Abstract
The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships among social entrepreneurship, social business (SB) and multiple functions of urban agriculture in Japan, by introducing the methodologies of SEM (structural equation modeling) and TEM (trajectory equifinality model). Following conclusions are obtained based on the analytical results. First, people who are thinking creatively (TC) with a high level of social capital pay attention to social business and prefer multiple functions of urban agriculture not only in megacities but also in designated cities. These people are assumed to have a high level of social entrepreneurship as well. Second, social business develops through the virtuous cycle of social institutions, social entrepreneurship and social business. Among the social institutions, social capitals are important both in the beginning of SB establishment and in the processes of business development. Policy implication drawn from the research suggests that the government should provide opportunities to create a virtuous cycle between social institutions, social entrepreneurship and social business, especially to improve the accumulation of social capital, in order to attract the TCs who have a high level of social entrepreneurship and solve the problems through social business such as agriculture-related businesses.
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Notes
We could not obtain the data of organic farming by city.
The survey date is February 12–19, 2019 (See Appendix for the details).
The basic concepts of TEM include Irreversible Time, Equifinality Point (EFP), Bifurcation Point (BFP), Trajectory, Social Direction (SD) and Social Guidance (SG). It is thought that there are multiple paths of action and choices of people living in the flow of irreversible time. However, there is no freedom of choice and action, and there is no widespread path. Due to historical, cultural, and socially embedded space–time constraints, there is a point that reaches a certain steady state equally which is equifinality point (EFP). On the other hand, the point at which the path branches off is conceptualized as a bifurcation point (BFP). BFP is not unrelated to irreversible time. The BFP and its branching paths are not inherently fixed in nature as people follow a given path, but occur in a time course that never goes back. Like EFP, it is also a point that occurs in historical, cultural and social influences.
Which has made possible to set up farmer’s restaurants and direct sales offices in production green spaces in urban areas.
Although the rice production quota was abolished in 2018, Japanese government still uses diversion payments to divert land from table rice production, and instead produces feed rice, rice flour, wheat and soybeans (See OECD, 2019 for details).
A public–private fund (A-FIVE) invested in agriculture, forestry and fisheries established in 2013 is expected to stop new investment at the end of 2020 due to the cumulative loss of 10 billion yen (See Nikkei Nov. 27, 2019 for details).
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 17K07989(Study on the creativity of cities through improving agriculture amenity: Comparative analysis between Japan and China), 15K07603 (Study on the function of corporate social capital in farm business) and 15K18750 (Study on the entrepreneurship of social business in rural and agricultural sector). We wish to express our gratitude to the supports.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2 Variable setting for SEM analysis
2.1 Importance of multi-functionality of urban agriculture
Table 9 shows the results of classifying the function into three categories, economic, environmental and social, based on the answers to the multi-functionality of urban agriculture. The simple accumulation value of each selection item is used as a variable.
2.2 Variables of social capital
Table 10 shows the results concerning the social capital (SC) and its variable creation. The answers of “I am trying to helpful” in Q 2 and “most people can be trusted” in Q 3 are judged as having social capital and used as a variable.
2.3 Variable for social business
Table 11 shows the results concerning the social business (SB) involvement intentions and variable settings. The questions are “If you have been already involved in SB, how are you involved? And if you are not currently involved, how do you want to be involved (select all that apply)”. The answer for who intends to be involved in some way is set to 1, and the answer who does not intend to be involved is set to 0 as variables.
Appendix 3
See Table 12.
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Kiminami, L., Furuzawa, S. & Kiminami, A. Social entrepreneurship and social business associated with multiple functions of urban agriculture in Japan. Asia-Pac J Reg Sci 4, 521–552 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41685-020-00154-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41685-020-00154-8
Keywords
- Multiple functions of urban agriculture (MFUA)
- Social entrepreneurship (SE)
- Thinking creatively (TC)
- Social capital (SC)
- Social business (SB)
- Japan