5. Entrepreneursp in context II: Entrepreneurship and farms - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Title: 5. Entrepreneursp in context II: Entrepreneurship and farms


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5. Entrepreneursp in context II Entrepreneurship
and farms
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5. Entrepreneursp in context II Entrepreneurship
and farms

• A. Farms and the changing rural small business
• B. Policy frames in the farm sector
• C. Entrepreneurship and farmers
• D. Entrepreneur identity and entrepreneurial
  agency among farmers
• E. Entrepreneurial skills and the adoption of
  entrepreneurship discourse?

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A. Farms and the changing rural small business

• Structural change in acriculture globalisation
  free markets competitiveness social, regional
  and ecological concerns in EU-politics
• Finland Member of the EU since 1995
• Decline in the number of farms
• 1994 103 000
• 1995 95 600
• 2000 77 900
• 2005 69 000
• 2009 63 700

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A. Farms and the changing rural small business

• Growth in the average size
• 1995 23 ha arable land
• 2009 35 ha
• Growth in the overall productivity in 2009 the
  same amount of input yielded 21 more output than
  in 1992
• Agricultural income 1995 1,549 million 2009
  845 million
• Support payments represent 43 of the total
  return on agriculture and horticulture (1.9
  billion/4.6 billion)

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A. Farms and the changing rural small business

• Employment
• Agriculture 1995 140 000 2009 90 000
• Trade of agricultural inputs 20 000 (2009)
• Food industry 1995 45 000 2009 35 000
• Food trade 50 000
• Restaurant catering services 1995 46 000
  2009 66 000
• Food sector in all almost 300 000

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A. Farms and the changing rural small business

• Rural small businesses
• Basic agriculture farms
• 200058 000 2007 50 150
• Diversified farms
• 2000 21 800 2007 23 200
• Other rural small firms (less than 20 persons)
• 2000 56 600 2007 69 400

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A. Farms and the changing rural small business

• Diversified activities (2007)
• Primary prod. (other than agriculture
  forestry) 1500 farms
• Industry 4700 (food wood processing,
  handicraft, peat energy production, metal
  products)
• Construction 1000
• Trade 1300
• Services 14 500 (tourism, machine contracting,
  care services, transportation, horse husbandry
  services)

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B. Policy frames in the farm sector

• Potter Tilzey 2005 Agricultural policy
  discourses in the European post-Fordist
  transition neoliberalism, neomercantilism and
  multifunctionality
• Phillipson et al. 2004 Treating farms as firms?
  The evolution of farm business support from
  productionist to entrepreneurial models.
  Environment and Planning C Government and Policy
  2004, volume 22, pages 31 54.

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Agricultural restructuring and related policy
discourses?

• There is neoliberalism but also discourses that
  can be (and have been) associated with
  entrepreneurship (multifunctionality,
  neomercantilism)

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Entrepreneurship discourses and the farm context?

• Phillipson et al. (2004) Treating farms as firms?
  The evolution of farm business support from
  productionist to entrepreneurial models.
  (Environment and Planning C Government and
  Policy 2004, volume 22, pages 31 54.)
• Throughout the European Union (EU) farming
  enterprises have traditionally operated within a
  very different political and economic environment
  from their nonagricultural counterparts.
  Agricultural activities have been governed by a
  separate set of policy objectives, political
  institutions, and support agencies.
• However, this agricultural exceptionalism' is
  being challenged via the liberalisation of
  markets, reform of government institutions, and
  demands for the closer and more strategic
  integration of farming within wider local and
  regional development initiatives. (p. 31)

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Potter Tilzey 2005, 587 (Agricultural policy
discourses in the European post-Fordist
transition neoliberalism, neomercantilism and
multifunctionality)

• While traditional family-farming constituencies,
  particularly those of neomercantilist and social
  protectionist persuasions, do continue actively
  and with varying degrees of success to defend
  state assistance in one form or another, the
  emergence of nonproductive fractions of agro-food
  capital such as processors, distributors and
  retailers as key and influential players in a
  form or another, the last 20 years has meant that
  agricultural market liberalization and the
  accelerated dismantling of state support now has
  strong support as a policy project (Cafruny,
  1989 Hart, 1997 McMichael, 2000 Josling, 2002).

