A Typology of Agricultural Market Information Systems and Its Dimensions: Case Studies of Digital Platforms

The literature elucidates the evolution of agricultural market information systems and their impact on value chain networks. However, the existing theoretical frameworks prove inadequate in capturing and cataloging emerging initiatives in the changing contour of agricultural systems. The domain presents a substantial heterogeneity in research and practice and suggests the need for taxonomy schematics. Guided by the network externality theory, agency theory, and information and communication technology for development 2.0 framework, we review and synthesize the literature and propose a typology that classifies agricultural systems into standalone, integrated, and self-organizing platforms. Through desk research on archives, we perform case analyses of five representative systems operating in emerging markets. The findings drawn from the archival analysis were triangulated with domain experts’ interviews. We consider five dimensions: the technology used, the information available, services delivered, target users, and value architecture for case analyses. The study suggests that the integrated and self-organizing platforms score over standalone systems. The self-organizing systems offer value co-creation opportunities to contextualize need-based solutions and provide a substrate for overcoming the limits to localization.