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This article investigates the relationship between farm management skills, entrepreneurial bricolage and market orientation in smallholder farms.

The study used quantitative approaches to survey 378 smallholder farms in Uganda. Data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling to establish the relationship between farm management skills, entrepreneurial bricolage and market orientation.

Farm management skills positively predict market orientation while entrepreneurial bricolage partially mediates the relationship between farm management skills and market orientation.

The study utilized a survey design, which provides a cross-sectional view. Given that market orientation of smallholder farms can vary during the farm growth process, it becomes more informative to analyse how the independent and mediating variables cause a variation at different levels of market orientation.

Farm management training programmes that emphasize financial management skills and employ a household approach should be strengthened to enhance smallholder market orientation. Strategies for enhancing market orientation should also entail bricolage as a complementary behaviour to farm management.

We introduce entrepreneurial bricolage to the market orientation debate. The study brings alive the significance of entrepreneurial bricolage in smallholder farming. It also confirms the role of farm management skills in enhancing the market orientation of smallholder farms.

This study aims to identify the key drivers influencing the success of farmers who employ direct marketing at wholesale markets. The diversification of the distribution system in Thailand has created many challenges for farmers, with diversified farm businesses struggling to survive and to ensure profitability across channels. Direct marketing channels at wholesale markets provide farmers the opportunity to develop a new farm business division.

The study consists of qualitative and quantitative approaches. First, in-depth interviews with farmers were conducted, and selected case studies were employed to develop a research framework and design the questionnaire. Second, the questionnaire survey was conducted. Using factor analysis and logistic regression, farmers' data were studied to define the factors of success in direct marketing.

Three key drivers were examined and verified. The findings indicate that the development of direct marketing channels requires farmers to efficiently allocate family labour, possess negotiation skills and manage a farmer network. Particularly, the presence of negotiation skills coupled with digital technology can enable farmers to expand the market and build their network.

Two marketing channels have been explored. However, more choices in marketing channels utilizing digital resources should be addressed in future research.

This is the first empirical study to define the drivers leading Thai farmers to continue employing a direct marketing channel.

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of oral communication in improving the marketing and financial management skills of sweet potato farmers.

The study used a quasi-experimental design with a pre- and post-test approach. The sample was 540 sweet potato farmers that were randomly assigned to training (n = 270) and no-training groups (n = 270) with analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) as the method of data analysis. While the training group received oral training sessions for three farming seasons beginning in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the no-training group did not receive any intervention.

Before the training sessions, all the sweet potato farmers scored low on marketing skills like advertising, sales promotion and sales forecasting. Both groups also scored low on financial management skills like budgeting, investments, saving and controlling expenditures. Their annual income level was also low and both groups did not significantly differ. However, after the training and during the follow-up evaluation, the participants in the training group reported a significant improvement in their marketing skills and financial management skills. There was also an improvement in their income level from $238 (N109,480) at baseline to $523 (N240,580) after the training and $782 (N359,720) after the follow-up evaluation. On the other hand, the no-training group reported a staggered fluctuation in their income of $241 (N110,860) at baseline, $371(N170,660) during post-training evaluation and $214 (N98,440) at follow-up assessment.

The first limitation is that the study examined only one crop. There is a need to pay attention to farmers of other crops for better understanding. Another limitation of the study is that the researchers examined only oral communication. There is a need to compare more than one training to understand which is more effective. Finally, the current study did not consider the moderating effect of other factors like the source of labour and expenses.

This study has shown that oral communication is an effective tool for promoting the acquisition of marketing and financial management skills and enhancing agribusiness.

This article explores the potential of an emerging group of farmers in Kenya, namely the growing segment of urban-based medium-size farmers, often called “telephone farmers”. To what extent do they benefit from an emerging ecosystem to support them in operating their farms, and what does that mean for the Hidden middle of agricultural value chains, the actors between the farmers and consumers? Unlocking the potential production of telephone farmers will require more services from collectors, traders, transport firms, the storage facilities, wholesalers and processing units and retailers. Ultimately, optimized telephone farm production benefits the business of Hidden middle value chain actors, increases incomes and jobs and improves food security.

Based on a survey and in-depth interviews a profile of the telephone farmers is given and their role as innovators is analyzed. The Latia Resource Centre (LRC) provides assistance to medium-size farmers, like the telephone farmers, helping them to prepare business plans and use modern technology and contributing to an emerging ecosystem providing support to all farmers.

The article analyzes the medium-size telephone farmers. It documents the contributions of this new agricultural actor to developing value chains and a dynamic ecosystem. The paper profiles the telephone farmers first and then identifies what they need and the support they receive. The emerging innovative ecosystem impacts agricultural productivity and production and hence the development of value chains. Small farmers gain access to opportunities offered by telephone farmers, working for them as outgrower or farm worker.

The authors used a small sample of 51 farmers and covered only a two-year period.

Small farmers are being helped through the emerging eco-system and farm labor acquire skills, which they can also you on another or their own farm.

Based on the analysis an even more effective ecosystem is suggested and policy recommendations are formulated before the conclusion is drawn that these medium-size farmers contribute to innovation diffusion, inclusive value chain development and food security and are becoming part of this expanding, innovative ecosystem. Following the debate on food security the results suggest to pay more attention to the development of telephone farmers given their role in developing agricultural value chains and innovative ecosystems.

