How social capital affects the quality performance of agricultural products: evidence from a binary perspective of China

Improving the quality of agricultural products is the key factor in promoting agriculturaldevelopment in the Belt and Road program. Although many studies have investigated therelationship between social capital and performance, the findings are inconsistent. Moreover, themechanism of how social capital affects the quality performance of agricultural products remainsunclear. Accordingly, this study developed a theoretical model with propositions from a socialcapital-quality performance of agricultural products paradigm for examining and comparing thethree dimensions of social capital: The relationships among cognitive (measured by shared values),relational (measured by reciprocity) and structural (measured by communication), and their role inensuring quality performance of agricultural products from the company and farmer perspectives.This study selected the companies and farmers in “A company + farmers” model. The data analysisis based on a sample of 184 companies and 414 farmers. The results show that shared values andcommunication have a significant positive effect on reciprocity. In terms of the influence onreciprocity, communication is higher than shared values from both the corporate and farmerperspectives. The three dimensions of social capital have different effects on quality performance ofagricultural products. On the company side, communication and reciprocity in social capital have asignificant positive effect on the quality performance of agricultural products, with the order ofeffect being communication first followed by reciprocity. On the farmer side, reciprocity and sharedvalues have a significant positive effect on the quality performance of agricultural products, withthe order of effect being reciprocity first followed by shared values. These findings have positivetheoretical and practical significance for companies and farmers aiming to improve the quality ofagricultural products