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History of emergence of online communities

Authors:
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
1
History of online communities
Jenny Preece, Diane Maloney-Krichmar, Chadia Abras
Information Systems Department, and Language, Literature & Culture Program
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Baltimore, MD 21250
<preece,abras>@umbc.edu, diane.krichmar@verizon.net
1. Introduction
An online community is a group of people who interact in a virtual environment. They have a
purpose, are supported by technology, and are guided by norms and policies (Preece, 2000).
However, other authors may use different definitions. The problem with the term ‘online
community’ is that it refers to a wide range of online activities.
In this chapter we use the term ‘online community’ broadly to refer to all communities
that exist predominantly online. A number of factors shape the character of an online
community. The purpose of the community (e.g., health support, education, business,
neighborhood activities) and the software environment supporting it (e.g., listserver, bulletin
board, chat, instant messaging, or more often these days – some combination) greatly influences
the nature of the community. The community’s governance structure and the types of norms and
rules that develop provide a framework for social interaction within the community and vary
widely among communities. Other factors that contribute to the variability of online
communities include the size of the community (small communities of fifty people are very
different from those of 5000 or 50,000); the age and stage in the life-cycle; the culture of the
members of the community (e.g., international, national, local and influences that may be related
to politics, religion, gender, professional norms, etc.), and whether the community has a physic-
virtual presence (physical component as well as the virtual one) (Lazar, Tsao & Preece, 1999).
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
2
The characteristics of an online community are determined by the social interactions of
the members, and the policies that guide them, a concept known as sociability. Software design
also contributes to the character of an online community. A community that communicates via a
synchronous chat system will have quite a different ambiance from one that uses an
asynchronous bulletin board. The ease with which the software can be used is known as its
usability and this depends on how well the user interface supports human-computer interaction
(HCI) (Preece, 2000; Preece & Maloney-Krichmar, 2002). Attention to social policies and
software design is therefore an important component in community development and evolution.
In the remainder of this chapter we first briefly describe the history of technology that
supports online communities and the changes in user populations. Then we outline some key
research issues.
2. Evolution of technology that supports online community
Email, the first and still the most frequently used communication tool on the Internet (Project,
2002), was developed by ARPANET in 1971. Ray Tomlinson of Bolt Beraneck and Newman,
Inc. (BBN) choose the @ sign for use in email addresses in 1972. Early systems were point to
point – one person could send a note to just one other person. Listservers, invented in 1975,
allow one to many postings. The basic form of this technology has not changed much since that
time, although email readers have improved greatly. Listservers are used in two ways: trickle
through and digests. Trickle through systems distribute each message as it is received. Digests
comprise a list of messages presented one after the other, usually in chronological order of
receipt. All through the 1970s, small, technical, and insular communities developed on the
Internet to facilitate communication between researchers. The first emoticon was a smiley made
by using “-)” was invented in 1979, by Kevin Mackenzie, in order to soften the impact of the
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
3
otherwise dry text of e-mail. In the mid to late 1980s, systems with improved graphical user
interfaces started to appear. Dictionaries of emoticons followed throughout the 1990s (Lehnert,
1998)
Bulletin boards, in existence for a similar time, are designed based on the metaphor of a
physical bulletin board. People post messages to the board and they are displayed in various
ways. Usually the messages are threaded which means that messages on the same topic are
associated with each other. The first message forms the beginning of the thread and later
responses are stacked beneath it. During the last five years, systems have appeared that offer
many fine enhancements: search engines enable users to search on topics, user name, date;
emoticons; private conversation spaces; links to email, user profiles and web pages; and
graphical two dimensional pictures and avatars.
Usenet News, like a bulletin board, provides open areas for discussion of topics clustered
in hierarchies. Moderated newsgroups were introduced on Usenet in 1984. Email, listservers,
bulletin boards, Usenet News, and their web-based cousins, are asynchronous communication
technologies, which means that communication partners do not have to be co-present in time.
