Workshops

Abstract

New forms of cooperation have won importance for innovation in sustainable land management during the last decades. The workshop wants to reflect the potentials and challenges of cooperation for sustainable land use relating to different strands of literature.

Description

Approaches of regional economy, rural sociology and industrial sociology as well as of innovation management stress the need for cooperation between different partners to generate innovations and position them successfully on the market. The workshop wants to reflect theoretical approaches and empirical findings on innovation management and entrepreneurial cooperation from different fields of research with regard to sustainable land management innovations. The workshop will discuss the following arguments:

• Innovation for sustainable land management requires the integration of heterogeneous knowledge a) along the value added chain and of stakeholders from civil society and b) to be able to consider the different sustainability perspectives (ecological, economic, social). This is a prerequisite to generate specific sustainability qualities based on systemic innovations. These may be characterised as a bundle of products and services which can be traded on the market as well as of public goods like environmental benefits and biodiversity. The involved partners acknowledge these societal benefits.
• Such sustainability innovations are confronted with competitive disadvantages in comparison to ways of production that externalize costs. The exchange in corporate innovation networks may compensate such disadvantages because cooperation is supposed to allow an efficient use of resources by each partner (focus on core competences), to facilitate risk sharing and to get access to new groups of consumers.
• Cooperation for sustainability innovations is confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, building social capital (trust) and developing comprehensive solutions for sustainable land management takes time. On the other hand, cooperation is supposed to foster rapid innovation cycles for economic purposes in order to compete in a dynamic competition. How can cooperative innovation networks cope with this dilemma?
• The management of such cooperation is complex because a) not only the involved actors but society in general benefits from its additional value and b) it is difficult to build trust and common values in heterogeneous networks.

There is some empirical evidence that the relevance of cooperation for sustainable land use innovation is increasing during the last decade. Organisational forms like community supported agriculture, citizens’ shareholder corporations, crowd funding, association of farmers, domestic fair trade initiatives show the broad variety of actors that get involved and the different purposes linked to cooperation in this field. However, many initiatives also do not succeed in establishing themselves on the market for a longer time.

Papers for the workshop are asked to reflect the benefits and risks of cooperation for sustainable land use innovation based on empirical data/ case studies or theoretical approaches. Guiding questions are:

• Which forms of cooperation can be differentiated (heterogeneity of actors and fields of activities) and how are they linked to certain types of land use innovations?
• How is it assured that innovation processes in land use contribute towards sustainability?
• How are risks and benefits distributed in different forms of cooperation of sustainable land use? Is this distribution formalized or managed in informal ways?
• Which role do trust and personal relations play in cooperation for sustainable land use innovation?
• How can innovation networks be managed and which learning processes are taking place?

Workshop Processes

Based on the accepted papers we will formulate 2-4 hypotheses about the role cooperation may play for sustainability innovations in sustainable land management. Short oral presentations (10 min.) are foreseen which should address at least one of the hypotheses and joint discussion of the presented arguments with reference to theoretical approaches in the end.

Papers

1.8 Cooperation management as a distinct function in innovation processes for alternative food production and consumption – potentials and limitations

1.8 Collaboration for a more sustainable agriculture – when does it work?

1.8 Elaborating hypotheses on motivations for participation in cooperation initiatives for sustainable farming.

1.8 Cooperation between farmers in feed production and use of manure