Digital technologies as a driver of resilience and institutional transformation: The case of Ukrainian agroholdings

Gagalyuk, Taras; Kovalova, Maryna Article — Published Version Digital technologies as a driver of resilience and institutional transformation: The case of Ukrainian agroholdings International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Provided in Cooperation with: Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale) Suggested Citation: Gagalyuk, Taras; Kovalova, Maryna (2024) : Digital technologies as a driver of resilience and institutional transformation: The case of Ukrainian agroholdings, International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, ISSN 1559-2448, Brill, Leiden, Vol. 27, Iss. 1, pp. 5-25, https://doi.org/10.22434/ifamr2023.0071 , https://brill.com/view/journals/ifam/27/1/article-p5_2.xml This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282202 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2023 Gagalyuk and Kovalova 5 OPEN ACCESS Digital technologies as a driver of resilience and institutional transformation: The case of Ukrainian agroholdings RESEARCH ARTICLE Taras Gagalyukai and Maryna Kovalovab aSenior researcher, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Theodor-Lieser-Str. 2, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany bDirector, AgriTech Market Development LLC, Vatslava Havela Blvd. 8, 03124 Kyiv, Ukraine Abstract The present paper explores how implementation of digital technologies (DTs) assists firms in transition economies in addressing weaknesses of the institutional environment surrounding them, in particular via establishment of collective governance systems. Based on case studies of three large-scale agroholdings operating in Ukraine, the paper aims to fill the research gaps with regard to the following: motivation of the firm to initiate DT-enabled collective governance systems; the rules these systems are based on; and the reasons behind the firm’s choice of a particular governance mode – closed, shared or open – for these systems. The findings generally support the institutional theory argument that complex technology enables coordination of exchange relationships not only within but also outside firm boundaries. At that, the choice of a governance mode between closed, shared or open institutional infrastructure is likely to depend on the firm’s ownership concentration, corporate transparency, availability of resources and social embeddedness. Keywords: agroholdings, case studies, digital technologies, institutional infrastructure, Ukraine JEL-codes: O13, O32, Q16, Q55, Q12, Q15, D02, D23, D25, M11, M14 i Corresponding author: [email protected] International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024; DOI: 10.22434/IFAMR2023.0071 Received: 15 June 2023 / Accepted: 21 September 2023 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 6 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review 1. Introduction The rise of large-scale horizontally and/or vertically integrated agroholdings operating millions of hectares of farmland in emerging and transition economies is well documented (Gagalyuk et al., 2021). Studies on the development of these huge business group-like structures in the agriculture of Eastern Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world have attempted to explain the reasons behind their viability over the past two decades. The early literature on agroholdings has maintained that such large corporate enterprises may be efficient only by opportunistically capitalizing on the voids present in their predominantly weak institutional environments (Koester, 2005). More recently, this view has been extended by the organizational resilience argument (Castellacci, 2015), according to which agroholding affiliation provides a safe (and more efficient) haven for enterprises also in the process of gradual improvement of institutional frameworks, in particular those relating to agricultural factor markets (Gagalyuk and Valentinov, 2019). However, seemingly, both perspectives have failed to give a full account of the reasons for long-lasting viability of agroholdings as the role that agroholdings themselves are playing in the processes of institutional change and market development has been paid little attention. The above literature streams have generally followed the logic of the transaction cost theory (Williamson, 1985) and laid a major focus of inquiry on the efficiency-driven local institutional arrangements (Brousseau and Raynaud, 2011) between agroholdings and their stakeholders. Along these lines, agroholdings have been shown to relatively easily access outside capital and engage in various independent and collaborative strategies (Dorobantu et al.,2017) to reduce agency and other institutional costs induced by a variation in their immediate institutional environment (Gagalyuk et al., 2021). These strategies involve activities such as vertical integration, corporate social responsibility initiatives, voluntary commitments to third-party disclosure and certification standards, as well as lobbying activities (Matyukha et al., 2015; Visser et al., 2019; Hajdu et al., 2021). Studies from sectors other than agriculture have shown that such local institutional arrangements of firms have the potential to transform into more generic ones shaping and benefitting the institutional environment as a whole (Brousseau and Raynaud, 2011). With respect to the institutional arrangements of agroholdings, still little is known about their potential to contribute to the market development and improvement of a generic institutional environment in the agriculture of transition and emerging economies. Accordingly, from the practical perspective, the potential of these arrangements to eventually become general rules governing the sector to the benefit of an extensive set of actors is still unclear. From the theoretical perspective, our understanding of the role of the firm in the processes of institutional change remains incomplete. The present paper aims to fill these gaps at least partly. It contributes to the growing body of literature (e.g. Castellacci, 2015; Dorobantu et al., 2017; Gagalyuk et al., 2021; Gatignon and Capron, 2023) that extends the above views on the development and role of business groups by positing