Social Networks as Drivers for Technology Adoption: A Study from a Rural Mountain Area in Italy

Rosalia Filippini, Maria Elena Marescotti, Eugenio Demartini and Anna Gaviglio
Additional contact information
Rosalia Filippini: Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety “Carlo Cantoni”, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Maria Elena Marescotti: Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety “Carlo Cantoni”, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Eugenio Demartini: Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety “Carlo Cantoni”, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Anna Gaviglio: Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety “Carlo Cantoni”, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-18

Abstract: Innovation processes includes social and communicative elements. The role of innovative technology for the development of farming systems is investigated in literature, but only a few studies deal with the influence of networks on the adoption of technologies by farmers. The aim of this paper is to verify if the adoption of smartphones for professional reasons by farmers is influenced by the networks to which farmers belong, the socio-demographic characteristics of the farmers, and their farm’s size. The case study is in the Valtellina valley, a rural mountain area in the north of Italy, where 53 livestock farmers were interviewed. The methodology is based on two steps. First, social network analysis is applied to diagnose the relationships of farmers in terms of connectivity and closeness and to detect the centrality measures of farmers in three different social relationships: production networks, market networks, and information exchange networks. A multiple linear regression model is then applied to test whether centrality measures of the three networks, the farmers’ socio-demographic characters, and the farm’s features drive the adoption of smartphones for professional reasons. Results suggest that the centrality measures in production networks positively drive the adoption of smartphones, while the centrality measures of market and information exchange networks do not have the same effect. At the same time, the farmers’ age negatively affects the use of smartphones for professional reasons, while the size of the herd, and the education and gender of farmers have no significant influence. The study contributes to the debate around the Agricultural Knowledge Innovation System and supports local policies based on the inclusion of farmers in the technological development in rural areas.

Keywords: social network analysis; smartphone adoption; farmers; interviews; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9392/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9392/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9392-:d:443452

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().