Diagnosing institutional logics in partnerships and how they evolve through institutional bricolage: Insights from soybean and cassava value chains in Ghana

Figures & data

Fig. 1 2SCALE soybean partnership actors and their linkages.

Fig. 2 DONATA cassava partnership actors and their linkages.

Table 1 Project actors sampled.

PROJECT ACTORS	ROLE (S)	NUMBER OF ACTORS INTERVIEWED
2SCALE
Consortium − IFDC, ICRA, BoPInc	Initiating and formulating PPP and development intervention	8
Local NGOs	Implementers of formulated development intervention	6
Farmer-based organisation	Involved in agribusiness clusters as beneficiaries	17
DONATA
Consortium − AfDB, FARA/CORAF	Initiating and formulating IP development intervention	3
Project leaders	Leading project team in Ghana to mobilise and support local implementer of envisioned IP intervention approach	2
MoFA-DAO	Implementers of IP intervention approach	4
Farmers	IP members as beneficiaries of new development intervention	13

Table 2 Multiple core institutional logics present in the food sector in Ghana and underlying elements (values/beliefs/assumptions/rules/material practices).

State bureaucracy logic (adhered to by government) • Values: National welfare, regulation and public service goal orientation, partial delegation of authority to regional level • Beliefs/Assumptions: State provides regulatory framework and critical support for citizens/companies in line with policy, policymaking and implementation mandate • Rules/Material practices: National and partial regional policy formulation, multilevel policy implementation through coordinated planning, provision of infrastructure and basic services, rules setting, monitoring and sanctions

Market logic (adhered to by donors, private actors, and increasingly NGOs and farmers) • Values: Free, open markets and individual/company profit-oriented goals • Beliefs/Assumptions: Utilitarianism, individual profit orientation, pursuance of high rates of return ensures efficiency, competition and free choice, ensuring highest utility for the greatest number • Rules/Material practices: Aim at high productivity and efficiency, market competition, specialisation, intensification for production optimisation

Grassroots empowerment logic (adhered to by NGOs, researchers) • Values: Social justice and equity, empowerment of marginalised to tackle marginalisation and poverty via practical action and strategic advocacy • Beliefs/Assumptions: Empowerment of marginalised through awareness creation, capacity building and advocacy enables them to acquire a fair share of welfare • Rules/Material practices: Awareness raising and knowledge sharing of grassroots of their own situation and how to join forces to improve their material and social situation, social movement for change

Multi-stakeholder learning (adhered to by researchers, NGOs) • Values: Integrating expert-based and locally specific experiential knowledge to create context-specific solutions; multi-stakeholder learning and action • Beliefs: Integration of science-based general knowledge and context-specific knowledge provide a rich picture and more appropriate solutions; by engaging the stakeholders, knowledge sharing and learning will build the stakeholders’ capacity and willingness to create the change to which they aspire, or with which others at least can live • Rules/Material practices: Experts, government officers and direct stakeholders are invited to share knowledge about the issue at stake; dialogue for mutual understanding and, if possible, to obtain consensus about the development action to undertake

Professionalisation logics (adhered to by donors, researchers, government, NGOs) • Values: Rationalisation, aiming to apply professional standard of practice • Beliefs/Assumptions: Strict adherence to expert-generated quality practice will lead to good performance and professional outputs • Rules/Material practices: Ethos to adhere to research and expert-generated professional practice; professional organisations ensure the teaching, application and promotion of defined quality practices

Social protection logics (adhered to by farmers, NGOs, researchers (and state bureaucracy)) • Values: Ethical responsibility to ensure poverty alleviation and decent living; care and solidarity • Beliefs/Assumptions: Everybody has the duty to contribute to food security and a decent living for others • Rules/Material practices: Actors’ first priority is to ensure food security and basic necessities before engaging in risky profit seeking and luxury activities; risk aversion/reduction through livelihood diversification, migration and remittances; high norm of solidarity in the case of food shortage, illness and life events

Table 3 Institutional logics of IFDC, ICRA and joint enactment of 1000s+ project.

IFDC	ICRA	Enacted 1000s+ project
Value prioritisation
• Professionalisation of agriculture • Competitive, profit-oriented smallholders • Social protection (poverty alleviation)	• Multi-stakeholder learning • Grassroots empowerment through learning • Food security for families • Profit orientation for farmers	• Professional training, multi-stakeholder learning and grassroots empowerment • Market profit orientation
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Economic growth requires agricultural intensification with increased use of external inputs, in combination with locally available soil amendments, i.e. integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) • Strengthening value chain market relations is necessary for development • Grassroots capacity building	• Social learning by grassroots and other key actors for innovation	• Smallholder development can be attained through efficient market operations • Smallholders and local entrepreneurs are not beneficiaries but actors • Economic growth, self-sufficiency and sustainable resource use by agribusiness requires interactive learning and empowerment processes

Initiation of 2SCALE: The fit of institutional logics and subsequent bricolage amongst consortium partners in 2SCALE.

Fig. 3 Timeline of partnership history.

Table 4 Institutional logics of the Dutch Donor, BoPInc and the proposed 2SCALE project.