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Potter Tilzey 2005, 589

• However, while it may be true that the WTO
  negotiations created a frame within which
  neoliberal interests could advance, a deeper
  understanding of the formative influences is
  required in order to explain why a neoliberal
  agenda for reform now began so strongly to
  emerge. Many of these derive from the
  restructuring of agriculture and the emergence of
  an agro-food industry composed of processors,
  distributors and retailers increasingly aligned
  to the interests of corporate capital.
• While these 'nonproductive fractions of
  agro-capital may not exhibit all the
  characteristics of vertically integrated,
  transnational sectors such as electronics,
  clothing or automobile production (Goodman,
  1997), they are now sufficiently disembedded from
  national and regional contexts and geared to the
  supply of world markets to be described as global
  in outlook and orientation (Josling, 2002).
• This has eroded the coherence of the
  agricultural policy community, challenging
  corporatist models of policy governance and
  introducing new discourses into the agricultural
  policy debate which emphasize international
  competitiveness and improved overseas market
  access (McMichael, 2000).

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Potter Tilzey 2005, 589

• Competing discourses
• -multifunctionalism
• -neomercantilism

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Multifunctionalism

• The concept of multifunctionality has its roots
  in a social welfare justification for state
  assistance which dates from the earliest years of
  the CAP (Potter, 2004). Since the mid-1980s,
  policy-makers have gradually acknowledged the
  need to diversify the income base of family farms
  by capitalizing on agriculture's ancillary
  functions such as biodiversity, landscape and
  cultural heritage.

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Multifunctionalism

• Thus, advocates of strong multifunctionality
  position their case firmly within what Reiger
  (1977) has called 'the moral economy of the
  European Community' (sic) by regarding the
  activity of farming as one of the defining
  conditions of rural space, the purpose of state
  assistance being to create the conditions under
  which family farming, rural landscapes and
  society can flourish.

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Neomercantilism

• Advocates of neomercantilism in agricultural
  policy, by contrast, start from an essentially
  productivist conception of the farmer's vocation,
  regarding the function of the state being to
  safeguard and underwrite productive capacity and
  export potential.

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C. Entrepreneurship and farmers

• a taken-for-granted assumption that market
  liberalisation and the dissolution of state
  protection (intervention through subsidies and
  regulation) creates the need for farmers to
  response entrepreurially
• Freedom to farm to market demand
• Not so simple, however

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Phillipson et al. (2004, 32-33)

• Ongoing trade liberalisation as well as reform
  of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are
  leading to increased pressure for the
  reorientation of farming to a more
  entrepreneurial model, that is both competitive
  and sustainable. Such changes in the policy
  context and trading environment are promoting
  alterations in the role, attitudes, and business
  practices of farmers and attempting to reduce the
  distorting effects of agricultural subsidies upon
  their business aspirations and decisions. As
  commodity price support systems are reduced and
  as production subsidies decline or are
  redirected, farmers will increasingly need to
  adapt.
• Many will find it difficult to compete purely on
  a cost basis and will need instead to focus their
  attentions on the identification and exploitation
  of opportunities for niche production and
  markets, means of adding value to their products,
  or enhanced systems of cooperation. Farmers are
  also being encouraged to diversify into
  alternative and nonfarming enterprises (PIU,
  1999). Shifting from a production to a more
  entrepreneurial model will require a greater
  emphasis on the personal capacities and
  entrepreneurial skills (1) of farmers with
  respect to commercialisation, promotion, and
  organisation (van Huylenbroeck and Durand, 2003).

