Cultivating Innovation: Influence of Social Capital and Extension Services on Technology Adoption among Sri Lankan Tea Smallholdings

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-646-3_19How to use a DOI?

Keywords

social capital; agricultural extension services; technology adoption; tea smallholders; Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study examines the impact of social capital and agricultural extension services on the adoption of technology among smallholder tea farmers in Sri Lanka, a sector currently facing declining productivity, environmental pressure, and economic uncertainty. Based on Social Capital Theory, Diffusion of Innovation Theory, and the Theory of Planned Behaviour, this study examines bonding, bridging, and linking social capital alongside agricultural extension services. Using a cross-sectional survey design with 452 smallholder tea farmers from Kandy and Badulla districts, selected through multistage stratified random sampling, data analysis was carried out using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings of this study show that agricultural extension services have the strongest positive effect on technology adoption (β = 0.343, p < 0.01), followed by bridging social capital (β = 0.315, p < 0.01) and bonding social capital (β = 0.194, p < 0.01). The study model explains about 60.0% of the variation in technology acceptance (R2 = 0.600), which shows a quite strong level of explanation. On the other hand, linking social capital did not show a significant relationship with technology adoption (β = 0.061, p > 0.05), reflecting that institutional relationships have not consistently translated into practical support for smallholder farmers. Overall, this study concludes that strengthening social networks within communities, expanding links across communities, and improving the effectiveness and reach of agricultural extension services are important to speed up technology adoption and to deal with the declining productivity of the smallholder tea sector in Sri Lanka.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - A. L. R. U. Kumara
AU  - N. A. S. Burhan
AU  - M. F. Sabri
AU  - W. M. W. Jaafar
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/04/15
TI  - Cultivating Innovation: Influence of Social Capital and Extension Services on Technology Adoption among Sri Lankan Tea Smallholdings
BT  - Proceedings of the International Tea Symposium (InTSym100 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 333
EP  - 351
SN  - 2468-5747
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-646-3_19
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-646-3_19
ID  - Kumara2026
ER  -