| Abstract | Sustainable digital solutions for biodiversity and food system transformation stall because heterogeneous stakeholder knowledge is hard to integrate and translate into implementable artefacts. This conceptual article explains how stakeholder collaboration can accelerate sustainable digital solution design by integrating absorptive capacity and design thinking within a DEKA-CoPs (Digitally Enhanced Knowledge Architecture for Communities of Practice) extension. We conceptualise high-quality stakeholder co-creation configurations as expanding epistemic diversity and enabling collective knowledge mobilisation. Mobilised knowledge strengthens absorptive capacity by improving the collective ability to recognise, assimilate and apply biodiversity, heritage and market knowledge to design decisions. Absorptive capacity then enables a design thinking cycle that stabilises problem framing and compresses learning through prototyping and testing, yielding quality-adjusted acceleration. We further theorise boundary conditions: programme configurations in Slow Food biodiversity work (Ark of Taste, Presidia, Earth Markets, Cooks’ Alliance, Food Gardens in Africa, Slow Food Travel) moderate the conversion of mobilised knowledge into absorptive capacity, while ecosystem coordination moderates the impact of design thinking enactment on acceleration. The framework contributes to knowledge management and innovation research by specifying a capability-process-governance explanation of solution acceleration and by offering guidance for policymakers and practitioners seeking to scale legitimate digital solutions that protect biodiversity without erasing local authenticity. |
|---|