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.
抄録全体を表示