Dutch Donor (DGIS)	Bottom of Pyramid Innovation Centre (BoPInc)	Proposed 2SCALE project
Value prioritisation
• Free open markets with profit-seeking companies, ‘healthy self-interest’ • Professionalisation of businesses	• Market logic: serving BoP markets with efficient, profit-seeking BoP producers • Social protection: ensuring wellbeing of BoP consumers • State-of-the-art expert advice for professional BoP business practice	• Free market logic, clustering to enhance smallholders’ competitiveness; BoP niche development • Professionalisation of smallholder agricultural and business management • Grassroots empowerment of farmer organisations or cooperatives
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Stimulating dynamic actors to create or improve businesses and market relations is the most sustainable development approach • Dutch companies should be involved in development to ensure sustainable sourcing and markets • Hybrid collaboration is the way to create enabling conditions for private actors • Public–private partnership approach ensures joint commitment, clear responsibilities and accountability ‘to go to scale’	• BoP producers are capable and can profit from serving BoP markets • Expert guidance is needed to provide BoP solutions for consumers and producers • Provision of incubator space gives BoP producers viable business start	• Agribusiness cluster contracts create business relations for smallholders (access to markets, finance and other inputs) • Professional business management through training farmers’ leaders • Farmer capacity building to ensure fair margin and organisation of smallholders • Coaching of farmer leaders and cooperatives to enhance capacity building

Formulation stage of 2SCALE: The fit of institutional logics and the bricolage of the implementing partners contracted by the consortium.

Table 5 Institutional logics of practice enacted by local NGOs, EPDRA and SEND. For the different types of farmers and members of the soybeans cooperatives, the 2SCALE cluster approach and FBO support primarily meant more access to credit, agricultural advice, tractor services and market opportunities.

Local NGOs	Local NGOs in 2SCALE project
Value prioritisation
• Grassroots empowerment • Social protection • Agricultural professionalisation • Free market and profit seeking to improve livelihood of the poor	• Free market and profit seeking to improve livelihood of the poor • Professionalisation of agriculture and business • Social protection
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Everybody has responsibility to care for the socially excluded and marginalised such as women, persons with disability, smallholders and the poor • Empowerment of smallholders through training and coaching in cooperative organisation • Professional training of farmers	• Cooperative capacity building to ensure fair margin and organisation of smallholders • Professional business management through training in business management • Coaching of cooperatives to ensure financially viable practice, while allowing flexibility to cope with risk and necessities for the poor

Implementation stage of 2SCALE: The fit of institutional logics and the bricolage by beneficiaries (farmers).

For the different types of farmers and members of the soybeans cooperatives, the 2SCALE cluster approach and FBO support primarily meant more access to credit, agricultural advice, tractor services and market opportunities.

Table 6 Institutional logics of practice enacted by farmer cooperative members.

Commercial farmer member	Semi-subsistence farmer member
Has sufficient resources and invests large proportions of land (above 5 acres), labour and capital in soybean production to gain high cash income	Cultivates mainly food crops, with about 1 acre of soybean as commercial crop; unlike yam, men as well as women are allowed to cultivate soybeans
Value prioritisation
• Free market for profit seeking • Professionalisation of agriculture and business • Social protection	• Social protection of family members • Professionalisation of agriculture and business • Free market profit seeking
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Investment of land, labour and inputs in agricultural production is lucrative as it provides profitable cash revenues • Expert-based agricultural, business and market advice enables increased soybean production • Cooperative action provides opportunities to improve access to inputs, expert knowledge and tractor services, plus good marketing opportunities for large quantities of soybeans	• Agricultural production should satisfy food needs; soybean production and cooperative membership enable farmers to generate some cash for school fees and other necessary food expenses • In soybean production, farmers apply a market rationality: investing labour and cash to attain good production and reasonable cash revenue • Cooperative organisation is a means to gain access to credit, input and soybean marketing services
Material practices in 2SCALE
• Cooperative membership provides access to expert knowledge, group credit, timely delivery of quality inputs, tractors services, aggregation and storage facilities to capture profitable soybean market opportunities • Farmer leaders of the secondary cooperative at cluster level are trained and use ESOKO and M-Farm platform price information to network and negotiate remunerative soybean prices for cooperative members	• Soybean revenues help to repay debts and pay large sums of money for school fees and other essential investments; soybean is a durable crop and can be saved to sell in times of need • Credit can be used for soybean production or other necessary livelihood activities • Some additional income can be earned by women engaging in soybean processing at the cooperative, initiated with BoPInc support

Table 7 Institutional logics of practice enacted in the MoFA DAO and DONATA cassava project.

