Social capital and diffusion of innovations : An analysis of farm households in rural Punjab

TLDR: In this article, the authors made an attempt to review the existing literature on the productive relationship between social capital and diffusion of innovations and found that social capital has a significant influence on the decisions of farmers to adopt innovations.

Abstract: Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures and across communities. For the agricultural development to be sustainable and for the self-sustaining of innovations, an innovation must be widely adopted. Adopters may be individuals, communities, clusters within social networks, organizations or countries. Early adopters – the individuals who have the highest degree of opinion leadership – have a higher social status, financial liquidity, advanced education and are more socially forward than the late adopters – the individuals who are typically sceptical about an innovation. Social capital develops a link between early adopters and late adopters of innovations. The change agents, who may come from outside the community, bring innovations to (new) communities, first through the early adopters and then, because of the presence of social capital among the community members, the innovation spills over throughout the community. Sometimes, innovations fail because of the high knowledge requirements to adopt a new idea or technology. Even in such cases, the support from the early adopters can increase the chances for wider adoption of innovations. Social capital enables farmers to learn the best ways of applying new and improved knowledge and technology and to judge their usefulness and effects. In this chapter, an attempt is being made to review the existing literature on the productive relationship between social capital and diffusion of innovations. The supportive empirical evidence is provided on the basis of the data collected from 157 farm households from three districts of Punjab: Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Muktsar. It is observed in the field survey that social capital among farmers is helpful in accessing information on the use of knowledge and technology. The results of the field survey data reveal that more than 80 per cent households (126 households) depend upon social capital to take decisions to adopt innovations. The study suggests that social capital has a significant influence on the decisions of farmers to adopt innovations. Thus, for the diffusion of innovations (i.e. to make full use of an innovation), there is a need of further research to understand deeply the social processes affecting innovation adoption decisions.