Market Intelligence provision to Small Agri-food Businesses: A Social Capital Perspective, Christina O'Connor & Grace Carson

The 2022 KBS Spring Series continues Tuesday 1st March at 1:00 pm with a seminar by Christina O'Connor & Grace Carson.  The seminar format is informal and interactive facilitating discussion and Q&A this will take place on MS Teams Click here to join the meeting   The title and abstract are below.

Market Intelligence provision to Small Agri-food Businesses: A Social Capital Perspective

The provision of MI to SMEs, by publicly funded support agencies, is forward thinking and can provide a stimulus for the enhancement of a firm’s marketing capabilities (Carson, 2021). From a social capital perspective, the interaction between organisations is highly valuable in the coordination of networks and serves as a bonding mechanism that facilitates the pursuit of collective goals among actors (Adler and Kwon, 2002). Kelly et al. (2021) attests that social capital can increase the knowledge capacity of SMEs through support programmes that provide access to, and training on, new technologies. However, Hughes et al. (2013) finds that the nature and quality of the relationship between organisations, and thus, the level of social capital emerging from relationships, may vary significantly across dyads such as the smaller agri-based firm. Through a longitudinal case-based study this research seeks to explore how supporting agencies deliver MI to SMEs, owner managers response to this delivery and how it may be improved. Early findings suggest that MI cannot be bought and supplied unaided by support networks, with the expectation that the ‘silver bullet’ reputation of big-data will entice business owners (Le-Brun, 2021). 

All are warmly welcome, further information on the KBS Spring series can be found at https://www.ul.ie/business/research/research-events