Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how individual innovativeness and social factors shape consumers’ purchase decisions of organic products.Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on an online survey of 988 Canadian participants. Structural equation modelling was used to test the relationships between social identity, social influence, perceived value and purchase intention within a multi-group framework to show the moderating effect of consumer innovativeness.Findings: The results show that the two social dimensions – social identity and social influence – influence purchase intention and the perceived value of organic products partially mediates these relationships. Further, the personal characteristic, “consumer innovativeness”, moderates these relationships.Research limitations/implications: Although the sample consists of a higher proportion of younger participants, the results are consistent with theoretical arguments and empirical evidence, which underscores the importance of generational differences in organic product purchases.Practical implications: Managers need to develop a more nuanced understanding of how social influence and social identity play different roles in the purchase intentions of consumer innovators vs later adopters. This knowledge can guide practical segmentation, targeting, positioning and promotion strategies.Originality/value: This study complements the individual innovativeness predispositions literature by showing that the consideration of social factors leads to a more nuanced understanding of consumers’ purchase intention than either set of factors separately. It also contributes to the literature on adoption of organic products by introducing consumer innovativeness dimension as a key factor.

This study provides a model that supports systematic stakeholder inclusion in agricultural technology. Building on the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) literature and attempting to add precision to the conversation around inclusion in technology design and governance, this study develops a framework for determining which stakeholder groups to engage in RRI processes. We developed the model using a specific industry case study: identifying the relevant stakeholders in the Canadian digital agriculture ecosystem. The study uses literature and news article analysis to map stakeholders in the Canadian digital agricultural sector as a test case for the model. The study proposes a systematic framework which categorises stakeholders into individuals, industrial and societal groups with both direct engagement and supportive roles in digital agriculture. These groups are then plotted against three levels of impact or power in the agri-food system: micro, meso and macro.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a new index summarizing women’s leadership in entrepreneurial ventures (WLEV) in the context of venture capital (VC) firm portfolios. Gender representation among VC portfolio firms is a concern for academics, and increasingly for practitioners aiming to reap the benefits of gender diversity. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on the institutional theory and gender role congruity theory, the authors present dimensions of women’s involvement in leadership roles in VC-funded companies. As previous research has not provided standard definitions, the authors clarify the relevant dimensions. In addition, the authors present an empirical analysis of 153 VC fund portfolios and demonstrate women’s involvement across the three key dimensions forming the WLEV Index: involvement in leadership, management and founding of portfolio companies. Findings: The authors present a summary of WLEV index aligned with previous research. The index has suitable characteristics for future research and introduces a first comparison with existing statistics. The authors’ findings show relatively low scores of women’s leadership in the VC portfolio companies investigated, especially as compared to average USA companies. Originality/value: This paper introduces standardized definitions for women’s leadership in terms of: women-led, women-founded and women-managed. This paper also introduces a methodology and constructs an index to uniformly compare VC firm portfolio companies according to all three dimensions of women’s leadership. These contributions can be expected to form the basis of future research on gender representation in VC portfolio companies.