that the ability to adapt to existing institutional weaknesses alone is insufficient to explain why agroholdings proliferate. An additional focus on the agroholdings’ capacity to transform and strengthen the environment they operate in is needed to complement our understanding of agroholdings’ viability. More specifically, we suggest that agroholdings evolve not only due to their propensity for internalization of uncertain transactions (institutional voids perspective) or accessing larger pools of resources and superior capabilities (organizational resilience perspective), but also because of their ability to build market-based institutions and shape the institutional environment by proactively addressing a broad spectrum of stakeholders. One striking example of such transformative activities of agroholdings may be the implementation of digital technologies (DTs). Empirical evidence from one of the global breadbaskets, Ukraine, suggests that local agroholdings are widely using various precision farming tools and customized IT solutions to integrate the obtained data into enterprise management and thereby improve own efficiency and productivity (Gagalyuk et al., 2022). Recent research suggests that a wide adoption of DTs may generate positive impacts also beyond organizational boundaries, as it entails data-, knowledgeand infrastructure-sharing activities that do not Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 7 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review seem to benefit organizations alone (see e.g. Hinings et al., 2018). The question that arises in this respect is whether the use of DTs by agroholdings may result in establishing institutional infrastructures that empower and benefit a broader set of actors. In this context, the emerging idea of the firm as an architect of open institutional infrastructures (Dubois et al., 2019; Gatignon and Capron, 2023) is particularly relevant as it extends several established notions. For example, to date, there has been a broad agreement that institutional arrangements seek to lower institutional costs for a focal firm while leaving unchanged or increasing institutional costs for other actors (Dorobantu et al., 2017). Recent evidence, however, complements this view and suggests that focal firms engage in the establishment of open institutional infrastructures that benefit not only a focal firm alone or even first, but also and rather the other actors in the environment surrounding the focal firm. Examples of such open institutional infrastructures include commercial skill development and professional trainings among rural population (Gagalyuk et al., 2018) as well as various ecological, social and community development initiatives (Gatignon and Capron, 2023). Yet, to date, it is not fully clear what motivates the firm to initiate such collective governance systems. If there are no recognizable pecuniary benefits, then what are the reasons behind the firm’s decision to invest in such systems? What rules are these systems based on? Last but not least, what defines the firm’s choice of a particular governance mode, i.e. closed, shared or open (Gatignon and Capron, 2023), for institutional infrastructures? The present paper aims to answer these questions by studying the DT-driven institution-building activities among Ukrainian agroholdings. The paper makes the case that technological progress not only gives a boost to efficiency improvements amid problems of an institutional environment but also facilitates the emergence of governance instruments that contribute to market development via improvement of the institutional environment. These governance mechanisms will be shown to play an enabling role in the operation of agricultural business group-like structures, also known as agroholdings. Based on case studies of three of such agroholdings operating in Ukraine with different types of interactions with stakeholders such as land lessors, employees, suppliers and competitors, the paper describes i) how these interactions are governed by DT-enabled institutional infrastructures, ii) what motivates agroholdings to establish such infrastructures, and iii) how these infrastructures develop over time from locally designed arrangements toward broader market-based institutions. The paper is structured as follows. We first elaborate on the empirical context by describing how agroholdings as an organizational form of agricultural production have evolved in Ukraine. Subsequently, we present the results of the case studies demonstrating how DTs assist the agroholdings under scrutiny in establishing and maintaining closed, shared and open institutional infrastructures. Finally, we discuss the results and research limitations and conclude. 2. The context: development of agroholdings in Ukraine An agroholding refers to an organizational form that consists of a mother company that controls dozens or hundreds of horizontally integrated farms and manages thousands or even millions of hectares of farmland (Ostapchuk et al., 2021b). Apart from huge size, agroholdings are (often) characterized by vertical integration and improved access to outside capital (Gagalyuk et al., 2021b), often through political connections (Matyukha et al., 2015). Given that the degree of ownership concentration and corporate governance among agroholdings differ (Tleubayev et al., 2021), one can distinguish between various types of agroholdings based on these criteria. For instance, Kuns and Visser (2016) suggest to differentiate between “oligarch-led” and “investor-led” agroholdings based on the corporate governance model adopted. The first type of companies has only a minority of shares traded on a stock exchange, while the bulk of the ownership remains in the hands of the founder of the company or an entity controlled by the founder. For ‘investor-led’ companies, most shares are in free-float trading (cf. Hermans et al., 2017, p. 177). Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 8 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review In Ukraine today, agroholdings play an important role in agricultural production and land use. As of 2019, there were about 120 agroholdings each operating more than 10 000 hectares (Latifundist.com, 2020). From 2005 to 2018, these agroholdings have managed to grow their operated land area 3.5 times, to nearly 6 million hectares, or 29% of the entire farmland in use of commercial farms (UCAB, 2019). The largest agroholdings in terms of land area, such as Kernel and Ukrlandfarming, operate about 500,000 hectares of farmland each (Latifundist.com, 2020). Furthermore, agroholdings account for approximately one fifth of total crop production and one third of total livestock production in Ukraine today (Ostapchuk et al., 2021a). The proliferation of agroholdings in Ukraine was facilitated significantly by the developments on the world markets. Motivated by the increasing international demand, there was a twofold increase of the prices of agricultural commodities from 2006 to 2008 and a further growth of prices to this high level until 2013 after a short-term decline caused by the 2008 economic crisis (FAO, 2020). Among other things, this tremendous price growth made agricultural production a highly profitable industry, particularly in the crop sector. For example, Ukraine’s sunflower production has maintained an average profitability of over 20% throughout the preceding twenty years, with some years recording a noteworthy high of 80% (Gagalyuk et al., 2022). The enhanced profitability levels in agriculture have motivated inflows of capital from outside of agriculture, facilitating investments in modern production technologies and business expansion to capitalize on the productivity improvements and economies of size (see Table 1), respectively. The attractiveness of agroholdings for external investors has been then further reinforced by their large sizes, which in turn have led to the concentration of market power and favorable access to land (Graubner et al., 2021). Positive developments on the global agricultural markets were not the sole driver of the expansion of agroholdings. The institutional environment in Ukraine has also significantly contributed to the development of this business group-like form of organization of agricultural production. In general, there are two competing views that can be considered as feasible explanations of the persistence of business groups in emerging and transition economies. First is the so-called institutional voids perspective, according to which business groups play an important function for economic development by providing necessary infrastructures when factor market institutions are weak, thus filling institutional voids (Castellacci, 2015). In this context, Ukrainian agroholdings have been shown to outperform non-holding agricultural enterprises in getting access to financial capital, in particular on international capital markets, thus obviating the problem of inefficient local financial markets and credit institutions (Gagalyuk and Valentinov, 2019). Agroholdings have been shown also to address the problem of weak supply of qualified labor, i.e. inefficient labor markets, through the organization of own qualification improvement courses for the employees (Gagalyuk and Valentinov, 2019). In addition, agroholdings have been found to employ more people per hectare and cow and to pay, on average, 18% higher salaries to their employees than non-agroholding farms (Gagalyuk and Schaft, 2016). Furthermore, by means of broadly implemented rural community development programs, agroholdings in Ukraine have been able to successfully deal with ongoing land market imperfections that emerged as a result of land reforms in early 2000’s. These imperfections included (and still include) i) an atomistic structure of land ownership consisting of millions of smallholder landowners and ii) land lease as the only possible (and highly insecure) way to use land for agricultural enterprises. The latter is due to the official moratorium on farmland sales that is subject to be gradually lifted in 2021–2024 (Gagalyuk et al., 2022). Another view, a so-called organizational resilience perspective, suggests that business groups are more resilient than standalone firms not only when institutions are poor but also when the quality of institutions improves (Castellacci, 2015). This is the consequence of two distinct effects: an efficiency effect, according to which groups have greater incentives to restructure and become more efficient during market transition; and a cumulativeness effect, according to which groups also have superior resources and capabilities to exploit the new opportunities provided by the market development process (cf. ibid: 46). With regard to the efficiency effect, agroholdings have been reported to design new approaches to corporate governance and Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 9 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Table 1. Land use, vertical integration and outside capital of 10 largest agroholdings of Ukraine, 2018. Company name Land area (×1000 ha) Specialization (crop/livestock, %) Processing and other businesses Outside capital Ukrlandfarming 570.0 85/15Egg products, sugar, feedstuffs, storage and export infrastructure Listed on AIM (Alternative Investment Market, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange), loans from Deutsche Bank Kernel 550.0 92/8 Sunflower oil, storage and export infrastructure Listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) Agroprosperis Group 400.0 97/3 Feedstuffs, cereals, flour, storage and export infrastructure Equity fund NCH (New Century Holdings) Capital MHP 370.0 27/73Meat products, feedstuffs, biogas, retail, storage and export infrastructure Listed on London Stock Exchange (LSE), loans from International Finance Corporation (IFC), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Astarta 250.0 88/12Sugar, feedstuffs, biogas, storage and export infrastructure Listed on WSE, loans from IFC Continental Farmers Group 165.0 99/1 Seed production, storage and export infrastructure Formerly listed as Mriya on Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE), loans from IFC, EBRD, US EXIM; currently owned by Saudi Arabia’s agriculture and livestock investment company (SALIC) HarvEast 127.0 85/15Feedstuffs, seed production, storage and export infrastructure System Capital Management – energy and metallurgical holding owned by Rinat Akhmetov; Smart Holding owned by Vadim Novinskiy IMC 123.9 90/10 Feedstuffs, storage and export infrastructure Listed on WSE, loans from IFC, EBRD