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Phillipson et al. (2004, 33)

• 1) According to the UK paper Enterprise for All
  (SBS, 2001) an entrepreneurial approach is
  characterised by original thought, innovation,
  and risk taking. Such an approach has
  traditionally been less important to the farming
  sector as a consequence of protected markets and
  direct payments. With market liberalisation
  farmers are being encouraged to take on or seek
  out new economic opportunities which is placing
  greater emphasis on risk taking and market
  orientation and upon the development and
  application of (new) generic business skills.

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Phillipson et al. (2004, 33)

• In the United Kingdom, albeit with notable
  exceptions, many farmers have been characterised
  as lacking general business capabilities and as
  unwilling to adapt or develop new skills in light
  of changing demands, which is seen as part of a
  wider skills challenge within the agriculture and
  food sectors (DEFRA, 2002 Scottish Executive,
  2002) (2).For example, according to the
  Performance and Innovation Unit
• The problem of less entrepreneurial behaviour
  among some farmers may be a legacy of the heavily
  interventionist frameworks that have dominated
  agriculture throughout the post-war period.
  Government has not encouraged farmers to see
  themselves as entrepreneurs.

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Concluding the outline of Phillipson et al.

• Entrepreneurship discourse in agricultural
  policy entrepreneurs as agents who survive in
  open markets by pursuing business opportunities
  farmers as actors lacking such agency -gt farmers
  should be developed into entrepreneurs (by the
  government)
• Comp. Bryant (1989) Entrepreneurs in the rural
  environment. JRS 544

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Are entrepreneurship discourses totally new and
alien to farmers and farming culture?

• In addition to policy discourse, positive answer
  have been presented in some research discussions
  
• Dudley (2003) The entrepreneurial self? Identity
  and morality in a Midwestern Farming Community.
  In Adams, J. (ed.) Fighting for the farm.
  University of Pensylvania press.

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Reflecting Dudley

• While reading Dudley, figure out for yourself
  answers to the following questions
• What does Dudley (2003) mean by entrepreneurial
  self? What are the aspects and features of it? Is
  it the same as entrepreneurial spirit?
• What is the relation between farmers in Star
  Prairie and entrepreneurial self
• What is the relation between entrepreneurial self
  and the modern capitalistic market economy? How
  does entrepreneurial self connect to the
  restructuring of agriculture?

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Dudley conclusion

• Rather than two distinct categories of farmers
  (entrepreneur vs. yeoman) (p. 177-178),
  entrepreneurship suits for describing the
  commonly shared cultural basis of farming
  community.
• E agent aims to be independent, produce
  efficiently, grow the farm (legitimated by
  over-generation continuity and a good-farmer
  eye), assumes personal responsibility for the
  economic risk (self as principal?)
• Entrepreneurial self as a ground/foundation for
  self-regulative agency in farm ownership and
  management, but also for excessive risk-taking
• Credit-based production/absentee ownership as
  threats (186)

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Dudley conclusion

• The rhetoric of risk reframes the danger of
  dispossession and capital penetration as an
  individual moral dilemma (186) (self as
  principal frame legitimating capital
  penetration?)
• The rhetoric of risks limits the ability to
  conceptualise the social consequences of
  macro-economic forces that are beyond individual
  control (187) (exaggerating farmers agency)
• the rhetoric of risk helds individual
  accountable for their losses, while state
  sponsors the penetration of capital (188)

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D. Entrepreneur identity and entrepreneurial
agency among farmers
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• Methods
• Subjects three main groups
• 1) conventional farmers concentrating only on
  agricultural primary production (conventional
  farmers) (n271)
• 2) farmers who also had non-agricultural
  business (diversified farmers) (n469)
• 3) rural non-agricultural small-scale businesses
  (non-farm entrepreneurs) (n131). The sample of
  rural non-farm entrepreneurs was limited to
  small-scale enterprises with a maximum of 20
  personnel and sales of more than 100 000 .
• A rural area was defined as having a population
  density of less than 50 inhabitants/square km
  within a certain zip code.

