2019 Volume 38 Issue Special_Issue Pages 283-291
The aim of the project named “Local Vitalization Cooperators”, which was created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2009, is for the members to perform their activities that contribute to regional revitalization during a maximum term of three years. However, numerous members are worried regarding the implementation of these activities, and it is a problem because they quit their job during their term. To solve this problem, the importance of cooperation among the members has been considered. In addition, cooperation among the members is affected by their work schedules (fixed and flextime). Therefore, this study investigates the effects of cooperation among members on the various activities of the project by focusing on the differences in their work schedules. A survey was conducted in Naka town, Tokushima prefecture, Japan clarifying the transition of the members’ activities. Additionally, the structural analysis of the cooperation among members based on social network analysis and index calculation of the effects of the cooperation on their activities were performed. The key observations of this study are as follows. (1) We classified the members' activities into five categories. Regardless of the differences in their work schedules, they continued and developed the activities. (2) The contents of the cooperation were classified into four categories: people, skill, goods, and information. The cooperation among members was higher in the flextime members than the fixed members. (3) Irrespective of the differences in their work schedules, the cooperation among members affected the implementation of their activities. The indexes of the effects of the members’ cooperation on their activities were higher in the flextime members than the fixed members.
