Social Capital and Adoption of Agronomic Practices : Theory and Findings

Social capital is a concept that captures ways that human relations support productive activities. The concept had a meteoric rise in academia during the 1990s and has been picked up more by multinational corporations who are using the concept to improve their production and brand. This study explores: (1) what are the common assumptions behind social capital research; (2) can social capital increase the adoption of agronomic technology and practice; and (3) can social capital be purposefully built? Tying practical questions to a deeper understandings of social capital is instructive for future social capital research, as it identifies productive ways of dealing with theoretical tensions in the literature