A conceptual framework to evaluate the
impact of innovation platforms on agrifood
value chains development
Jean-Joseph CADILHON
138th seminar of the European Association of Agricultural Economists
on pro-poor innovations in food supply chains
Ghent, Belgium, 11-13 September 2013

Outline of presentation
• Definition of innovation platform
• Objectives of innovation platforms
• Research questions
• Literature review to construct the conceptual framework
• Presentation of the conceptual framework
• Monitoring and evaluation setup
• Data collection and analysis tools
• Discussion

Definition of innovation platform
Innovation platforms are equitable, dynamic spaces
designed to bring heterogeneous actors together to
exchange knowledge and take action to solve a
common problem
(ILRI 2012)

Objectives of innovation platforms
According to the concerted decision of members:
• Boosting productivity
• Managing natural resources
• Improving value chains
• Adapting to climate change
(Homann-Kee Tui et al, In press)

Objectives of innovation platforms:
improving value chains
• Advocacy of industry interests in policy making circles
• Collective promotion of products
• Concerted setup of quality standards
• Research and development, technology uptake
• Capacity building
• Market regulation activities
• Market information and statistics
• Arbitration of chain conflicts
• Limiting transaction costs (collective negociation, price setting)
• Setting production targets and allocating production share among
members for specific quality products
(Cadilhon & Dedieu 2011)

Research questions
1. Can the impact of innovation platforms on the
objectives set by their members be measured?
2. Does performance vary according to the setup
of the platform?

Literature review to construct the
conceptual framework
Based on three socio-economic theories:
• Structure – Conduct – Performance
• New Institutional Economics
• Supply Chain Management and Marketing

An elegant economic framework:
Structure – Conduct – Performance
• Developed by Bain in an industrial setting (1959)
• Posits link between market structure
• Number of players
• Market share of players
• And the performance of the market
• Price correlations between different physical markets
• Prive variations
• Equity of margin distribution among market players
• The conduct of the players
in the market
• Competition
• Collusion
• Price fixing
• Raising barriers to entry

Keep the elegant logic
Address the flaws of the SCP framework
• Utilized in developing country settings to make
propositions for new market infrastructure, with mixed
results
• The model benchmark for the best market conditions is
the pure and perfectly competitive market, virtually
inexistent in real markets with real people
• SCP completely negates larger environmental influences
on the marketing system
• Relies on price data as primary indicator of market
performance, always difficult to collect reliably

Inputs from New institutional economics
This framework fully recognizes the uncertainty that
is endemic in the food industry:
• Technical and economic characteristics of the product
• Seasonality of production
• Weather instability
• Unstable food markets
(Hobbs 1996, Valceschini 2002)

Inputs from New institutional economics
• NIE posits that market stakeholders will create a specific
institutional background (laws, norms of behaviour) and
organizational setting (associations, cooperatives,
contracts, firms) to deal with this uncertain market
environment
• It ponders the optimal market institution to reduce
transaction costs incurred to secure a deal and the
sharing of the quasi-rent (expected return and value
addition) between buyer and seller
(Williamson 1991)

Theoretical inputs from supply chain
management and marketing research
• Captures better the continuum of possible marketing
relationships that NIE only refers to as ‘hybrid forms’
between spot transactions and firm integration
• More approachable vocabulary for non-economists
interested in using marketing concepts
• Re-socializes research on market relations
• Provides a range of tested performance measurement
metrics
(Webster 1992, Fearne 2000, Duteurtre 2003)

Marketing orientation
A marketing orientation pushes firms to be focused
throughout their activity:
• Implementing market analysis to discover customer
needs
• Cooperating with chain partners to react to these results
• Embedding the marketing concept in all departments of
the firm
(Noble et al 2002)

Elements of supply chain management
with positive impact on firm performance
• Information sharing
• Communication
• Cooperation, coordination and joint planning
• Trust, based on:
• Credibility of actions and promises
• Process, individual characteristics and institutions
• Social capital
(Anderson & Narus 1984, 1990, Kumar 1996, Batt 2003)

Transposing elements of market and firm
organization to innovation platforms
Can the elements characterizing markets, value
chains and firms be transposed to a non-market
institution like an innovation platform?

The conceptual framework for monitoring
and evaluation of innovation platforms

Monitoring and evaluation setup
• Based on questionnaires of facilitators or managers of
innovation platforms and their members
• Same questionnaires administered at start of activity,
regularly during the activity, and at the end of an activity
capture evolutions in the platform’s ‘structure’,
‘conduct’ and ‘performance’
• Statistical tools enable to demonstrate potentially
significant relationships between S, C and P over time
Possible to attribute the relative share of the structure
and ways of functioning of an innovation platform on its
development outcomes

Data collection tools
Mixed quantitative and qualitative methods
• In-depth interview with platform facilitator or
manager
• In-depth interview with prominent platform members
(farmer leader, researcher, government official, etc.)
• Focus group discussions with platform members
• Observing innovation platform meetings
• Individual questionnaire of platform members

Data collection tools
Individual questionnaires of platform members:
• Closed questions to identify individual ‘structure’
• 5-rank Likert scale agreement to statements to
quantify levels of platform ‘conduct’ and
‘performance’
• Statements for Likert-scale ranking derived from
literature review and preliminary results from focus
group discussions

Data analysis tools
• Descriptive statistics and qualitative data characterize
platform structure and conduct
• Reduce number of conduct and performance variables
through factor analysis
• Use results of factor analysis for regression analyses to
test relationships between structure, conduct and
performance
• Give names to factors and explain results of regressions
with qualitative data

Discussion
• Preliminary results validate the conceptual framework:
• Burkina Faso
• Ghana
• Some stakeholders are challenged by Likert scales
• Village platforms are too small to gather enough data
• More iterations needed to capture differences in
platform structures
• Short lifespan of platform projects challenge impact
assessment objective of the framework
• Would performance influence conduct and structure?

Way forward and development
implications
1. Conceptual framework to be field-tested and
strengthened with data from other sites
2. Useful as monitoring & evaluation tool for
projects using innovation platforms

This work is financed by the CGIAR Research Program on
POLICIES, INSTITUTIONS AND MARKETS
The validation fieldwork was implemented in a partnership
with SNV, FNGN, CSRI-ARI and IWMI through the Volta 2
project
Acknowledgements

The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is given to ILRI.
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