抄録
As an ever-higher number of family-run farms become incorporated and female entrepreneurs develop businesses, the role played by agricultural business managers has become increasingly important. Thus, understanding the traits of such business leaders is vital to the industry’s future growth. Investigating the characteristics of farm managers who achieve sales of 10 million yen or more, this paper (1) establishes multiple indices for measuring the wide range of traits of agricultural business managers; (2) evaluates features such as sales, management model, and the number of employees; and (3) makes generalizations about the traits of agricultural business managers. From this evaluation, the following three points emerge.
First, agricultural business managers can be characterized by 15 traits that can be measured on the basis of 70 indices. We performed a factor analysis and identified three significant factors. Factor 1, which is labeled Strategic Management Ability, encompasses the following traits: “vision and strategy,” “ambition and daring,” “time management,” and “insight and decisiveness.” Factor 2, which is labeled Leader’s Charisma and Humanity, includes the following: “leadership,” “faith and ethics,” “magnanimity and character,” and “sense of responsibility.” Finally, Factor 3, which is labeled Sociability and Networking, encompasses “ability to network,” “sociability,” and “care for employees.”
Second, education and the size of staff and total sales had a substantial impact on the ratings for the agricultural business managers’ traits. Better-educated managers gave high ratings to the traits “faith and ethics,” “vision and strategy,” and “insight and decisiveness,” which could be categorized as professional qualifications for managers. On the other hand, managers who had a large staff and high sales gave high ratings in the personnel and labor management categories, namely, “leadership,” “sense of responsibility,” and “magnanimity and character.” This evaluation confirms that many of the managerial traits under consideration can be acquired through education and experience.
Our third and most important finding was that farm managers should have a large social network in order to be successful.
