PCT Background Interview

Note: B is bargaining process

development) while evaluating a technology. The results reveal different paths that farmers use to make an adoption, or non-adoption, decision, and help explain differences in the adoption and non-adoption behaviour among farmers.

The use of construct elicitation procedures based on PCT may also contribute to a more detailed description of farmers’ behavioural, normative and control beliefs in the TPB model (see Figure 4.5). A particular focus may be given to the elicitation of constructs related to the farmers’ attitudes toward new technology adoption and their control beliefs. Another focus is the measurement of the role of a bargaining process in the farmers’ decision making process. Hence, the use of PCT in this study will be based on the farmers’ possible decision criteria as the elements, which may relate to: a) the possible outcomes (advantages and disadvantages) from adopting the

improved paddy-prawn system (“pandu”);

b) the possible external and internal factors that may support and impede the respondents to adopt “pandu”; and

c) the possible significant others with whom the respondents discuss and negotiate their intention to adopt “pandu”.

Using these elements, PCT may elicit the reason(s), or constructs, why the farmers choose the elements. This will help explain the farmers’ information processing capacity in technology adoption, i.e. how a farmer learns from her/his environments and develops heuristics while assessing a new technology. The results may also confirm and/or improve the concept of mental processes in decision making as described in the TPB model and EDTM.

By combining the TPB questionnaire, EDTM and PCT, one may gain a thorough understanding of farmers’ personal construct system and adoption behaviour. Since both EDTM and PCT can reveal decision variables that are important for the farmers (Murray-Prior, 1998), the results from these methods can also be used to select the behavioural stimuli (Figure 4.5) and the form of the structural equation models for

analyzing the TPB model. One may also use the results to assess the relative efficacy of each method in measuring farmers’ personal constructs.

Such analyses are relevant to the case of semi-commercial farmers in developing countries. These farmers usually have limited access to information, while at the same time they still face serious structural problems, such as poor human and

institutional capacity. They also value social relationships and, hence, their decision may be, to a large extent, affected by their peers and/or leaders. However, the ‘whys’ behind their decisions and behaviours (e.g. new technology adoption) are still poorly understood. This analysis would help clarify this issue.

4.7. Summary

This chapter presents an overview of the adoption decision concepts, decision

heuristics, and decision models. The discussion starts with the general concept of the mental process in decision making, which according to Antonides (1996, p. 3) may involve “motivational factors, values and norms, information processing, attitudes, social comparison, rules or heuristics, attributions, emotional factors, bargaining process, learning process and expectation”.

Many of the above factors are covered in Rogers’s (1993) “innovation-decision process” and the matrix decision making concept introduced by Ohlmer et al. (1998). This emphasizes the importance of these factors in a farmer’s adoption decision. Clearly there is a need to improve the concept of agricultural decision making to include these factors. For example, one might need to clarify the role of information in determining farmers’ adoption-decisions. This can be achieved through examining farmers’ adherence to rules of thumb (heuristics) in decision making, and their efforts to negotiate their interest, intention and objectives against family and social values. A particular focus may also be given to the method(s) farmers use when creating and applying decision heuristics. This enables an evaluation of the efficacy of information utilization by farmers. All these possibilities are represented by the following

a) Do farmers use rules of thumb (heuristics) for making adoption-decisions? b) How do farmers create and apply their decision heuristic? and

c) To what extent are the intra-household and social bargaining processes involved in the farmers’ processes of creating heuristics and decision making?

The discussion about decision models suggests the integration of the TPB, EDTM and PCT in order to enable a thorough analysis of farmers’ mental process in decision making. No one has attempted to combine these three models and, hence, such an effort is challenging. According to Beedell and Rehman (2000), the TPB alone may explain around 50 and 70 percent of the differences in how people behave. Various studies also show that the EDTM is robust for identifying the decision criteria and the path of decision making. Through its contrasting methods, PCT has also been found to be effective for eliciting the underlying rationale behind one’s decision or

behaviour. Thus, the combination is expected to be complementary and provide a more effective and thorough procedure for analyzing the agricultural decision making process. This analysis may also provide an improved understanding of Simon’s (1987) concept of bounded rationality, particularly in the case of the decision making process of semi-commercial farmers in developing countries. The results may be used to help these farmers improve their decision making capacity.