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• Data collection
• Data was collected by postal questionnaire in
  year 2006. The questionnaire used in was a
  modified version of the earlier questionnaire
  (2001) with some of the original questions
  excluded and three new themes added.
• The questionnaire used in 2001 consisted of 71
  questions or series of questions organized under
  the following headings background information
  about the respondent identity economic
  information about the firm/farm conceptions
  about being an entrepreneur principles related
  to entrepreneurship and customer relations. For
  diversity there were 12 additional questions
  related to agriculture.

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Results

• Self-Identification
• Identity was measured by a question
• How do you define yourself? How well do the
  following describe you
• Im an Entrepreneur / Professional / Producer /
  Wage earner / Business manager?
• Each category was evaluated by using a five-point
  Likert-type scale ranging from (1) not at all
  to (5) very well.
• Because the variables were skewed, they were
  reclassified into three classes 1 not at all /
  somewhat / dont know 2 quite well and 3
  very well.
• Each identity variable was adjusted by
  subtracting the combined value for all
  identity-variables from it.
• A positive value for one identity category thus
  reflects that this category was evaluated as more
  self-descriptive when compared to other
  categories. And a negative value reflects that
  the category was seen as less self-descriptive
  than the other categories in general.

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• Measures for role expectations
• (Scale 1 totally disagree 5 Totally agree)
• Risk-taking
• I am more cautious with risk-taking compared to
  other entrepreneurs that I know (neg)
• I do not avoid taking risks
• I take risks only when compelled to do so (neg)
• I do not believe in success without risk-taking.
• Growth-orientation
• Increasing the turnover of my firm is a
  self-evident goal for me
• Compared to other entrepreneurs whom I know, I am
  more reluctant in expanding my business (neg)
• I prefer not to hire employees in my firm (neg)
• I am trying to expand my business activities

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• Measures for role expectations
• (Scale 1 totally disagree 5 Totally agree)
• Risk-taking
• I am more cautious with risk-taking compared to
  other entrepreneurs that I know (neg)
• I do not avoid taking risks
• I take risks only when compelled to do so (neg)
• I do not believe in success without risk-taking.
• Growth-orientation
• Increasing the turnover of my firm is a
  self-evident goal for me
• Compared to other entrepreneurs whom I know, I am
  more reluctant in expanding my business (neg)
• I prefer not to hire employees in my firm (neg)
• I am trying to expand my business activities

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• Innovativeness
• I aim for constant renewal in my business
  activities
• I enjoy developing new products and marketing
  ideas
• If needed, I will make major changes in my
  business
• I prefer to keep doing things the way I am
  familiar with (neg)
• Self-efficacy
• My skills are quite sufficient for working as an
  entrepreneur
• I am more competent than an average entrepreneur
• My character is not of entrepreneurial type (neg)
• My personal characteristics suit well for
  entrepreneurship
• I will succeed as an entrepreneur
• Not even major setbacks can make me give up my
  entrepreneurship
• I believe that my success in the future will
  outrun entrepreneurs on average
• My success as an entrepreneur is uncertain (neg)

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• Personal control
• I am able to affect the success of my firm
  through decisions concerning products and through
  production
• My personal changes to influence the
  successfulness of my businesses are practically
  rather low (neg)
• I am able to affect the success of my firm
  through marketing and customer connections
• To a great extent I can personally control the
  success of my firm