Messages can be read and then responded to, hours, weeks or months later. The most famous
and first widely recognized non-technical online community, The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link
(WELL) was established in 1985 (Rheingold, 1993).
Chat systems, instant messaging and texting systems are synchronous, which means that
correspondents must be co-present online. Typically, conversations are rapid and each individual
comment is short. In busy systems messages scroll off the screen as they are replaced by more
recent ones. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was developed in 1988 by Jarkko Okarinen. Instant
messaging made famous by ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, is somewhat similar to chats in
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
4
that communication is synchronous and very rapid but individuals can control who participates
in a particular conversation. ICQ was developed in Israel by Mirabilis in 1996 and purchased by
AOL in 1998. Texting, a related technology, occurs across phone lines. Texting is popular in
some parts of the world, particularly Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East. Interestingly,
it has taken longer to become widespread in the USA, where cell phones are used predominantly
for voice messages. However, new models are coming on the market with additional
functionality that supports texting, digital photography, email and web access.
In 1991, one year after ARPANET ceased to exist, the World-Wide Web (WWW),
developed by Tim Berners-Lee, was released by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear
Research). This event facilitated the widespread use of web sites and the development of online
community groups supported by web pages and various forms of communications software.
Online communities appeared in a variety of media, which were gradually integrated into single
environments. In the early 1990s, highly sophisticated gaming worlds emerged, e.g., Doom,
Quake, and Everquest. In these worlds, participants represented themselves on the screen as
graphical characters known as avatars, which can move through the world accompanied by
sound, messaging, and streaming video. Graphical, three-dimensional environments such as the
Palace (www.palace.com), established in 1995, and Activeworlds (www.activeworlds.com ),
established in 1995 as AlphaWorld, started to appear. However, these features come at a cost;
they require state of the art computers with fast processors, large memory and high-bandwidth
Internet connections. Some developers admirably address the issue of universal access that such
environments raise by offering high and low bandwidth versions (e.g., www.activeworlds.com)
so that those without access to sophisticated equipment may participate too.
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
5
A U.S. patent was granted to Fraunhofer, a German company, for MP3, January 26, 1995.
This technology innovation also impacts the concept of community. It provided an interesting
example of how a community can form around a particular technology designed to facilitate
distribution, sharing and, some would say, stealing music! The open source movement too has
stimulated strong dedicated technical communities, such as slashdot.
Internet telephone, streaming video, photographs, sound, voice, web cam, blogs (i.e., web
logs), and wikis (an open source collaborative server technology that enables users to access,
browse, and edit HyperText pages in a real-time context) are all available on today’s machines
and can be used by online communities. As computers morph and migrate into all kinds of places
(e.g., into clothing, phones, upholstery) – a concept known as ‘ubiquitous computing’, online
communities will have to contend with smaller devices, and therefore, WebPages will have to be
adaptable to accommodate various sizes of screen displays and bandwidth.
3. Changes in user populations
Even though the technology that supports online communities has changed tremendously
over the years, the biggest change lies not in technology but in who is using it. Early online
communities for education (Hiltz, 1985), networked communities (Rheingold, 1993; Schuler,
1996) and office communities (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991), were developed for groups of users
with similar goals and experience and who used similar communications software. From the late
1990s, the combination of less expensive computing power, the Web, and several successful
Internet service providers, enticed tens of thousands of people online (Rainie & Packel, 2001).
“The increase in online access by all kinds of Americans highlights the fact that the Internet
population looks more and more like the overall population of the United States” (Rainie &
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
6
Packel, 2001).
