This research was carried out to find out whether general business management strategies can be applied to agricultural management in Japan. We chose advanced rice farming as the empirical basis for this research, rather than assuming the application of business management strategies to agriculture in general. We employed a range of research methods including interviews with 4 farming operators, a sample survey questionnaire with 60 respondents, and interviews with management consultants. The findings revealed that business management strategies are effective when applied to farming operations with a certain scale, but do not suit conventional, small-scale, family-run, rice farming operations. Among large-scale rice farming operations, the application of management philosophies is more suitable for operations focused on growth rather than operations that prioritize sustainability. Moreover, the application of business management strategies in the narrow sense (that is, management strategy tools, management plan, business management cycle) is suitable to farms that plan to diversify their operations, but less so for farms that wish to continue growing rice alone. These findings are mostly in line with what has been observed in the application of strategy techniques to business management in general. It is expected that the incorporation of these findings to agricultural management will help drive the development of more organized farm management.

This study used a retrospective perspective on emergent strategies to trace two cases of pioneering business expansion and to clarify the actual circumstances concerning strategy in the context of differentiation and partnership.

The following results were obtained :

1) The major points that the cases have in common are the facts that the motivations to start the businesses were idealized, the rough business concepts that were drawn up at the time the businesses were created in the absence of business entities that they could be modeled after, and the businesses were diversified starting in the 1970s. Leading positions were gained through differentiation and partnership due to the difficulties in increasing the scale of agricultural production.

2) In both cases, the tendency to “control systematically while learning” was observed, which Mintzberg has highlighted as necessary.

In addition, the following points related to the applicability and effectiveness of strategic theory in the practice of farm management were identified :

1) It is necessary to consider the applicability to limited subjects or other relevant factors, and a theory is considered applicable if a business starts as an entrepreneurial organization in the same way as in the two cases reviewed for this paper. However, this is at the level of applying a simple, generalized theory to an organization. Therefore, it is necessary to create functional strategies for marketing and other business aspects.

2) It is also necessary to consider the effectiveness with limited subjects or other relevant factors. However, if a business starts as an entrepreneurial organization, it is not easy to observe and review such a business from an external perspective because management ability and other factors are involved. Furthermore, even if a strategy is applicable, business managers’ evaluation of the strategy would not always be the same, regardless of whether or not it is an entrepreneurial organization.

Asai Nursery, Inc. has introduced a management development process based on constructing and optimizing a unique agricultural value chain that has lead to the strengthening of its competitive power in greenhouse vegetable management. Under the slogan “A research and development oriented agricultural company dedicated to improving field performance,” our firm researches and develops new varieties, develops new cultivation and management techniques, and implements a highly productive agricultural production process management system. In addition, vertical integration is used for the stable integration of agricultural product development through differentiation strategies. Various joint research and development projects are being carried out in order to actively promote partnerships with non-agricultural companies and to incorporate highly competitive technologies and know-how possessed by companies in different fields. Results are implemented by integrating these projects with the high production management technology of Asai Nursery to improve productivity and profitability.

In addition, by utilizing the capital strength and financial capabilities of partner companies, we have successfully expanded the scale of business as a group. Two major factors for the evolution and development of the cherry tomato business at Asai Nursery are : “Differentiation Strategy” and “Numerical Management.” An example of a concrete result of the “Differentiation Strategy” is the “cluster-type cherry tomato (Ureshino),” which conveys the product concept to the consumers and leads to its distinction from other products. We also use value chain analysis as an analysis method to build our differentiation strategies. Furthermore, in executing these differentiation strategies, we have set up a management concept for implementing a “Numerical Management” strategy for product quality control.

With respect to various management items in the production process, the idea that “digitization＝visualization” is implemented as much as possible. By working on production management based on common standards, all employees further standardize their work, improving productivity along the way. As a result, productivity of the whole organization is improved. We are promoting the introduction of ICT in cultivation management, labor management, business management, etc. as a tool to realize numerical management, giving many success stories and achievements in the standardization of work and improvement of productivity. Some examples of our use of ICT in “numerical management” include a complex environmental control system introduced for optimizing the cultivation environment in plant growth, and a labor management system that can efficiently and effectively carry out labor management and MBO. In this way, Asai Nursery, has developed a market centered around a “differentiation strategy” and established a reproducible production system by “numerical management” in order to respond to market demand. We are also working to maximize value in order to optimize the value chain, to realize rapid business scale expansion, and to enhance the competitiveness of the group as a whole through partnerships with companies. However, even if there is an excellent vision and management strategy, unless there is an organization capable of executing this vision reliably and promptly, it is impossible to enhance competitiveness and to sustain management development. At Asai Nursery, we focus on the executive ability of our management strategy, emphasizing the development of “human capital,” and are challenging ourselves to build a structure of human capital from employment to education and establishment. Therefore, as an assumed “agricultural personnel image,” it is “human capital” that combines the three elements of “farming,” “business,” and “science.”

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There has been a great deal of esearch on human resource management in business administration in recent years. However, there has been much less research on human resource management in the agricultural sector. Nevertheless, the number of agricultural corporations promoting scale expansion and business diversification has increased, and young employees hired by those corporations are also increasing year by year. The practice of human resource management that improves employment conditions and the work environment so that employers can demonstrate their abilities and increase motivation has become more important.

In this paper, we set up a hypothesis that appropriate human resource management measures will improve employee satisfaction and motivation, and as result, a positive influence on management can be achieved. This study is based on analyzing detailed internal data of a livestock corporation.

A hog raising corporation in western Japan that ships 50,000 pigs annually has expanded its business scale by 20 times over the last four years. We analyzed the data on human resource management and business performance in that firm for more than 10 years. Then we conducted an employee satisfaction survey, and investigated what influence the change and enhancement of human resources management had on the motivation of employees. In addition, we investigated the change in employee turnover rate and swine productiveness and verified whether there is an anaphoric relationship between human resource management and business performance.

As a result of continuous improvement with flexible measures in the employer’s human resource management, employee motivation has clearly improved. We also found that employees with higher satisfaction levels are more long-term work oriented and more inclined to participate in management. As a result of increased satisfaction, we confirmed that the early turnover rate dropped and that the productivity of swine production improved. In this paper, we also clarified that proper human resource management has a positive influence on employee satisfaction and business performance in agriculture.