Epitsentr Agro 121.4 90/10 Storage and export infrastructure Construction chain Epitsentr K owned by the Gerega family Ukrprominvest 116.5 93/7 Sugar, cereals, feedstuffs, retail, storage and export infrastructure Equity fund associated with former President Poroshenko Source: Latifundist.com (2020), UCAB (2019), company websites. transparency that address persistent agency problems. Especially, publicly listed agroholdings in Ukraine have been found to deploy instruments such as diverse executive boards, independent auditing and disclosure of information on ownership and financial aspects, which altogether function as protective mechanisms against obscure operational practices commonly encountered in transitional economies (Gagalyuk et al., 2021). As regards the cumulativeness effect, Ostapchuk et al. (2021a) have shown how Ukrainian agroholdings make use of more open and competitive markets not only via acquiring less competitive farms but also by making these farms more efficient through complex resource reconfiguration processes. Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 10 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review However, recent evidence suggests also that there is a need for an extended view that would augment the abovementioned perspectives with regard to the interactions of agroholdings with their institutional environment. In particular, the arrangements that agroholdings design to reduce the costs resulting from incomplete institutional frameworks often go beyond their immediate exchange partners, e.g. landowners, employees and shareholders. These arrangements involve cross-sector partnerships that benefit and empower not only agroholdings and their direct stakeholders, but also a broader set of actors. For instance, several agroholdings have established long-term partnerships with (state-owned) universities to improve and modernize their curricula and provide practical trainings to agricultural students that not necessarily will become the employees of these agroholdings in the future (Agrokebety, 2023). Furthermore, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations and communal authorities in rural Ukraine, several agroholdings have introduced the programs of entrepreneurship promotion that include financial and advisory support to business start-ups that are completely independent of these agroholdings (Gagalyuk et al., 2018). Moreover, agroholdings increasingly engage in the establishment of mutual exchange and creation of a culture of open dialogue to raise awareness of problems that persist in the business environment. These initiatives involve the use of various communication instruments ranging from regular meetings with rural communities to introduction of chat bots that collect individual requests from rural population (Gagalyuk et al., 2021). In the context of Ukraine, where a low level of general cooperativeness persists among farm stakeholders, this approach serves as an essential step forward in the promotion of private initiative and the formation of civil society (cf. Gagalyuk et al., 2021: p. 730). The above developments point to the establishment of what Gatignon and Capron (2023), arguing along the lines of Elinor Ostrom’s principles of polycentric governance, refer to as shared and open institutional infrastructures. In contrast to a closed institutional infrastructure that primarily benefits a focal firm engaging with key stakeholders on an instrumental basis, shared and open institutional infrastructures are designed for the benefit of a broader set of participants. A shared institutional infrastructure emerges when a firm joins public or nonprofit initiatives to improve existing institutional infrastructure for the benefit of a broader set of participants who share access to it. In turn, when the firm builds an open institutional infrastructure, it invests in a pool of resources widely accessible beyond its exchange partners and empowers other actors within multilateral cross-sector partnerships (cf. Gatignon and Capron, 2023: pp. 48–49). Another, more recent, example of such transformative activities of agroholdings is the implementation of digital technologies (DTs). Empirical evidence from Ukraine suggests that local agroholdings have been and are widely using precision farming tools and customized IT solutions to improve own efficiency and productivity (Gagalyuk et al., 2022). However, as the present paper shows, adoption of DTs generates positive impacts also beyond the agroholdings’ own needs, as it entails data-, knowledgeand infrastructure-sharing activities that do not seem to benefit these agroholdings alone. In what follows, the paper presents the results of three case studies of Ukrainian agroholdings to show how DTs assist these agroholdings in establishing shared and open institutional infrastructures in addition to the use of DTs for the agroholdings’ own benefit. 3. Case studies The case study analysis is based on data collected during in-depth interviews with corporate managers (see Table 2) of Grain Alliance, Continental Farmers Group and Astarta. In the process of selection of agroholdings for our analysis, we aimed to choose the agroholdings that not only belong to the largest and most transparent agricultural companies in Ukraine, but also make substantial investments in the implementation of DTs in various segments of their operations. Thus, we aimed to find the agroholdings that use DTs not only in agricultural production but also in the spheres of land management, human resource management, logistics, machinery, inventory management, planning, reporting and others. For that purpose, we have used the information from various mass media portals, such as Aggeek.net (2023) and Latifundist.com (2023a,b) and consulting publications (e.g. Agrohub, 2019). Based on these sources, we have initially selected Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 11 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Table 2. Characteristics of studied agroholdings. Company name Grain Alliance Continental Farmers Group Astarta Managers interviewed Evgeniy Zaglada, Сhief Financial Officer Yevhen Korniienko, Head of Field Agronomic Monitoring Department Nonna Shmidik, Head of PR and Social Projects Nataliia Bogacheva, Director at AgriChain Ruslan Trufanov, Head