In this paper, we take up the problem that the number of farm households in Hokkaido is expected to decrease rapidly to the extent that rural areas may find it difficult to sustain agriculture. Indeed, it could be asserted that rural agriculture faces a sustainable farming crisis. We now have to pay attention to new organizations designated to address this critical problem in land-extensive farming. Considering this situation, we have selected two types of organizations for study. One is a support organization for non-family-type farm succession of dairy farming in northern Hokkaido. A second is some incorporated groups of farming organizations for upland farming in eastern part of Hokkaido. The common features of these two types are their organizational structure based on cooperation by farmers without successors, and their shared objective to generate new farmers by ensuring either trainees to become new farmers or employees for incorporated farms. At the same time, accession to such organizations for members farmers leads to their retirement from farming. Paradoxically, the source of capitalism viability has originated from family existence (citing Shumpeter), hence the farmers without successors seem to lack optimism for their family continuance. However, it is crucial that these member farmers share a desire for rural community continuance within the area of their organizations. Thus, we conclude that the momentum to establish new organizations by farmers without successors indicates a meaningful conversion in motive for continuance from family to rural community within certain specific areas. In addition, we find from the perspective of understanding typical incorporated group farming that there are three types of new farmers ; (1) sons of charter members who returned back as employees, (2) youth hoping for farming other than family employees, and (3) non-member farmers within the same area who are new to incorporated group farming organizations. At present, newly established incorporated group farming is expected to ensure successors of the organization from such three types of entrants into farming.

Farm management incorporation has been a major innovation in Japan. Several case studies have examined the current status and organizational structure of farm management incorporation in Japan. However, few studies have examined how the decision to incorporate is made or how incorporation impacts farm management. Using household-level panel data from the agricultural census, we use propensity score matching to examine the determinants of incorporation and the impacts of incorporation on farm management. We find that farm size and the adoption of farming-related business were correlated with incorporation.

Furthermore, the results of the propensity score matching analysis suggest that incorporation has led to increased sales of farm products, the development of farming-related businesses, and job creation in rural areas. These findings suggest that incorporation not only improves the organizational structure of farm management, but that it also has positive external effects on the regional economy via job creation and the development of farming-related business.

Recently, Japanese agricultural corporations face many difficulties as they attempt to promote management reform, such as technological innovation, a change from being a family business to an organizational business, cultural changes surrounding farmers and their communities, industrial growth, business diversification, modernization of products and services, and internationalization. These corporations find that it is important to change not only their business structure but also their organizational culture, which may lead to sharing a mind-set of adapting to changes in modern markets and technology. However, our review of existing literature reveals that there has been limited empirical research on agriculture corporations in terms of their organizational culture. Based on the Competing Values Framework (CVF) which suggests four main cultural types -- hierarchical culture, market culture, clan culture and adhocracy (or innovative) culture -- current managerial reforms in modern agricultural corporations seem to indicate a shift from traditional clan culture to market and innovative cultures.

Major parts of previous research have suggested that when organizational culture is strongly shared within an organization, ] it facilitates excellent coordination and communication and provides efficient performance. But agricultural corporations are different from major business organizations as they tend to be social corporations rather than profit seeking organizations; that is they are small medium sized, family owned businesses that embedded in the local community. However, existing research on organizational culture has focused on large-scale organizations and multi-national businesses. Thus, research on organizational culture in agriculture corporations may need to focus on these differences in order to explore the uniqueness of their culture and the special conditions of their cultural transformation.

We propose that future research into organizational culture in agricultural corporations should be further developed along the following four points: First, we should find out the most dominant culture profile for the agricultural corporations by using the competing values framework (CVF), or some similar framework that analyzes effective organizational culture in agriculture; Second, we should explore why organizational culture change is needed in agricultural corporations by investigating the possible fundamental incompatibility between performance and business environment; Third, it is necessary to analyze agricultural corporations from a multi-level approach, not a single case or single level approach; Fourth, researchers had better engage in culture research on agricultural corporations as social enterprises, because of their social mission.

The purpose of this report is to theoretically examine organizational change within local agricultural organizations. To do this, I utilize the concept of intermediate structures. The target of the analysis is limited to local agricultural organizations. If we are to understand the local agricultural organization as a form of cooperation for family farm management, then we must historically reorganize how organizational change has been investigated in previous research.

Organizational change of local agricultural organization is analyzed using the following two approaches : (1) An analysis of organizational change from complementary to alternative farming management ; and (2) an analysis of organizational change using a multi-layering of area wide cooperation.