According to a 2001 Pew Internet & American Life Project report, 84% of all Internet
users indicated that they contacted an online community and 79% identified at least one group
with which they maintained regular online contact (Rainie & Packel, 2001). Many used the
Internet to extend their contact with churches, schools, local clubs and organizations. Sociologist
Barry Wellman refers to this phenomena as “glocalization”—the ability of the Internet to both
expand user’s social contacts and bind them more closely to the place where they live (Wellman,
2002). The Internet provides virtual ‘third places’ (different from home and work) that allow
people to hang out and engage in activities with others in, for example, hobby groups, gaming
communities, and sports leagues online. Figure 1 shows the percent of Internet users who have
contacted various types of online groups.
50%50%
31%
29%29%
28%28%
22%21%20%
15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Percent of Internet Users
Trade/Professional
Hobby
Fans/sports
Fans/entertainment
Local groups
Health Related
Share beliefs
Political
Religious
Sports Team*
Ethnic/cultural
Types of Online Communities
Figure 1: Percent of Internet Users by Online Groups to Which They Belong
(Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, Jan.-Feb. 2001 (Survey, Internet users, n=1,697. Margin of error is + or – 3%)
The Internet has transformed some work practices; groups of professional scientists,
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
7
engineers, health professionals, and researchers can now join forces informally to share their
expertise, experiences and knowledge to foster new approaches to problems. These communities
of practice (Wenger & Snyder, 2000) are emerging as new organizational forms that promise to
change the way we work, learn, and share resources. The Linux operating system kernel is a
good example of a product developed by a community of practice, whose members are
motivated by shared philosophy (Moon & Sproull, 2000).
Education has also felt the effects of the Internet. Online learning communities have
sprung up in the form of distance education classes, knowledge-building communities, and
technological samba schools - a kind of virtual clubhouses where children can experiment with
technology and learn. Numerous online health communities that provide support and information
for members who are facing health problems have also come into existence. A survey of search
engines shows a staggering number of health related Internet sites, many of which are associated
with online communities. Yahoo alone provides 43 health subcategories linking to 19,000 sites
(Rice, 2001). Unfortunately the Internet also provides an ever growing platform for hate groups
which use it to create a sense of community, disseminate information (e.g. instructions for
building bombs), recruit new members, and sell hate paraphernalia (books, T shirts, posters).
Today’s online community participants come from all walks of life and cultures.
Furthermore, an increasing number of people from across the world are becoming networked;
particularly as small, handheld, relatively inexpensive telephones and other devices come onto
the market. In parts of Africa, for example, many users have gone straight to this technology, by-
passing conventional computers, because it is affordable (Rheingold, 2002).
4. Emergence of research
There is an increasing body of research on online communities coming from a variety of
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
8
disciplines including: communication studies, sociology, psychology, American studies,
information systems, business studies, computing, information science and newly formed
departments of cyber or Internet studies. It is impossible to do justice to the array of research
being produced. Some will be featured in other chapters so we have mentioned a few examples
that relate particularly to our area or interest, which is online community development.
Early seminal research set the scene with anecdotes and comparisons to face-to-face
communities (Rheingold, 1993; Turkle, 1995; Schuler, 1996). Online communities were seen as
exotic and fundamentally different from face-to-face communities. However, emailing, chatting,
working together, and participating in online communities has become a normal part of many
people’s lives (Rainie & Packel, 2001) making strict demarcation between online and offline
activity less meaningful. Having said this, it is important to point out that there are meaningful
differences, such as the lack of non-verbal cues in online textual environments.
Case studies, observation and various forms of Internet ethnography have provided rich
descriptions of life online. For example, Baym (1997) described the activities of a soap opera
community and Markham (1998) discussed real experiences in virtual space.
Questions about who relates to whom and about what has been examined using network
analysis (Wellman, Boase & Chen, 2002) and various forms of data logging have also been used
to track communication activity. Nonnecke and Preece (2000) logged activity in 100 Discussion
Lists (DL) over a three month period and showed that lurking (i.e., not posting) behavior
correlated with type of community, membership size, and message traffic.