of Sales Department Yuliya Bereshchenko, Sustainable Business Development and IR Director Lilia Marachkanets, Head of Corporate Partnership and Communications Department Land use (2022) 57 000 ha 195 000 ha 220 000 ha Number of employees 1044 (as of 2021) 2400 (as of 2021) 6500 (as of 2022) Revenues (2022) EUR 55 million n.a. EUR 510 million Production portfolio (main crops or animal products) Corn Soybeans Sunflower Winter wheat Grain storage – 7 units, 330 000 tons Cattle farming Corn Soybeans Sunflower Winter wheat Grain storage – 474 500 tons, 5 elevators Seed production – 420 tons per day Potato – storage capacity 106 200 tons, 2 plants + potato processing plant Crop production (wheat, corn, rapeseed, soya, sunflower); Seed production – 2 plants; Sugar production: No.1 producer in Ukraine with 250 000–500 000 tons of sugar production p.a.; Cattle farming: No.1 producer of industrialized milk in Ukraine with 100 000 tons of milk production p.a. and 22 000 heads of cattle; Soybean crushing: No.2 in soybean processing in Ukraine with a crushing capacity of 230 000; Bioenergy: designed daily capacity of 150 000 m3 of biogas Major areas of DT application Crop production Land management Operational management (Enterprise Resource Planning) Crop production Land management Machinery and equipment management Crop production Land management Machinery and equipment management Logistics CSR expenditure (2022) EUR 105 000 EUR 1.6 million EUR 14.8 million Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 12 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Major stakeholders Local communities Investors Employees Society Local communities Investors Society Employees Local communities Employees Society ESG goals Reduction of soil exhaustion Increase the share of renewable fuels Reduction of soil exhaustion Carbon farming/green economy Organic farming Ownership structure BZK GRAIN ALLIANCE AB (Sweden) – 100% AGRO LV LIMITED LLC (identification code 34943719) CFG TRADING LLC (identification code 39675472) MRIYA SERVICE LLC (identification code 38554271) Exact shares not available The family of Viktor Ivanchyk (the CEO) – 40.0% of total shares outstanding through Albacon Ventures Limited Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd – 29.9%. Free float on Warsaw Stock Exchange held mainly by Polish institutional investors, EU and US investment companies – 30.1% Source: interviews with managers, company websites and annual reports. Table 2. Continued. 10 agroholdings that met our criteria. After an initial outreach to these companies, only three out of the ten contacted agroholdings have agreed to be interviewed for the purposes of this study. The selected agroholdings are joint stock companies with different degrees of foreign capital in the ownership structure and belong to the top 25 agroholdings-land users in Ukraine. The interviews with the managers were conducted online (and recorded upon agreement with the respondents) in February-April 2023. The obtained data were further complemented with archival information from available company documents, such as annual financial and nonfinancial (sustainability) reports, presentations for investors and company websites. Unfortunately, we have not been able to interview the stakeholders of agroholdings, such as landowners, small farmers or policymakers, due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine that complicated communication with these groups of respondents. This issue is addressed in greater detail in the description of research limitations and impact of war in the concluding section of the paper. 3.1 Grain Alliance ■Company information Grain Alliance is now an agricultural production company with more than 20 years of experience although, initially, it was set up as a business providing tillage services for agricultural producers. The company was founded in 1998 by the American entrepreneur Alex Oronov as The Harvest Moon East Ltd. Initially, the company has farmed two thousand hectares of leased land and has grown in terms of both land area and product portfolio since then. By 2008, the total area operated by the company reached more than 27 000 ha. Currently, the agroholding controls around 57 000 ha of farmland, of which 54 000 ha are being cultivated, while further expansion is a part of the company’s strategy (Grain Alliance, 2023b). Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 19 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review The implementation of a land management system is beneficial not only to Astarta or AgriChain clients but also to their smallholder land lessors. The land management system reduces transaction costs and improves the efficiency of management of land lease agreements, as the needs for unnecessary meetings, document exchange and communication diminish. As a long-term result, rural communities also benefit from implementation of land management software: reduced transaction costs enable land lessees, such as Astarta or AgriChain clients, to pay higher land rentals to landowners. Accordingly, landowners can pay higher taxes and thereby improve the budgets of local communities. This is particularly important in the view of outdated physical and social infrastructure in rural communities of Ukraine. In addition, at the holding level, Astarta is using digital tools for individual interaction with landowners. “Smallholder rural landowners – our land lessors – want to be our partners and they are a part of our ecosystem. We would not be able to work without them. In order to consider their needs more carefully, we have developed a chatbot that processes their requests and helps to receive various pieces of information, for example, a proof of income or proof of land rental payment from us to present it to tax authorities or similar”, explain the managers. The managers of AgriChain are aware that, in order to achieve best possible synergies and efficiency improvements, a software platform should be flexible and easily adjusted, and the producer willing to implement it has to be open-minded and ready for change of own business model. However, even in this case, an individual approach matters as the developers are willing to sell a customized project, not a software product. “We try to only work with companies that are ready for change, look