抄録
Aging of the rice farming population and a decrease in the number of persons engaged in rice farming are serious issues in Japan. This has contributed to a succession problem in rice farms, and is a pressing societal concern. In particular, succession of large-scale rice farms is a particular problem because a failure to succeed large-scale rice farms can lead to large-scale abandonment of cultivated land, with a considerable impact on local communities.
On the other hand, it is thought that recruiting an employee to be the successor by changing the farm into a corporate entity will help to alleviate this issue, as well as extend the range for selecting a corporate successor. However, there is no guarantee that an employee will smoothly succeed as head of the corporation if appropriate management actions for succession are not taken. In Japanese rice farming, there are very few cases where an employee who is not from the founding family becomes the head of the corporation. In current succession studies of Japanese rice farming, the situation where an employee not from the founding family smoothly succeeds to lead the company has not been adequately clarified.
Therefore, this study aims to clarify the process of succession in a rice farming company by an employee who is not from the founding family. In this study, I use a case study method to analyze ROKUSEI Ltd., which is based in Hakusan City in Ishikawa Prefecture. This is a large-scale rice farming company that has a yearly sales turnover of around 600 million yen, and manages a total rice farming area of 113 hectares. This company was taken over in 2007 by three employees who were not founding family members. Furthermore, the successors of this company were elected on the basis of management ability. Therefore, by analyzing the succession process, we will be able to obtain a valuable insight about the expertise required of an employee for leading a rice-farming company.
In this case study, I analyzed five key points about this company. First, I comprehensively clarified the succession process of this company over the course of 18 years, and then divided the succession process into the following six stages:
Stage 1: Planning the future image of the company
Stage 2: Planning the means of succession
Stage 3: Organizing the employees’ recruitment
Stage 4: The selection and training of employees
Stage 5: The selection and training of successors
Stage 6: Transfer of the decision-making role and company ownership to the successors
Second, I clarified the management actions required in order to expedite the company founder’s succession process. Third, I clarified this company’s three successors’ profiles by means of personal interviews, wherein it was learned that a common denominator was their shared value of a sense of work fulfillment. Fourth, I considered the reasons why they had been chosen to succeed the company. Fifth, I studied the company’s future business plan and uncovered a remarkable aspect.
In future studies, I will further investigate the success or failure of such succession from a management perspective, as well as this company’s management performance.