A family member may work for the family business even though the direct financial benefits he or she may receive in the form of a salary may be lower than what could be earned working for a non-family business. The lower amount may be accepted because of benefits of association with the family business. This psychic non-pecuniary return has been called socioemotional wealth in the family business research literature. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to estimate socioemotional wealth and apply that technique to a group of family dairy farms to estimate socioemotional wealth for those family farms.

A panel regression method was used to empirically allocate net farm income to the unpaid factors of equity, labor, and management provided by a family member in a family farm partnership. The estimated returns of labor plus management are compared to the market salary earned by farm managers who manage farms. The difference between the higher hired farm manager salary and what the family manager earns in the family farm from labor and management is an estimate of the non-pecuniary return the family member receives from managing the family farm as compared to managing the non-family farm.

Differences in managers’ salary working for the non-family farm and the implied family manager financial compensation estimates indicate that family business managers’ non-pecuniary return from managing the family farm had an implied economic value averaging $22,026 per year over 1999-2008. Assuming that the manager would be indifferent between working for the family farm or the non-family farm if the sum of pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns were the same, the non-pecuniary annual benefits of $22,026 accrues in the form of socioemotional wealth associated as a member in the family business.

Although the literature discusses how family members may accept a lower salary working for the family business than they could earn doing comparable work in a non-family business because of non-financial rewards they experience working for the family business, there have been no estimates of the value of this pecuniary benefit. The authors arrive at an estimate using a group of family dairy farm businesses that have multiple family managers.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if a single dominant measure defines farm size and farm performance consistently over a ten‐year time period, or if alternative measures are needed. The paper also seeks to determine the correlation between farm size and farm performance and how this correlation may change over time.

A confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the relative strength of farm size and performance indicator variables and estimate the relationship between farm size and performance latent variables. Data were collected from the North Dakota Farm and Ranch Business Management Association (NDFRBA) Annual Summaries for 2000‐2009.

Results demonstrated that a single indicator, such as acres or rate of return on assets, may not capture the array of farm size and farm performance concepts and multiple indicators should be used to jointly determine farm size and farm performance measures. Results also found a sequential decrease in correlation between farm size and performance for seven of the ten years.

This paper addresses the issue regarding multiple measures for farm size and farm performance which helps provide the framework to begin developing a systematic classification of farms for use in strategic farm planning and guide future government policies, federal farm programs, and environmental regulations.

This investigation considers factors affecting off‐farm investment of farm households. A national farm‐level survey was used to evaluate the effects of various farm and operator characteristics on the likelihood of off‐farm investment. Results suggest differences in level of education, age of the operator, off‐farm income, household net worth, leverage, farm size, farm diversification, management skills, and location influence off‐farm investment decisions.

Corporate organizations could enhance their economic and commercial values through knowledge acquisitions and exploitations. The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic and commercial performance effect of poultry management absorptive capacity in Nigeria.

Structural equation modeling was used in the analysis of a random sample of 300 poultry managers and owners surveyed within the South-Eastern Nigeria. The scales that quantified the latent variables of the factors were tested for reliability and consistency using confirmatory factor analysis.

The study found evidence that the difference between economically and commercially viable poultry businesses and failing ones depends on the level of absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity advanced innovations that resulted in higher economic and commercial performance of poultry farm. Poultry firms' profitability, sales growth and market shares were positively increased by absorptive capacity dimensions of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation.

The study was carried out within a region in Nigeria and thus could be limited by generalization to the developed country.

This study is the first to link four dimensions of absorptive capacity to the economic and commercial performance of poultry businesses in Nigeria. As such, it originally breaks new frontier of poultry farming from dynamic capabilities and absorptive capacity perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how entrepreneurial bricolage empowers smallholder commercial farming, from a family business perspective.

The study employed a multiple case study design to analyse entrepreneurial bricolage in smallholder commercial farming in Uganda. It used multiple data collection methods and applied content analytical tchniques to establish cross-case correlations, patterns and relationships to aid in theory development and testing.

The study shows that entrepreneurial bricolage empowers smallholder commercialization through resource reallocation, improvization and prioritization as interconnected, self-reinforcing bricolage processes in smallholder farming. It provides evidence of how smallholder farms may not enact institutional limits, and overcome constraints imposed by their resource environments. It further reveals that smallholder commercial farms can be construed as family businesses given the interconnected relationship between farming business, family and smallholder farm(er).

The study was conducted in smallholder farms hence results may be used cautiously in other sectors and economies where resource environments are not structurally defined. However, it provides lessons for family businesses in developed countries particularly the micro- and small businesses. It also renders smallholder farming as a lucrative area for family business research.

This study deepens our understanding of bricolage in smallholder farming and provides a springboard for scholarship in enhancing smallholder commercialization. It proposes a model for entrepreneurial bricolage in smallholder commercial farming.

Operations and Logistics.

Senior undergraduate students and postgraduate students specialising in agricultural economics/agribusiness/supply chain management and can also be used for executive training for supply chain managers and corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers of food companies.

This case presents an industry leading company – Nestlé’s sustainable initiative in its dairy supply chain in China. The case begins with the background of China’s dairy industry, followed by an introduction of the case company. The case then moves on to the comparison of Nestlé’s fresh milk supply chain operation before and after 2008 and different approaches to help the dairy suppliers’ transformation. The focus is on Nestlé’s innovative industry collaboration platform, the Dairy Farming Institute.

This case allows students to explore the following theoretical frameworks: sustainable supply chain management; supply chain leadership, supply chain learning and supply chain structure. By analysing this case, students should be able to gain an understanding of how multinational corporations (MNCs) play a supply chain leadership role in supply chain learning of sustainable supply chain initiatives.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.