deeper into their processes and offer tailor-made solutions for their needs. We implement these solutions by working in joint project groups”, explains a product manager. Working with shared infrastructures requires preservation and protection of data. Even though AgriChain is an in-house developer of Astarta and can be considered the agroholding’s “digital wing”, Astarta itself does not have access to the customer data of the AgriChain platforms. Moreover, many of the holding’s competitors on the farmland market are using the AgriCahin application. “Almost all Astarta’s competitors, namely 7 out of 8, are either partners or clients of AgriChain. Astarta has no problem with this and there is a contractual agreement that AgriChain does not grant Astarta access to the data of its clients”, comments a manager. Currently, Astarta is using its DT expertise to develop shared institutional infrastructures that go beyond the interactions that benefit local communities and offer solutions also for the development of the country’s economy as a whole. For example, in 2022, Astarta completed testing of the electronic management system of transport consignment notes. The development of the system was led by the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine to simplify and speed up logistics by replacing paper transport consignment notes with electronic ones to ensure freight transparency (Astarta, 2023a). This way the solution developed by a single market player evolved into an approach beneficial for the whole industry. Furthermore, in the area of education, Astarta has launched IT Education in Rural Areas, the project that aims to improve computer literacy among rural population and provides IT trainings to children and adults in rural areas. The agenda for children includes visual programming in Scratch, designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robotics. Another important direction of DT-based projects is environment protection. In 2020, Astarta in cooperation with the non-governmental organization International Environmental Security started an online project Eco-education in Communities aimed at promoting environmental awareness among the youth. In addition, the company introduced and implemented the resource and energy efficiency program Best Available Techniques at its sugar plants to achieve energy efficiency goals. The company’s farming enterprises have already witnessed a reduction of energy consumption due to the use of modern agricultural machinery and innovative IT tools for agricultural management. For instance, energy consumption in the agricultural Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 20 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review segment reduced by 16% to 871kGJ representing a 26% share in total energy consumption of the holding (Astarta, 2023a). As a part of the Green Economy concept and focusing on sustainable development, Astarta implemented a system for accounting and calculating emissions of greenhouse gases and other contaminants under the requirements of the GHG Protocol and national legislation. The system involves the use of DTs as part of monitoring, analysis and detection procedures. 4. Discussion and conclusions The present paper demonstrates how implementation of digital technologies by firms contributes to market development and improvement of the institutional environment in the agriculture of one of the Eastern European countries, Ukraine. The said improvements occur at different levels, including internal firm operations and interactions with immediate exchange partners, interactions with a broader set of actors, e.g., at the communal level, as well as the institutional environment as a whole. The findings generally support the argument that complex technology enables coordination of activities not only within but also outside firm boundaries. Furthermore, two of the three studied agroholdings have been found to actively establish DT-enabled institutional infrastructures that not only pursue efficiency improvements for own benefit but also transform existing institutional settings. More specifically, we find that, first, DTs assist the studied agroholdings in engaging with key stakeholders within closed institutional infrastructures that mainly benefit the agroholdings’ own needs on the one hand. For example, all of the studied agroholdings are using cloud software, data from satellite and drone monitoring as well as AI-based analytics for administering thousands of land lease agreements with smallholder landowners. On the other hand, such activities add positively to existing institutional infrastructures characterized, for instance, by still incomplete public cadastral systems in Ukraine. Reduction of transaction costs associated with interactions with numerous landowners transforms into higher landowners’ incomes and, respectively, generates more tax revenues that can be spent on infrastructure improvements in rural areas. Second, the agroholdings under scrutiny have been shown to launch DT-based initiatives that bring about benefits to the participants who share access to them as well as to a broader set of participants. The Astarta agroholding has set up the e-platform called AgriChain, which provides agrotechnological, cadastral and procurement advice not only to its subsidiaries or the farmers that supply its storage and processing facilities but also to Astarta’s competitors (based on fees). It seems safe to conclude that, by selling its product to the competitors, Astarta strengthens them, as in addition to having more expertise and experience of working in their local climatic and natural conditions, these competitors obtain a customized digital solution that improves their efficiency. Another agroholding, CFG, cooperates with a precision farming company that processes CFG’s data and, upon an established agreement, may share these data also with CFG’s competitors. On the one hand, the adoption of such platforms aims to obviate the problem of underdeveloped public and private extension networks in Ukraine (Korinets and Yaroshko, 2023) and thus to improve supplier compliance with quality requirements. On the other hand, the use of own DT expertise to build the market for customized digital solutions (Grain Alliance and Astarta), indirect data sharing with competing enterprises (Astarta and CFG) as well as voluntary abstention from the potential (mis)use of its competitors’ information (Astarta), suggest that firms may initiate an even broader transformation process. The latter would involve not only the establishment of a new market for DTs, but also the development of the institutional foundations for this market that can also spread to other markets and sectors. In our study, these foundations are exemplified by trust-based exchange relationships among market participants and, in the context of agriculture, promotion of good agricultural practices and biodiversity. Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 21 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review To this effect, our study shows that DTs help firms to take on an even more active role by serving as a bridging organization or institutional intermediary (Gatignon and Capron, 2023), thus substituting for public and nonprofit actors in establishing open institutional infrastructures. In this role, firms may foster and engage in cross-sector cooperation that benefits and empowers a broader set of actors. Particularly with regard to our study, some of the DT-enabled infrastructures developed by the studied agroholdings reduce institutional costs not only for these agroholdings alone but also, and primarily, for other actors. The launch of the application for beekeepers and of the CSR map by CFG are good examples of such infrastructures. Interestingly, the choice of the governance mode for DT-enabled infrastructures may differ among agroholdings even with regard to the same institutional problem faced. For instance, in the view of poor agrotechnological extension services, agroholdings in Ukraine are generally interested in sharing their experiences of using precision farming technologies and modern DTs with other market participants. The willingness to share such sensitive information, in particular with neighboring (and thus competing) farms, has been initially driven by an instrumental motive to effectively prevent the spread of pests and diseases from the fields of the neighbors (Shmorhun, 2019). However, in the process of exchange, additional advantages in the form of new knowledge of production approaches have arisen also for the agroholdings initiating such exchange. One of the agroholdings studied in this paper, CFG, has recognized the benefits of knowledge sharing for the sector at large and initiated a freely accessible platform for agrotechnological exchange. Another agroholding under scrutiny, Astarta, has been found to engage in sharing its agrotechnological expertise on a commercial basis via its subsidiary, AgriChain. Yet, the other agroholding, Grain Alliance, wanted to apply an approach similar to Astarta but did not succeed due to resource limitations. Overall, our findings suggest that all three agroholdings largely recognize the institution-building and market development potential of DTs. However, the choice of the governance mode as well as the outcomes of the efforts the agroholdings make to encapsulate this potential have been found to differ. The reasons behind the differing choices with regard to governance modes for exchange relationships catalyzed by DT implementation may depend on the organizational and managerial characteristics of the firm. The example of Astarta suggests an important role of leadership in a firm’s engagement in the processes of institution-building, such as the development of an electronic transport consignment system in close cooperation with public authorities. Based on the results of our study, one can also assume that agroholdings like Astarta may be less concerned about sensitivity of engaging in data sharing initiatives due to a relatively low level of ownership concentration (as compared to the other studied agroholdings). A substantial portion of Astarta’s share capital is being in a free float on an international stock market. In this context, recent studies have pointed to a positive effect of international listings on corporate transparency and disclosure of agroholdings from transition countries (Gagalyuk, 2017; Gagalyuk et al., 2021). On the other hand, as an internationally listed company, Astarta is particularly concerned with the interests of its shareholders and has to consider possible risks and be profit-orientated. These factors may have contributed to the choice of a commercial, contract-based knowledge dissemination approach involving the establishment of a separate legal entity (AgriChain). Altogether these examples of Astarta’s activities point to the choice of a shared mode of governance of DT-enabled institutional infrastructures. As regards relatively more ownership-concentrated agroholdings, in particular CFG, our findings demonstrate that, in addition to rather formalized shared arrangements, they rely on relational norms in governing sectoral and cross-sectoral exchange with respect to digital technologies. Previous research suggests that relational capital is the characteristic of an open institutional infrastructure that involves a polycentric governance model (Gatignon and Capron, 2023). One reason behind this choice may be the fact that CFG is, e.g., less spatially dispersed than Astarta, which makes it be strongly socially embedded in the regions or communities of its operations. This embeddedness may, in turn, cause the choice of a more inclusive governance approach. The case of Grain Alliance, that has decided to use own DT-based solutions internally for the moment, suggests that the firm may lean toward the choice of a closed institutional infrastructure if it is for some Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 22 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review reason susceptible to institutional turbulence (Gagalyuk and Valentinov, 2019). As our study shows, Grain Alliance has faced lack of qualified personnel on the part of its partners that made it difficult to scale-up own digital infrastructure and expertise. Moreover, the agroholding has found itself in a lock-in situation when the potential exchange partners would supposedly be reluctant to using the proposed technology (of Russian origin) because of moral considerations (caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine). 