A Social Network of Dietary Pattern- A Case Study of the National Dong Hwa University Eco-Kitchen
| Autor: | Chieh-Fu Cheng, 鄭傑夫 |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 104 Community-supported agriculture is established on a collective sense of local identity. Depending on the time, location, and environmental condition, community-supported agriculture attempts to vitalize local agriculture by developing different visions, operation modes, social activities, and methods of distributing resources. In Taiwan and other countries, although this type of agriculture is typically long-term oriented, in practice, a variety of challenges may uncover weaknesses in its organizational structure and highlight its shortages in social network resources, eventually causing an end to the partnership among those who support it. For many years, community-supported agriculture has encountered numerous obstacles; however, as a trend in food development, it is likely to continue to develop and progress. In Hualien, Taiwan, Eco-Kitchen on the campus of National Dong Hwa University is an experimental green restaurant run for educational purposes. Eco-Kitchen provides customers that wish to support local agriculture with direct access to meals made from local agricultural products. Thus, it serves as a channel for not only producing and selling local agricultural products, but also exchanging social awareness and strengthening trust and commitment between customers and local farmers. The ultimate objective is to secure the role of local agriculture in Taiwanese society. Therefore, in this case study, social capital is treated as a key factor influencing the relationship between customers and the local community. Continuing to strengthen trust between them is the only way to ensure a sustainable development and form a cooperating relationship with the customers. We used the concept of social capital to examine the cooperating relationships of a green restaurant with other nodes (which can be any individuals, organizations, government institutions, or resource providers). However, we found that these relationships could not be quantified in numbers on the basis of the results and values created by them. In addition, the expectation of the partners from each node varied. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative study to explore the role of the social network and structural holes constructed by the green restaurant, through data collection, onsite observation, semiopen-ended interview surveys, and referring to related studies in various areas. The results of this study showed that, functioning for educational purposes, this green restaurant operates by utilizing social capital, namely support from the local community, mutual trust and reliance between the customers and the local farmers, and a spirit of fair trade. From an economic perspective, the primary objective of this restaurant is to assist the local farmers to increase profits. The secondary objective is to establish an adequate role and operation mode, and the final objective is to identify the role and function of this community-supported agriculture in the structural holes of a social network, and meanwhile understand the appropriateness of social capital flow in this network. From an academic perspective, this study proposed theoretically and empirically based concepts by observing how social capital affects a community-supported agriculture. As for practical contribution, this study can serve as a reference point for otherexamples of community-supported agricultures, related communities or organizations to build a social network. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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