(研究ノート)農業経営学の課題と方法の検討 : 実践科学としての確立を求めて

Abstract

1. In this paper the direction for resolution of critical situation in farm management is investigated based on a representative text: Natsuki Kanazawa, Farm Management Lectures, and Kenji Cho, ed. Tasks and Method of Farm Management, published by the Japan Association of Farm Management. 2. Firstly, defining the crisis situation in farm management as low ability to cope with the actual managerial problems, the factors for the crisis are analyzed from the view points of increasing effects of surrounding conditions to farm management and the delay in the coping by the farm management science. 3. Secondly, the framework and problems of Kanazawa's management science and the reached science level of that book published by the Association are investigated in order to identify the current state of management science. It was found that in the introduction of the latter book the basic problems of farm management and their solution directions are properly presented. 4. Based on the investigation of the two publications, it is found that the basic problem of farm management is the loss of capability to cope with the empirical management problems. The causes of this problem are the lack of efforts to clarify the framework of farm management, lack of common recognition of farm management as an empirical science among researchers, methodological problems, problems related to the identification of farm management problems. 5. The important points to consider in order to set the framework of farm management as an empirical science are (1) specification of farm management as the objective of managerial study, (2) identification of managerial problems related to the real farm managements, (3) development of methods to solve these problems, (4) expansion of the scope of research objectives responding to externalization of management functions and (5) importance of analysis of the surrounding conditions to the farm management. Based on these points, the contents of farm management are presented as a trial. 6. Finally, as the methodological problems of farm management, it is important to develop further the identification method of research problems, the methods to forecast the future of farm management, the methods to solve farm management problems and farm management planning methods. In addition survey method of farm management is identified to be developed as the basic method for the research of farm management.