4.1 Research limitations, future research and impact of war We realize that this study has limitations, as it is based on three case studies in one country involving a small number of in-depth interviews with the representatives of the studied firms only. This may raise questions regarding generalizability of our conclusions. However, we believe that at least some aspects should be applicable beyond the empirical context of the present research. In particular, there is evidence of rapid development of large-scale agroholdings in many countries, particularly in transition and emerging market economies characterized by weak institutional environments (Gagalyuk et al., 2021b). These agroholdings are using digital technologies for production and other purposes at an increasing pace (Agrohub, 2019; Chaddad and Valentinov, 2017). Thus, it is conceivable that the DT-enabled infrastructures could be used by agroholdings in other transition and emerging countries to address voids in market-based institutions of those countries. Furthermore, our study focused on both privately held and publicly listed agroholdings, implying that some of their practices could be applied in different types of companies. For instance, the experience of both the publicly listed Astarta and privately held CFG may be useful for the understanding of how digital technologies can be used beyond own production needs and help to engage with a broad range of intraand cross-sectoral actors. Nevertheless, future research is certainly needed to identify the other important factors that affect the scale-up, spillover and, ultimately, institutionalization potentials of DT-enabled infrastructures. Furthermore, our understanding of the viability of shared and open institutional infrastructures that the present paper brings to the forefront, will improve if future research gives a detailed account of the rules and rule enforcement mechanisms governing these infrastructures. In the context of this study, the above steps have been rather impossible due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The interviews made in terms of the study had to be rescheduled or postponed many times due to frequent blackouts caused by the Russian missile attacks on civil infrastructure in Ukraine. During the interviews, our respondents told that their businesses have undergone substantial changes, also with regard to the aspects addressed in this study. For instance, there is an official requirement from the Ukrainian government to limit the use of agricultural drones. On the other hand, the demand for satellite monitoring is growing significantly. However, overall, Ukrainian agriculture faces severe problems because of the war. First of all, almost all grain shipments through the Black Sea are uncertain due to blockades of Ukrainian ports and ships. This makes pressure on domestic storage infrastructure and commodity prices. Second, prices for absolutely all inputs, fuel, spare parts and seeds increased significantly whereas bank loans have become hardly accessible. Despite these complications, our respondents have reported that, for instance, all available funds they planned for expenditure in terms of CSR programs were reallocated toward humanitarian needs. The agroholdings used their production bases temporarily as logistics centers for humanitarian aid. Tons of humanitarian aid from abroad passed through them. They handed over their products and purchased medical equipment for the Ukrainian Military Forces. The total support from the studied agroholdings amounted to USD 12.5 million in 2022. Heruntergeladen von Brill.com 02/12/2024 08:17:20AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Gagalyuk and Kovalova Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024 23 International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Production capacities of agroholdings, especially those located near the border with Russia, suffered from military actions and occupation. For example, at the beginning of the war, a fragment of a shell caused damage to an elevator of Grain Alliance in Nizhyn, Chernihiv region of Ukraine, and about 5000 ha were mined or contaminated by shell fragments. Consequently, the company did not cultivate these lands. “Total direct damages of the holding excluding losses, lost profits, etc. amount to several million euros”, says a manager. Working under martial law and the constant changes of wartime caused changes in typical procedures and operational processes. “Since the beginning of the war, we clearly understood that it is necessary to have working mobile versions of all software solutions, or mobile applications, including those with an offline mode, in order to enable people to work with data and make decisions in various conditions”, says a manager of Astarta. The communication and approaches to working with customers, partners and suppliers also changed significantly. All the parties showed sincere interest and understanding of all the circumstances and were open to providing support, postponing payments, and taking actions to help each other survive. “We have a client who has all the lands located in the occupied part of the Kherson region. We support the company and provide the opportunity to use our software and work under current conditions”, says a manager of Astarta. CFG implemented a retraining program for internally displaced people. The educational project aims to create new employment and career opportunities for professionals who have lost their jobs due to the situation in the country and have been forced to leave their regions of residence. The project (titled Continental Restart) also provides an opportunity to apply and expand engineering and technical qualifications, gain practical skills in agricultural engineering, as well as employment in agriculture. Acknowledgement The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access Fund of the Leibniz Association. References Aggeek.net. 2023. https://aggeek.net/ (accessed 13 February 2023). [In Ukrainian] Agrohub. 2019. National Innovation Agenda Report. Available online at https://agenda-report.agrohub.ua/. Agrokebety. 2023. Agrokebety master ’s program. Available online at https://agrokebety.com/en (accessed 14 June 2023). Agrotimes. 2023. 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