Navigating shades of social capital and trust to leverage opportunities for rural innovation

This paper makes a contribution to understanding the impact of relational trust, as embodied within bonding, bridging and linking social capital, on rural innovation. Using cases of multi-stakeholder groups who work together on shared problems it explores how social capital and different forms of trust (companion, competence and commitment) influence rural innovation processes. Looking at both the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ side of social capital, our focus is on how social capital and trust constrain and enable the process of innovation. A main theoretical implication of this study is that a better understanding of social capital and trust is needed to enable innovation facilitators and project managers to design and undertake fixed term rural innovation projects effectively