34
Vesala, H. Vesala K.M. (2010) Entrepreneurs and
Producers Identities of Finnish Farmers in 2001
and 2006. Journal of Rural Studies 26 (1), 21-30.
Table 1 Means of identity variables (data 2006)
pgt.001. plt.01. plt.05
Conventional farmers (n 249) Diversified farmers (n 381) Non-farm entrepreneurs (n 125) plt
Entrepre neur .34 .64 .75
Professional .09 .14 .30
Producer .68 .35 -.31
Wage-earner -.70 -.72 -.51
Business manager -.41 -.41 -.22
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Entrepreneur identity
F28.3, plt.001 Pairwise comparison Conventional
farmers weaker than other groups, no significant
difference between the other two groups.
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Correlations between entrepreneurial
role-expectations
  Risk- Taking Innovati- veness Growth- orientation Conserva tiveness Self- Efficacy
Innovativeness .460        
Growth- Orientation .273 .425      
Conservativeness -.557 -.408 -.429    
Self-Efficacy .326 .331 .388 -.374  
Personal Control .139 .442 .276 -.358 .556
) plt.05 ) plt.01 ) plt.001
37
Correlations between entrepreneurial identity and
role-expectations
Entrepreneurial identity
Risk-taking .197
Innovativeness .262
Growth- Orientation .260
Conservativeness -.351
Self-Efficacy .428
Personal Control .400
) plt.05 ) plt.01 ) plt.001
38
Entrepreneurial role-expectations in three groups
on Entrepreneur Identity (EI)
39
The means and standard deviations (sd in
parenthesis) of the role-expectation variables in
the main groups analysis on variance
  Conventional farmers (n233) Diversified farmers (n345) Non-farm entrepreneurs (n118) F (plt)
Risk-Taking -.03 (.83) .07 (.90) -.16 (.85) 3.4 ()
Innovativeness -.33 (.81) .20 (.73) .06 (.76) 35.1 ()
Growth- Orientation -.12 (.92) .13 (.84) -.14 (.93) 7.3 ()
Conservativeness .13 (.92) -.11 (.82) .07 (.81) 6.2 ()
Self-Efficacy -.27 (.89) .14 (.90) .13 (1.03) 14.8 ()
Personal Control -.49 (.98) .19 (.76) .42 (.67) 65.1 ()
40
Entrepreneurial expectations in three main groups
41
Relations of role-expectations to background
variables
Risk Inno Groth Conservat SE PC
Age
Gender
Education
Experience
Arable land
Turnover
Man-years
Number of clients
End user clients
Processor clients
Outside workforce
Outside work
Line of production
Line of business
42
E. Entrepreneurial skills and the adoption of
entrepreneurship discourse?
43
Pyysiäinen, Halpin Vesala (2010, in press)
Entrepreneurial Skills among Farmers
Approaching a Policy Issue.

• Developing the entrepreneurial skills of farmers
  (ESoF-project)
• The discourse of entrepreneurial skills in the
  construction of entrepreneurial self (and agency)
  by farmers?
• Self-presentations regarding entrepreneurial
  skills (recognising and realising business
  opportunities networking and utilising contacts
  creating and evaluating business strategy)

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Figure 1 Aspects of the self (derived from
Baumeister 1999)
45
Aspects of self

• The reflexive aspect deals with self-awareness
  the process in which individual views,
  identifies, defines, or understands herself (I
  looking at me see G.H. Mead 1934). This is
  most typically done in terms of group memberships
  and social roles.The relational aspect refers to
  self as an interpersonal being whose existence
  and action are fundamentally rooted and embedded
  in social relations. The third, executive aspect
  deals with the issue of agency. An individual
  evaluates things, makes decisions, and acts in
  order to regulate and develop her self as well as
  to control and influence her situation and events
  that are of importance to her. Agency implies
  self-reflection (Emirbayer and Mische 1998), but
  it is also closely tied with the relational
  aspect. Exercising control in social relations
  includes influencing others and the ability to
  utilize others as resources or vehicles for ones
  own agency.
• In the case of entrepreneurship, a strong
  emphasis is often put on the agency aspect of
  self an entrepreneur is culturally defined as
  somebody who is active, persistent, and
  innovative (makes things happen in economic and
  social transactions). Thus, the executive aspect
  deserves special attention in the study of the
  entrepreneurial self. Entrepreneurial skill is
  one of the concepts which allow us to do this.

