本稿は，エブリイホーミイグループの中核企業であるエブリイ社にインタビューしてその特徴を分析し，成功要因と課題を提示したものである。エブリイホーミイグループは，食に関する総合プロデュースグループとして新しい企業価値を生み出すという壮大な理念のもとに様々な事業を展開してきた会社である。

　エブリイホーミイグループの成功の要因は，11のグループ企業が一つのホールディングス体制のもとに多様な業態の理念と戦略を共有し，中核のスーパーについて次々と新たな店舗を開拓しつつ，新しいビジネスモデルを打ち出してきたことにある。しかも，それぞれの店舗は選択と集中により地域で一番を目指すという戦略，基幹店である緑町店などは産直売り場を思い切って3倍にするという圧倒的な集客力を実現する戦略等，ユニークな経営をおこなったところにその特徴がある。

　とくにエブリイの優れた点を挙げると，一つは，独自のビジネス・マインドを持って経営をしていること，もう一つは，ミッションとメッセージを通じて有為な人財を育てていること，さらに付け加えれば，時流をいち早く読んで，その時代にタイミング良く新しいビジネスモデルに基づく店舗を開設していることにある。

　そうしたエブリイのユニークな経営と新たなビジネスモデルの成功の要因について，実際の比率分析からその証拠を見出してみようというのが，本事例研究の狙いである。最後に，まとめとエブリイの今後の課題を提示している。

“Excellence” is a key concept in discussions about modern research universities. However, the perception of excellence is ambiguous. The purposes of this paper are to investigate the concept of excellence from a historical perspective and to clarify its ideological roots and trajectory. Previous studies have addressed the concept of excellence only as a subject pertaining to the debate on the education reform in the United States that took place in the 1960s and 1980s. This research presents a new historical perspective on the formation of excellence, which refers to the concept of “excellence” in universities proposed by Frederic Terman. Historical research reveals the hypothesis that excellence is a concept based on “war,” which emerges when international competitiveness is strongly sought. The three periods when the pursuit of excellence became the main theme coincided with the time when international competitiveness was threatened in the United States. International competitiveness has historically meant competitiveness in military technology, that is, a struggle that bets on the survival and dignity of the nation. In this context, the concept of excellence encompasses the search for prominence in academic research and education through university reform in modern society, and its roots are the pursuit of military competitiveness at the Center of Excellence.

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.

本稿では、マーケティング・コンセプトの実行に関する研究のレビューを行う。これまでの研究は、個人の販売行動に焦点を当てる顧客志向研究と、事業単位の組織文化に焦点を当てる市場志向研究に分けられる。市場志向研究は、製造業の文脈を想定し、また、組織文化が組織内で同質的であると暗黙の前提を置くことで、従業員の存在を看過してきた。今後は、従業員の市場志向に対する知覚と、顧客接点における顧客志向を取り込むことが重要である。