Scaling innovations is a social issue: case study in Mexico
Submitted: 2024-06-04
|Accepted: 2025-01-08
|Published: 2025-12-19
Copyright (c) 2025 Tania Casaya-Rodríguez, Roberto Rendón-Medel, Jorge Aguilar-Ávila, Nele Verhulst
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
Network analysis, Relational capital, Scaling, Innovation, maize production
Supporting agencies:
National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technology (CONAHCYT). Mexico.
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Mexico.
Abstract:
We seek to recognize, from an up-deep scaling approach (arrangements of actors and institutions, pragmatism, and appropriation), the triggering elements of systemic change as empirical evidence of the relationships between actors through Social Network Analysis. Through case studies with farmers in the central region of Mexico, we found that the management of relational capital is key in the scaling of agricultural innovations; where market and the presence of articulating actors are two elements that energize the network and oriented the innovation. The commercial, agricultural and social public policy environment shape the potential for scaling up.
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