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Case A Entrepreneurship Inadequate Lacking
Agency

• The interviewee is a 69 -year old pig farmer, who
  operates the business together with his wife. The
  farm has about 70 sow pigs and 40 hectares of
  field. The farmer started his farming career in
  1966, and expanded production in mid-1990s. 
• Skill of creating and evaluating a strategy The
  farmer claims that the skill could be useful in
  principle, but in his case the operational
  environment and overpowering actors (vertical
  production chain, financers) have frustrated the
  plans he has tried to pursue. The progress of
  farming is presented as a victim of unpredictable
  changes and uncertainties associated especially
  with the dramatic decreases in producer prices
  after Finnish EU membership since then, the
  farmer claims, things have not been manageable
  with planning or foresight.

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Case A Entrepreneurship Inadequate Lacking
Agency

• Skill of networking and utilizing contacts The
  farmer starts Well, it has been tried out for
  sure, but goes on to explain that things like
  contacting the farmers union will not change a
  thing and that a farmer has no means to control
  his situation since the big players in the market
  such as central franchising groups are too
  strong. He claims that in such a situation
  networking will not work nor bring any commercial
  or cost benefits. He presents himself as having
  tried these things but also as having recognized
  their uselessness.
•  

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Case A Entrepreneurship Inadequate Lacking
Agency

• Skill of recognizing and realizing opportunities
  The farmer does not present a direct
  self-assessment concerning how good he is in
  recognizing and realizing opportunities, but
  assesses anyway that their farm has recognized an
  opportunity in pork production, since pigs yield
  much pork. However, he is not able to tell any
  examples of opportunity recognition or
  realization after the dramatic decrease in pork
  prices. Consequently he states that it is
  difficult to utilize these skills in his
  situation, even though they would be useful.

49
Case A Entrepreneurship Inadequate Lacking
Agency

• Summing up the case, the farmer does not present
  himself as skillful in terms of any of the
  skills. Instead, he consistently claims that each
  of the skills is useless or impossible to utilize
  in his situation. The self that is presented is
  more a victim of circumstances than an active
  agent. The self that he presents is defined in
  terms of a traditional production-oriented world
  and its characteristic activities as such it
  remains in the shadow of vertical chains and
  their big players. Even though the farmer does
  not oppose entrepreneurship discourse, as such,
  he nevertheless rejects it as inadequate to his
  situation.

50
Case B Fluency in Entrepreneurship
Demonstrating Agency

• The interviewed couple runs a farm that focuses
  on the production of strawberries, other berries
  and their processing. Both wife (age 44) and
  husband (age 43) are involved in the interview.
  They started their farm in 1996. They currently
  employ around 20 seasonal employees for several
  months of the year, mostly to assist in picking
  berries.

51
Case B Fluency in Entrepreneurship
Demonstrating Agency

• Skill of creating and evaluating a strategy Even
  though they start by doubting if they really have
  strategic planning skills, they nevertheless
  present themselves as thinking about and
  discussing such things frequently. They present
  the development of their farm business and
  expansion of production as based on strategic
  thinking that includes product modification and
  development. They present themselves as
  orientated to customer needs and feedback, which
  can be utilized in the development of new
  products and attraction of new, or better,
  customers. The presentation gives the impression
  that their strategy is also a successful one,
  because they mention having more demand for
  products than they can currently provide.

52
Case B Fluency in Entrepreneurship
Demonstrating Agency

• Skill of networking and utilizing contacts The
  initial direct self-assessment of the farmers is
  a hesitant one. However, the indirect assessments
  and accounts of their activities all point
  towards a self-presentation of being pretty good
  in utilizing networks and contacts. They have
  cooperation and joint acquisitions with other
  entrepreneurs and they have participated in
  courses and projects where they have learned to
  know the local entrepreneurs and network with
  them. In addition, they relay examples of using
  skills in the context of sales promotion and
  marketing, where their good contacts to matrons
  of industrial kitchens have helped them to
  increase sales and broaden the variety of
  products. They have also utilized local market
  research services to identify potential demand
  and markets for their products. Even though they
  present themselves as entrepreneurs who do not
  like to promote themselves in every social
  occasion and rather focus on doing things
  themselves, their presentation suggests that they
  utilize these skills in diverse situations and
  contexts.

