Gendering the digital transition among farms facing constrained institutional contexts

Abstract This paper investigates gender dynamics in the adoption of digital innovations in agriculture, focusing on the Comino Valley, a remote rural area of Italy characterized by constrained institutional contexts. Adopting a constituent perspective on women’s role in agriculture, the study conceptualizes women as entrepreneurial agents within innovation decision-making processes. The analysis examines digital adoption pathways through the lens of social capital, emphasizing the reconfiguration of relational architectures based on ambidexterity among bonding, bridging, and linking ties. Drawing on survey data from 342 farms, the empirical evidence suggests a potentially relevant tension between observed innovation outcomes and the differentiated mechanisms through which such outcomes are achieved. While no statistically significant gender gap emerges in overall digital innovation adoption, women farmers operate smaller and less capitalized farms and report lower self-assessed entrepreneurial identity. At the same time, women exhibit higher engagement in bridging and linking social capital related to digital innovation. These findings suggest that comparable innovation outcomes may coexist with differentiated relational strategies, through which women adapt to structurally constrained environments. The paper contributes to the literature on gender, rural entrepreneurship, and digital transition by highlighting how processes of relational reconfiguration and compensatory adaptation may support women farmers in achieving innovation outcomes comparable to those of their male counterparts under constrained institutional conditions.