Fundamental psychological and communications issues of importance to online
communities’ research are also being investigated. Some examples include development of
friendships (Fagin, 1998; Jensen, Davis & Farnham, 2002), the nature of trust and empathy
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
9
online (Preece, 1999) and online group dynamics (Maloney-Krichmar, 2003).
Lack of social presence in textual online communities has been noted as a problem by
several researchers. While avatars can compensate to some extent, limitations of screen real
estate make it difficult to show more than just a few individuals at any one time. A range of
ingenious visualization tools have been developed to support social presence (Erickson &
Kellogg, 2000; Smith & Fiore, 2001), which may enable participants to develop a better sense of
others. This may help participants to form cooperative relationships and assume responsibility
for their actions (Erickson & Kellogg, 2000).
A number of books have tried to draw together important themes. Wallace (1999)
synthesized work relating to the psychology of the Internet. Edited collections by Kiesler (1997)
and Smith and Kollock (1999) provide overviews of many salient issues, Kim (2000) offers
techniques for creating online communities, and Preece (2000) examines how supporting
sociability and designing for usability can help produce successful online communities.
5. Conclusions
To-date there has been little attempt to evaluate and measure the success of different
types of communities from participants’ and as well as commercial sponsors’ perspectives. A
step towards this is a proposal for an initial set of evaluation heuristics (Preece, 2001), which will
be refined and validated (Abras, et al., 2003). While research and development of high
bandwidth community software infrastructures continues, a second important strand of research,
that is just starting to gain momentum, is investigating lightweight applications that will improve
universal access and will also cater to different linguistic and cultural needs. For example, the
HCI International 2003 Conference has a track entitled ‘design of inclusive groupware systems’.
Hopefully we will see other efforts to reduce the international digital divide.
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
10
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Teachers learn important things together through talking. Conversation based continued professional development (CPD) for teachers has been insufficiently researched. In the context of current policy and practice - that remains top-down and controlling in terms of educators’ autonomy and self-direction - more agile and transformative means of professional learning are key. The research is a case study aiming to investigate the characteristics of the participation of education professionals (teachers, teacher educators, school heads…) from 50 European countries in an online professional learning community (OPLC) developed under the umbrella of Council of Europe’s Pestalozzi Programme (PP). The study is also interested in how online asynchronous conversation can be a sustainable mode of CPD helpful for the creation of democratic spaces for learning. It directs attention to the nature of the conversation, taking place in the online interaction, the details of which turn out to be of crucial importance. The study is based on activities and data, composed of the transcripts of participants postings between 2012 and 2017, and the interactions that are contained in the dialogic space that is the PP platform. Therefore, the design of the study deals with the complexity and scope of the context and data, that brings in the international, intercultural composition of participants who arrive with different histories and perhaps engrained assumptions and norms; the professional development context that is unusual; the online set up that is also particular due to the conversational nature of its activities; and lastly the complexity of the issue of democracy in education which may not fit so easily in the school curricula, or the culture of school, or institution and their education aims. To address this complexity, the framework of ecology was chosen to cater to the many parts of the context and the relationships these entertain to form the environment of the OPLC. The framework of ecology and its analysis may inform on what affordances are observed for an OPLC to reach its full transformative potential for participating educators. It is helpful to consider these and to conceptualize conversation as an ecology of learning that is conducive to engagement in online professional learning and development. Transcripts of asynchronous discussion threads were analyzed, through thematic analysis and statistical treatment, to capture the structure and affordances of conversation-based online professional learning communities that foster the establishment of an ecology of learning that is conducive to the development of democratic practices in educational settings. To answer this overall concern, three main research questions were identified and chosen to form the core of the investigation. The first question concerns the features of the