Mechanisms for Establishing a Community-based Group Farming Organization:

A Case Study of X Town, Ayabe City, Kyoto Prefecture

Abstract

This study dynamically analyzes the organizational process of a new rural community organization, focusing on how a predecessor organization and its activities shaped this process. It focuses on two research goals: (1) constructing an analytical framework using concepts from MacIver (2009), and (2) clarifying the dynamics and success factors of organizing through a case study.

To achieve the first goal, a framework was developed to enable integrated analysis of social relations, social processes, and leadership formation in a rural community. This framework presents leadership as an evolving process incorporating socialization and individualization. It also embeds the mechanism through which a leader’s individual interests are gradually communalized within the community, showing how organization emerges through the interactive and parallel transformation of individuals and rural community structure.

The analytical framework was employed to analyze the process of establishing a new community-based group-farming organization in X Town, Ayabe City, Kyoto Prefecture. The analysis identifies four key success factors:

(1) A predecessor organization functioning as a “Ba” (a mediating association fostering the dynamic interplay of socialization and individualization in a rural community).

(2) Phased communalization of interests through careful consensus-building.

(3) A leader who diffuses individual interests throughout the community.

(4) The leader’s external experiences, which promote psychological maturity and provide skills unavailable within the community.

From a policy perspective, institutional support for associations serving as “Ba” is desirable, along with fostering new relational spaces that support phased communalization of interests and leadership development in rural communities.