2026 Volume 64 Issue 1 Pages 10-21
Information and Communication Technology(ICT)-based information systems and services for smart farming have recently diffused among Japanese farm management entities expanding their scale of operations. Based on the author’s research results over the past ten years and organizational and contract theories, this paper explains how farm managements should utilize ICT-based information systems and services with changing their organizational structures, and what strategy they should choose for the utilization to enhance their farm management. This paper shows that whether farm management entities can effectively utilize ICT-based information systems and services toward their growth depends on their endowments or availability of complementary human resources and/or their collaboration systems with external organizations. Moreover, this paper discusses how farm management entities can combine various management resources and collaborate with external organizations to efficiently utilize ICT-based information systems and services and enhance their management growth. Thus, this paper points out that farm management entities need to develop effective combination and collaboration strategies. The paper presents specific examples and theoretical explanations to illustrate these arguments. For example, when farm management entities adopt ICT-based information systems, delegating authority to employees may not be efficient for them. The reason is that the employees may not easily master management skills. Additionally, the communication cost savings due to the ICT-based information systems may be sufficiently large to justify authority centralization to managers. Thus, the optimal authority allocation for such farm management entities depends on their human resource endowments and the cost-effectiveness of the systems. This paper illustrates what strategy such farm management entities can take to develop a competitive combination of human resources and ICT-based information systems consistent with the optimal authority allocation.
