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Driven by the collective good
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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en
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101
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This study investigates the relationship between social embeddedness and sustainability in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) in the Mugla region of Turkiye. Drawing on a constructivist approach and an instrumental multiple case study design, it examines how trust, reciprocity, and participation, the core values of social embeddedness, shape AFNs’ sustainability outcomes. The study is based on eight semi-structured interviews with producers and consumers across four AFNs, participant observations from two field trips, and analysis of secondary materials. Data were analysed through an iterative two-cycle coding process, enabling the identification of relational patterns across cases.
The findings reveal three interrelated dynamics. First, reciprocity operates as the primary relational driver governing everyday interactions within AFNs and directly shaping the trajectory of participation, while participation sustains collective action and network functioning. Second, trust emerges as a critical mediating value: it functions both as a precondition for enabling relationships and as a steering mechanism that determines whether socially embedded values translate into sustainable outcomes. Third, local discourse, shaped by cultural, geographical, and historical conditions, creates structural constraints and opportunities that influence the development of embedded values.
The study contributes to AFN scholarship by reconceptualising social embeddedness as a dynamic core characteristic rather than a static outcome, and by identifying local discourse as a structurally embedded factor constituted by pre-existing relational patterns. It also extends empirical understanding of AFNs by providing evidence from an underrepresented geographical context. Overall, the findings suggest that social embeddedness constitutes a relational core within which AFNs’ sustainable organising and sustainability outcomes take form.