53
Case B Fluency in Entrepreneurship
Demonstrating Agency

• Skill of recognizing and realizing opportunities
  The couple considers this skill as very important
  for their situation, and they also claim having
  had some success in recognizing and realizing
  opportunities that suit them. They substantiate
  their claim by explaining how they recognized and
  found a proper market niche for them principally
  by not competing with the big players but having
  a variety of own processed products besides
  primary production. Another rhetorical resource
  in the demonstration of the skill is their
  customer and product structure, both of which are
  open to changes depending on the demand of the
  products a feature they view as highlighting
  the importance of opportunity recognition and
  realization skills. They also present themselves
  as not being afraid of the uncertainty related to
  a turbulent environment but being comfortable and
  even excited about it. The farmers seem to have
  plenty of rhetorical resources to give a
  convincing impression of mastering and utilizing
  these skills.

54
Case B Fluency in Entrepreneurship
Demonstrating Agency

• Summing up the case, the farmers are fluent in
  using entrepreneurship discourse. They construct
  themselves as having the skills, as the selves
  are presented in terms of skill manifestations in
  a diversity of contexts, such as production,
  marketing and customer relationships, and
  utilization of development projects and business
  services. The skills are evident in enabling the
  farmers to renew and change the emphasis of their
  farm business (e.g. products and customer
  relationships) according to the demands and
  opportunities encountered in the operational
  environment. The strategy selected is thus
  presented as an effective means to deal with, and
  control the business in, a dynamic environment.

55
 Case C Negotiating Entrepreneurship Relating
to Farming Community

• The interviewed farmers are cousins, both male,
  aged 30 and 40, who own a farm consortium, which
  produces crops (c. 180 ha). The older farmer
  started the farming in 1992 and younger one
  joined in 2005.

56
 Case C Negotiating Entrepreneurship Relating
to Farming Community

• Skill of creating and evaluating a strategy The
  farmers do not directly comment on whether they
  have a business strategy, but their subsequent
  descriptions function to present their actions as
  based on strategic planning. For instance, they
  aim to maintain their income level by taking
  pre-emptive actions to reduce costs. They
  demonstrate this principle by explaining how they
  have calculated the most profitable options in
  their machine investments, and on the basis of
  the calculations ended up buying a joint
  harvester-thresher together with a farmer from
  the neighborhood. They also mention having
  committed themselves to the cooperation with the
  neighbor. As an additional rhetorical resource,
  they give an account of the principle of
  strategic planning in their situation one should
  be committed to the selected strategy on a longer
  range and also evaluate its pros and cons in the
  longer run.

57
 Case C Negotiating Entrepreneurship Relating
to Farming Community

• Skill of networking and utilizing contacts The
  farmers do not clearly present themselves as
  either having or lacking the skills. However,
  they give indirect accounts of themselves as
  having the skills, when they again describe their
  close production cooperation with the neighbor
  farm. They explain that the cooperative
  relationships both within the consortium and
  with the neighbor function as a kind of
  insurance for them now that there are three
  farmers capable of taking care of the most
  important tasks, all three are better off in case
  of unexpected events and accidents. Furthermore,
  they explain that their networking skills are
  used to pursue clearly articulated financial
  purposes they aim at cutting down production
  costs.

58
 Case C Negotiating Entrepreneurship Relating
to Farming Community

• Skill of recognizing and realizing opportunities
  The farmers do not explicitly present themselves
  as either having or lacking the skills, but they
  tell that the current mode of farming is the
  result of careful thinking and joint discussions,
  where they have reflected on the possible
  directions of their farm business. For instance,
  before making the decision about the joint
  machine investment they analyzed the situations
  of other farms in the region and the future
  availability of farmland since possibilities to
  purchase extra farmland did not seem likely, they
  opted to intensify their cooperation with the
  neighbor farm as a means to secure effectiveness.
  In their explanation they state that they analyze
  what the realization of other business
  opportunities would require, but they view the
  opportunities from the perspectives of the
  farming community and safety. Above all, they do
  not want to step on the toes of other farmers
  and their businesses but want to maintain good
  relationships within the community where they
  have lived their whole lives. They claim that
  their primary production and forestry activities
  still provide them sufficient standard of
  livelihood and thats why they do not view it
  necessary to try out any riskier options.