collaboration to identify elements that support – or impede – co-construction of knowledge among participants. The second research question focuses on the discernible factors and conditions that foster participants’ motivation to engage and uses Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a basis to investigate the data. The third research question is centered on participants’ mental models of what constitutes a democratic teaching practice, and how educators’ engagement in the conversation may support transformative action in the classroom. The results highlight enabling behaviors that help regulate pace, cohesion, topical persistence, strong ties, and congeniality in the conversation to enhance the potential for meaning making and co-construction of knowledge. Two moderator-presences, ‘teaching presence ‘and ‘peer presence’, were found, thus the study enhances previous research on online presences (RQ1). Furthermore, eight factors were found to contribute to participants’ motivation to engage and remain active in the conversation, specifically: self-confidence in one’s practice, persistence towards attaining goals, sprightliness, inclusion, ethos, control, accountability, and curiosity. The SDT positing the need for competence, relatedness and autonomy was completed with a fourth need that is curiosity (RQ2). Finally, discursive alignments and tensions were found, that provoke a cognitive dissonance having the effect of helping participants to agree on objectives and seek ways to achieve more democracy in educational environments, which are not fundamentally democratic. As educators develop democratic dimensions, an ‘activist presence’ was found to be a response to these tensions (RQ3). 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ABSTRACT: Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the health related Quality of life in male and female undergraduate students taking online classes from different private institutions. Methodology: It was a cross sectional study involving 211(M=93, F=118) participants selected through simple random sampling technique. RAND health related quality of life (QoL) SF-36 form was used to collect the responses of the students. The questionnaires were filled by students which included the demographics details and their recent QoL. Results: the mean values range of SF-36 domains for male were 36.23-74.21 points while for females was 29.19-65.62. The paired sample t test was applied to observe the difference of effect on quality of life depending upon gender. This showed p>0.005 in all domains of SF-36 except pain, Energy/ Fatigue and General health quality of life. A total of 175 response out of 211 total mentioned that they had better health now as compared to an year ago Conclusion: The results showed that there was a relatively higher SF-36 score in male students thus establishing that the QoL in female students was more effected due to COVID-19 lockdown. The p-value showed that the lockdown greatly impacted the pain, Energy/ Fatigue and General health quality of life domains of SF36 in females (p<0.005) as compared to males. There was a general decreased QoL as none of the domain’s mean score reached 80. KEYWORDS: COVID-19, Lockdown, Online Classes, Quality of Life
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W artykule dokonano identyfikacji i charakterystyki form promocji literatury, funkcjonujących obecnie w środowisku sieciowym, rozpoznano i omówiono nowe typy promocji książki i literatury, które powstały dzięki Internetowi. Dokonano typologizacji obserwowanych w Sieci form promowania książek literatury. Przedstawiono wnioski dotyczące wpływu Internetu na zmianę sposobów promocji książki i literatury z perspektywy nowych mediów.
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The overall aim is to explore the role of business support programmes in aiding the development of agri-food firms’ social capital and to analyse the mediating role that this social capital may have on agri-food firms' innovation capabilities. This paper is part of a wider PhD, and this specific paper aims to present a critical review of current literature relating to social capital, business support programmes and innovation capabilities within the context of the rural agri-food sector. As a result, a conceptual framework is developed and presented, and research questions are posed which will help future research to explore how business support programmes can more effectively aid the development of agri-food owners’ social capital and innovation capabilities. The term social capital has been around for over 20 years (King et al., 2019) and is often referred to as a ‘missing link’ between other forms of capital such as human or economic capital (Tura and Harmaakorpi, 2005; Fine, 2001). From the literature, there is no one clear, undisputed meaning of social capital, where most definitions are conceptual and complex in nature (Lang and Fink, 2019) and challenges exist where authors have debated the key defining elements of what constitutes social capital (Bhandari and Yasunobu, 2009; Weaver, 2018). Definitions vary depending on the discipline and conceptual nature of social capital in practice. The concept is used at the