Dynamics of Social Interaction in Technology Adoption: Social Capital versus Social Learning

Invited Speaker: Dr Haluk Gedikoglu, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics, Konya Food & Agriculture University The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of social interaction on adoption of new technologies to promote sustainable use of soil and water resources. We specifically aim to understand through which mechanism, social capital versus social learning, the social interaction is influencing the adoption of new technologies. We analyze the influence of social learning both in different social settings and various technological specifications. We specifically analyze it when there are social and moral norms and when the technology has location specific risk and uncertainties. To be able to evaluate the influence social learning in different social settings, we used treatment effects framework and a hypothetical field experiment results that measured the existence of social and moral norms. Our results indicate both social capital and learning from neighbors can positively influence adoption of new technologies. However, when the technology has location based risk and uncertainties (e.g. drip irrigation), there can be strategic delays and the influence of social learning could be low. In those cases the influence of social capital can be larger. Hence, in these situations social capital can be used by policy makers more effectively to promote use of soil and water conservation practices. The slide deck for this presentation can be downloaded from the following link https://www.intsocialcapital.org/social-capital_gedikoglu_parcell_8-27-2025/ About the presenter: Dr. Haluk Gedikoglu is currently serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Division of Applied Social Sciences and the University of Missouri. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in agricultural economics from University of Missouri and his M.Sc. degree in economics from Iowa State University and his other M.Sc. degree in international agricultural sciences from Humboldt University of Berlin. Dr. Gedikoglu attended to Ankara University for his B.Sc. degree in agricultural economics. Prior to joining to Konya Food & Agriculture University, Dr. Gedikoglu served as a faculty at Lincoln University of Missouri and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He is currently doing research on identifying the impact of social capital on farmers’ decision to use sustainable agricultural practices, as previous research showed that the standard framework for technology adoption can’t fully explain the farmers’ decision to use conservation practices. Dr. Gedikoglu is also conducting research on consumers’ willingness-to-pay for new food products and labels. Dr. Gedikoglu served as the principal investigator on USDA-AFRI-Bioenergy, USDA-Capacity Building Grants Program, and TUBITAK (Scientific Research Counsel of Turkey) projects. The webinar was on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by the International Social Capital Association https://www.intsocialcapital.org/