Business Development, ICT Use, and Personnel Training in Agricultural Corporations: An Analysis of a Nationwide Questionnaire Survey

Abstract

In this study, we clarified the latest trends and relationships among business development, personnel training, and ICT (information and communication technology) use in agricultural corporations based on the results of a nationwide questionnaire survey. Our analysis showed several noticeable trends and relationships: (1) Management size expansion (i.e., increases in sales and the number of employees). (2) As business sales increased, the ratio of the corporations with surplus profit increases. (3) Personnel training and marketing were identified as common problems, especially in relation to business diversification. (4) Corporations that promoted personnel training increased along with expanding the business scale (increase of the number of employers). We also clarified several trends in the use of ICT, particularly as it relates to personnel training. Most of the agricultural corporations use items such as personal computers and cellular phones in the regular course of business, and as many as 20 percent use various sensors. Most corporations use ICT for “Financial management” regardless of the management scale, but the ICT use ratio for “Measurement of information” with sensors and “Automatic control” varies depending on the management scale. The ICT use ratio increased for most items as the management size increased. For example, the use ratio for “Arrange and share information” increased proportionally as the number of employees increased, whereas “Work and judgment support” increased rapidly if the number of employees exceeded a baseline value.