59
Case C Negotiating Entrepreneurship Relating to
Farming Community

• Summing up the case, the farmers do use the
  entrepreneurship discourse, but its usage is
  characterized by efforts to reconcile it together
  with relational preconditions of the farming
  community. The self that is presented becomes
  defined in terms of activities and relationships
  related to primary production on the one hand,
  the social relations are presented as enabling
  the management of the selected course, but on the
  other hand they are presented as restricting the
  range of trajectories that they consider
  desirable, such as willingness to engage in
  non-farm business activities. Nevertheless, the
  chosen orientation, which combines cost-reduction
  and anticipative action orientations, is
  presented as providing them their means of
  business control vis-á-vis the operation
  environment.

60
Concluding Esof

• cases B and C accepted the entrepreneurial skill
  discourse as relevant to themselves, even though
  they both reconciled it to their distinctive
  action situations in different ways. Case A, in
  turn, found the entrepreneurial skills to be
  inappropriate to presenting his situation but
  even he did not reject the discourse as such,
  only its applicability for him. Indeed, the
  analysis revealed that in their self-assessments
  the farmers did not just passively accept or
  ingest the entrepreneurship discourse, but they
  actively used and reconciled it in the
  construction of their self-presentations. None of
  them simply rejected the entrepreneurship
  discourse nor claimed outright to be especially
  skilful instead, they were active and creative
  in connecting the discourse to their own
  life-worlds and particular everyday experiences,
  which, as rhetorical resources, provided them
  different alternatives to substantiate the
  discourse.

61
Concluding Esof

• most of the farmers who were interviewed in the
  Esof project were favorable towards using the
  discourse of entrepreneurial skills. One might
  wonder whether this outcome had something to do
  with the procedure of selecting the interviewees,
  in which the potential interviewees were
  approached through middle men who knew that the
  study focused on entrepreneurship. A more
  reliable source upon which to base
  generalizations is provided by Vesala (2008), who
  reports results from a nationwide postal survey
  among farmers (n 625) and non-farm rural small
  business owners (n 126) in Finland. These
  results suggest that over two-thirds of farmers
  consider entrepreneurial skills as fairly or very
  important for themselves, whereas one in ten
  views these skills only somewhat or not at all
  important.

62
Concluding Esof

• It is apparent from our interview material that
  production related rhetorical resources did not
  enable the interviewees to make very rich and
  convincing presentations of their skills
  instead, when convincing presentations of
  entrepreneurial skills were made, they were
  typically constructed with rhetorical resources
  associated with product development and
  differentiation, marketing and sales arena and
  customer and cooperation relationships. Comparing
  our three cases along such a dimension, we notice
  that cases A and B resemble almost polar
  opposites in this respect. It thus seems that how
  the skills can be digested and presented is at
  least to some extent determined by the immediate
  situation and characteristics of the action
  context, notably the nature of the business and
  business networks.

63
Concluding Esof

• As indicated in the case descriptions, a key
  difference in the self-constructions between
  these cases concerns the nature of agency. In the
  self-presentation of case B the entrepreneurial
  skills were connected to activities and instances
  that enabled the self to deal with, and control
  the business in spite of, uncertainties and
  changes in a dynamic environment. The self was
  constructed as an active agent, which, by means
  of the entrepreneurial skills, is able to effect
  change and exert control in the business
  environment. In case A, a contrary picture was
  painted as entrepreneurial skills were presented
  as inadequate the uncertainties and changes of
  an overpowering business environment were
  presented as dispossessing the self of its
  agentic aspects. The entrepreneurial skill
  discourse did not provide the farmer any viable
  resources to demonstrate his agency.