that market stakeholders will create a specific institutional background (laws, norms of behaviour) and organizational setting (associations, cooperatives, contracts, firms) to deal with this uncertain market environment

• It ponders the optimal market institution to reduce transaction costs incurred to secure a deal and the sharing of the quasi-rent (expected return and value addition) between buyer and seller

(Williamson 1991)

Theoretical inputs from supply chain management and marketing research

• Captures better the continuum of possible marketing relationships that NIE only refers to as ‘hybrid forms’ between spot transactions and firm integration

• More approachable vocabulary for non-economists interested in using marketing concepts

• Re-socializes research on market relations

• Provides a range of tested performance measurement metrics

(Webster 1992, Fearne 2000, Duteurtre 2003)

Marketing orientation

A marketing orientation pushes firms to be focused

throughout their activity:

• Implementing market analysis to discover customer needs

• Cooperating with chain partners to react to these results

• Embedding the marketing concept in all departments of the firm

(Noble et al 2002)

Elements of supply chain management with positive impact on firm performance

• Information sharing

• Communication

• Cooperation, coordination and joint planning

• Trust, based on:

• Credibility of actions and promises

• Process, individual characteristics and institutions

• Social capital

(Anderson & Narus 1984, 1990, Kumar 1996, Batt 2003)

Transposing elements of market and firm organization to innovation platforms

Can the elements characterizing markets, value

chains and firms be transposed to a non-market

institution like an innovation platform?

The conceptual framework for monitoring and evaluation of innovation platforms

Monitoring and evaluation setup

• Based on questionnaires of facilitators or managers of innovation platforms and their members

• Same questionnaires administered at start of activity, regularly during the activity, and at the end of an activity capture evolutions in the platform’s ‘structure’, ‘conduct’ and ‘performance’

• Statistical tools enable to demonstrate potentially significant relationships between S, C and P over time

Possible to attribute the relative share of the structure and ways of functioning of an innovation platform on its development outcomes

Data collection tools

Mixed quantitative and qualitative methods

• In-depth interview with platform facilitator or manager

• In-depth interview with prominent platform members (farmer leader, researcher, government official, etc.)

• Focus group discussions with platform members

• Observing innovation platform meetings

• Individual questionnaire of platform members

Data collection tools

Individual questionnaires of platform members:

• Closed questions to identify individual ‘structure’

• 5-rank Likert scale agreement to statements to quantify levels of platform ‘conduct’ and ‘performance’

• Statements for Likert-scale ranking derived from literature review and preliminary results from focus group discussions

Data analysis tools

• Descriptive statistics and qualitative data characterize platform structure and conduct

• Reduce number of conduct and performance variables through factor analysis

• Use results of factor analysis for regression analyses to test relationships between structure, conduct and performance

• Give names to factors and explain results of regressions with qualitative data

Discussion

• Preliminary results validate the conceptual framework:

• Burkina Faso

• Ghana

• Some stakeholders are challenged by Likert scales

• Village platforms are too small to gather enough data

• More iterations needed to capture differences in platform structures

• Short lifespan of platform projects challenge impact assessment objective of the framework

• Would performance influence conduct and structure?

Way forward and development implications

1. Conceptual framework to be field-tested and

strengthened with data from other sites

2. Useful as monitoring & evaluation tool for

projects using innovation platforms

This work is financed by the CGIAR Research Program on POLICIES, INSTITUTIONS AND MARKETS The validation fieldwork was implemented in a partnership with SNV, FNGN, CSRI-ARI and IWMI through the Volta 2 project

Acknowledgements

The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is given to ILRI.

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