MoFA DAO	DONATA project
Prioritisation core values
• State logic to provide public service • Professionalisation and rationalisation of agriculture • Social protection and food security • Free market	• Professionalisation, rationalisation of agriculture • Grassroots empowerment in agriculture and food processing • Social protection and food security • Free market
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Government officers have a public service goal: ensuring coordination and public services in line with policy and their mandate and resources • Professionalisation, rationalisation of agriculture is done through advice of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and provision of state support, where applicable	• Widespread adoption of expert-developed technologies must be catalysed to enhance agricultural productivity, food security and poverty reduction • Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) is about context-embedded multi-stakeholder knowledge sharing, trial and learning • Innovation platforms take an empowerment perspective
Material practices in DONATA
• Linking up with development projects ensures expert-based agriculture training and extension services • Coordinated provision of agricultural extension advisory services, and the transfer of expert-developed technologies from scientists to farmers via demonstration plots, farmer group discussions and field visits, in line with mandate and resources provided	• Grassroots empowerment requires iterative knowledge sharing and learning between research, farmers, local authorities and (local) value chain actors, and collective action to tackle emerging problems • Participatory appraisal of agricultural constraints. Then improved varieties are made available. Agricultural expert knowledge is provided via demonstration plots, skills training, field visits and peer learning. When agricultural productivity improves, related processing, transport and market issues will be discussed by the innovation platforms in line with expressed needs

Formulation of DONATA: The fit of institutional logics and the bricolage by the implementing actor.

Table 8 Institutional logics of the practice enacted by farmer-processor IP members.

IP members
Prioritisation core values
• Social protection of food security • Free market and profit seeking • Grassroots empowerment through learning and collective action
Normative assumptions about behaviour
• Diversified livelihood strategy to cope with risks; regular cash earnings for subsistence and capital for bigger investments • Family and migrant community relations and solidarity are important for social security and wellbeing • From earlier projects, farmers are used to sharing experiences in peer-to-peer learning; experiential and expert-based agricultural and business knowledge is appreciated, but adoption is selective, when fit for context • Group formation is seen as an effective way of accessing project interventions
Material practices
• Smallholders have a diversified livelihood strategy to minimise risks and have regular cash earnings plus capital for bigger investments • Smallholders try to acquire land for one- to two-year crop cycle to ensure household food security and some cash income • Smallholder farmers cultivate cassava, as intercrop both for food security and sales; fresh cassava is appreciated for local food; cassava can be stored for two to three months on the land before consumption, but if processed as gari or chips the product becomes durable; processing generates income • IP membership is open to any farmer willing to apply the rules; democratic sharing of views and voting for election of group leaders and other collective issues • Selective use of IP-provided agricultural advice and support, in line with farmers’ own livelihood strategy.

Table 9 Blended logics of actors and negotiated re-prioritisation and bricolage of logics in the 2SCALE PPP within the soybean value chain.

Enacted prioritisation of logics by actor	Evolution of prioritisation of logics in formulation and enacted of partnership	Bricolage in formulation or enactment of project rationality
IFDC	1000s+ project priorities	1000s+ project rationality
Professional	Professional/Grassroots empowerment	• Smallholder development can be attained through efficient market operations • Smallholders farmers and entrepreneurs are actors not beneficiaries • Sustainable economic development requires interactive learning and empowerment processes
Free market	Free market
Social protection
ICRA
Multi-stakeholder learning
Social. Protection
Free market
Dutch Embassy	2SCALE proposal (1)	Alteration 1000+ to 2SCALE proposal
Free market	Free market	• Cluster market contract becomes end rather than means of development • Interactive learning and empowerment becomes training for grassroots empowerment: Training and coaching of professional skills for business management, farmer organisation, and market negotiation.al skills
Professional	Professionalization
Grassroots empowerment
BoPInc	2SCALE proposal (2)	Aggregation in 2SCALE proposal
Free markets	Free market	• Adding expert-led identification and creation BoP market niches, via training and contracts.
Social Protection	Professionalization
Professional	Grassroots empowerment
Social protection
Local NGOs	2SCALE Enacted	Alteration in 2SCALE enactment
Professional & Empowerment	Free market	• Coaching of cooperatives to ensure financial sustainability, while allowing flexibility credit allocation to enable farmers to cope with risk and other investment priorities.
Social Protection	Professionalization
Free market	Grassroots empowerment
Social Protection

Legend: Initiation phase: light grey; formulation phase: darker grey; implementation phase: dark grey.

Table 10 Blended logics of actors and negotiated re-prioritisation & bricolage of logics in the DONATA IP within cassava value chain.

Enacted prioritisation of logics by actor	Evolution of prioritisation of logics in formulation and enacted of partnership	Bricolage in formulation or enactment of project rationality
Researchers CORAF/CSIR	DONATA proposed	• Researcher and facilitator IP will support the grassroots empowerment through facilitation knowledge sharing and provision training, according to identified needs. • Participatory appraisal of agricultural constraints is leading in selection of hybrid varieties and agricultural practices to be disseminated. • Prime concern for food security challenge • When agricultural productivity improves, related processing, transport and market issues will be discussed by the innovation platforms to formulate and implement solutions.
Professionalisation./Grassroots empowerment	Multi-stakeholder learning/ grassroots empowerment
Social protection	Professionalization
Free market	Social protection
Free market
DAO (enacted)	DONATA Enacted	No change of DONATA proposal in enactment. DAO aggregates all proposed activities in its practice as long as resources suffice.
State logic	Professionalization
Professionalisation	Grassroots empowerment
Social protection	Social protection
Free market	Free market

Legend: Initiation & formulation phase: light grey; implementation phase: dark grey.