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.