micro and macro level, spanning disciplines such as sociology, economics, management, political science, and health science (Akcomak, 2011). The most common words used in definitions are ‘network’, ‘relationships’, ‘trust’, ‘norms’ and ‘society’. The most popular authors by a number of citations are Putnam (1993), Bourdieu (1984), Lin (1999), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and Coleman (1988) definitions focus on relations between actors (Teilmann, 2012), the structure of relations and types of linkages (Clark, 2010). Furthermore, other authors identify different types and characteristics of social capital. Putnam’s (1995, pp.67) definition is widely used within literature where social capital is defined as: “Features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam, 1995, pp.67). This definition is deemed to be fitting for this research, where business support programmes aim to work collaboratively with agri-food business owners in order to enhance their capabilities for creating mutual benefit (Levdokymov et al., 2020). Various types of social capital exist, these will now be discussed. Types of social capital are structural, cognitive, and relational with forms of social capital being bonding, linking, and bridging. From the literature, seven types of social capital can be identified. These types are categorised as structural, cognitive, horizontal, vertical, symbolic, bonding, bridging, and linking (Franklin, 2004; Lang and Fink, 2018; Kim and Shim, 2018). Bonding social capital is exclusive, meaning it has limited access and is difficult for outsiders to adopt but excellent for mobilising solidarity and reciprocity (Clark, 2010). The concept describes connections within a group or community characterised by similar demographic characteristics, for example, family members or close friends (Claridge, 2018). Bridging social capital refers to the links between dense networks/actors with weaker ties, formalised collaboration, and thinner trust (Szreter and Woolcock, 2004). Bridging is characterised by larger and looser networks, weaker ties and thinner trust resulting in more formalised collaboration (Cofre-Bravo, Klerkx and Engler, 2019). Linking social capital refers to relationships among people or networks with different demographics and social hierarchies (Healy and Cote, 2001). Linking social capital develops over time, including shared cultural values and long-term trustworthy relationships (Schneider, 2009). Linking social capital can be horizontal or vertical, referring to relationships between individuals and groups where power, social status or wealth differs amongst actors (Woolcock, 2001). Overall, the three different forms of social capital provide different exchanges (Cofre-Bravo, Klerkx and Engler, 2019). Actors with greater bridging and linking social capital are more likely to adapt to cutting edge technologies and innovative techniques due to formal research-based knowledge exchange (Ruiu et al., 2017; Saint Ville et al., 2016; Yu et al., 2013). Whereas actors with bonding social capital will likely co-operate, connect, and be influenced by friends and peers within their community, favouring informal and experiential experience (Fisher, 2013: Hoang et al., 2016). The distinction between structural, cognitive, and relational social capital is explained by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and is thought of as a framework for understanding social capital. Structural social capital describes the presence of a network and access to people within the network (Andrews, 2010). Cognitive refers to a shared understanding of interpretations whereas relational describes feelings of trust amongst actors in a social context (Akram et al., 2016). These dimensions allow scholars to understand social capital by the level of interconnectedness and quality of connections. The dimensions build on the notion of structural and relational embeddedness, constituting aspects of social structure and the nature of social relationships, specifically norms which lead to various outcomes (Granovetter, 1992). Outcomes and influences of social capital include innovation and innovative capability, increased information sharing through networks, the alteration of risk tolerance, economic efficiency, building reputation, regional economic benefits and, improved trust and innovation capability (Hasan et al., 2020). Innovation capability is described as an individual’s potential to innovate (Saunila and Ukko, 2012). The ability to innovate is critical to the growth, success and competitive advantage of firms and individuals (Muller et al., 2005; Carayannis and Provance, 2008; Ukko et al., 2015). Strategy and innovation activities create a shared vision of innovation, essential in creating innovation capabilities (Skarzynski and Gibson, 2008). These capabilities include transforming ideas into products, processes or systems which will ultimately provide benefits (Lerro et al., 2009). Innovation capabilities have been defined as “the ability to mould and manage multiple capabilities'” (Lawson and Samson, 2001, pp. 380). Innovation capabilities are placed into various categories by different researchers. For example, Terziovski (2007) suggest categories include knowledge transfer and collaboration whereas Hertog et al. (2010) suggest capabilities include unbundling, co-producing, scaling, learning, and adapting. Agricultural support programmes (specifically the AKIS innovation ecosystem) are sets of organisations (e.g., government organisations, research organisations, private training organisations) that help enable farmers to develop the skills to work collaboratively on co- produce farm-level solutions by producing knowledge and enhancing skills (Labarthe et al., 2013). Each programme has different programme management, aims and content, for example, ‘Inishowen Uplands’ programme aims to increase sustainable farming whereas ‘Accelerating the pathway’ aims to reduce carbon footprints. AKIS represents the innovation ecosystem within agriculture, used to promote the knowledge exchange system within the agricultural community by developing operational groups which allow people and organisations to interact with specific countries or regions (Europa.eu, 2020). Based on a review of relevant literature surrounding social capital and business support programmes, an initial conceptual framework has been developed. This framework forms the basis of empirical research and leads to possible research questions around the presence of social capital in advisor-client relationships. The knowledge transfer process begins with rural advisory programmes, advisors, and farmers/clients. Rural advisory services vary depending on the management of each project, objectives and content provided (Lamm et al., 2017). Advisors’ roles, characteristics and skills vary within each support programme. Client/farmers can be categorised as Pro-activists, do-it-yourselfers, wait-and-see-ers and reclusive traditionalists ``Klerkx et al (2017). These actors then create the formation of social capital through various forms (macro, meso, micro) and on different scales (bonds, bridges, linkages) which work collectively with types of social capital (structural, cognitive, relational). Each type of social capital has key aspects, for example, structural social capital has aspects of network ties, structural holes and tie strength, these factors vary on the level of social capital achieved (Andrews, 2010). Similarly, antecedents and challenges are factors that work collectively with social capital, both in its favour and against it (Payne et al., 2010). Once knowledge has been transferred amongst actors via social capital, innovation capability occurs, this can happen in various ways through product, service, process, market, and management practices (Lin et al., 2010; Rajapathirana and Hui, 2018). Programmes, advisors, clients/farmers, social capital, antecedents, challenges, and innovative capability are situated within the overall AKIS innovation ecosystem. Overarching possible outcomes of this process are economic growth, sustainable development, and regional development (Durlauf and Fafchamps, 2004; Callois and Aubert, 2005; Markowska-Przybyla and Ramsey, 2018). Future empirical data collection will take an exploratory inductive approach due to a lack of prior research into the role of farmers and advisors in developing social capital and knowledge exchange (Kepes and McDaniel, 2013). This research will select 4-6 heterogenous support network programmes across the Island of Ireland. Heterogenous interviews will take place with programme participants (target of 2-3 programmes in ROI and NI), as well as documentary analysis and observations. The first step in the research protocol will be a pilot study. This is important to undertake first as it will improve the quality of the main study and ensure interview questions collect the required data needed for the study (Anesthesiol, 2017). Limited research to date has explored how business support programmes can aid the development of social capital and consequently lead to increased innovation capacity (Murphy et al., 2015). The advisor-client relationship and strength of social capital amongst these relationships have also been underexplored, whereas Wiseman et al. (2019) identify that it should be further developed in primary research. From prior studies, it is evident that farmers are willing to invest in social capital, however, it is unclear how they balance between bonding, linking, and bridging social capital (Gomez-Limon et al., 2014). Furthermore, there are gaps in literature around how research, advice and practice create a two-way flow of information to foster innovation (EIP-Agri, 2020). This research will help contribute to these gaps by identifying how social capital is developed within business support programmes to foster client innovation capability. The factors that facilitate or constrain the development of social capital for innovation capability development within business support programmes will be identified from the literature and future research questions are posed. This research will be of benefit to rural agri-food firms and rural development agencies by unravelling the factors which can enhance farmers' and producers’ social capital, which is a core conduit for innovation capability development.
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