Business decisions are frequently based on informed intuition in contrast to a formal analysis. Early man used simple intuition, but through time knowledge increases allowed decision makers (DMs) to move to 'objectively informed intuition' (OII). This uses inherent and learnt cognition at both unconscious and conscious levels. A model of business OII is proposed and evaluated using as variables the managers' personal characteristics and their unique set of objectives. The resultant equation allows assessing decision quality and provides a framework for DMs to work on improvements relative to their objectives. The literature suggests OII stems from a DM's makeup (business related phenotype), training and experience in a dynamic trio leading to the defining equation. Analyses show business related phenotype is the most important determinant as well as confirming the proposed theory on the determinants of OII success. Practical methods of improving OII are reviewed, and issues worth further investigation outlined. This research is the first encompassing quantitative relationships explaining business OII quality thus enabling improving OII. Suggested further research may refine the equation and expand its core base. This work involves a range of disciplines as different aspects of human characteristics impact on how decisions are made.

This chapter has covered many aspects involved in a farmer's managerial ability. It is again stressed that most farmers make most decisions using intuition. This chapter also contains the results of comparing the managerial attributes of farmers with a managerial ability rating of 70 percent or greater (on a 0-100 percent scale), with the farmers below 70 percent. It was constructed from a sample of over 700 farmers. The farmers discuss at some length the problem that Peter recognizes as a fault in his management style- conscientiousness. They suggest some ideas on how he can improve his style in this regard. George talks about what he calls benignness, or agreeableness in the five-factor personality model. He believes he finds it difficult when faced with issues as he doesn't have sufficient of this personality factor, which sometimes results in foolish decisions, and reactions to others. The other farmers suggest various ideas on improvement.

Abstract This chapter discusses how regular farm walks and inspections are critical to efficient management as one farmer, Ben, clearly recognizes. One needs to know the current state of affairs to enable making the decisions appropriate for the current situation. Both farm walks and reviewing the outside world for situations that influence decisions (e.g. world markets, government/local body rules and regulations) require keen observation skills. Through being part of a group of farmers who meet to review decisions and accordingly help each other, with the support of professionals, Ben learnt a lot about the many principles of making good decisions. With practice these principles became part of his inherent thinking. This led to improved decision intuition. The core of the lessons learnt by the farmers, as concluded by the farmers, is listed in this chapter.

Abstract This chapter discusses investments and capital of the farmers. Anne mused on the chance of buying land at the right time to make good capital gains (post-inflationary impacts had been removed of course). Search the web for information on local rural land values, all in the more or less same environment so the values are not confounded by land quality, and also search for information on local inflation rates. Inflate the land values by the inflation rates cumulatively to create a series comparable with today's land values. The chapter finishes on thoughts on the ethics of trying to change farmers'attitudes and approaches.

In this chapter the farmers reflect on the overall results of the experiment. The farmers have also learned different data analysis techniques and information processing. Tom talks about analysing the contents of the tapes that recorded the proceedings of all the sessions of the farmer groups. He, and his helpers, will use what is known as 'qualitative research' to obtain the 'data' held in the tapes and its significance to the project conclusions. To analyse quantitative data it is important to ensure the conclusions apparent from an inspection of the data are truly 'significant'. Tom will have done this when calculating and comparing the averages of the results for the various groups. Coping strategies are also discussed such as income protection insurance and in rural areas, the support and succour provided by local community organizations, formal and informal, can be invaluable when disasters strike whether to single properties or wider areas such as earthquakes and bush/scrub fires.

This chapter tells about Brad, the consultant who has a special personality enabling him to react positively with most people including his clients. This is a special skill and is very useful, a skill that can be developed and improved by most people given some work. To understand how to improve requires understanding the reasons for the special personality. Everyone's personality is dependent on their genetic makeup (genotype) obtained from their parents and on how this interacts with the environment they experience right from when a baby. Parents clearly have a large influence on the early environment, but so do all other interactions over life. Everyone's overall psyche at any time is referred to as their phenotype - that is, the result of their genotype and environment. This psyche also impacts on how anyone learns and consequently influences what they have learnt about people skills. This chapter also reports that most of the farmers being invited to join the experimental groups had already been through the earlier programme to improve their decision intuition so were familiar with the process and questionnaires used in this new programme, designed to remove their decision biases and change their personalities to be more akin to an optimal phenotype suitable for management work. Increasingly, particularly with respect to the environment, farmers are facing more and more rules and regulations they must comply with. The same goes for labour regulations, and also health and safety.

This chapter tells the story of Tom. Tom has noted the large range in profitability farmers achieve relative to each other. It was clear to Tom that some of this was due to farmers all having different objectives, but also that there was more than likely a wide range of decision skills. It is pointed out that experience is an important factor in excellent managerial ability, provided the lessons it gives are fully understood and comprehended. Tom and his colleagues make it clear intuition is an important and critical resource farmer-decision makers possess. All farmers and consultants should understand the rudiments of production economics as they set out the decision rules to follow in achieving objectives with particular attention on maximizing profit. But the principles apply equally to all objectives. As noted, one of the key rules is to keep adding resources, such as fertilizer, until the point of marginal return (MR) equals marginal cost (MC).

This chapter tells about a farmer named Phil. Phil muses on the difficulties of horticultural practice. So much depends on timeliness. Phil also mentally reviews the importance of good communication between, in particular, colleagues and professionals. He recalled he had been taught the principle that it was not 'manly' to discuss and reveal your feelings. He also reckons having benchmarks would be useful in helping decide the skill level of a farm manager.

This chapter discusses the knowledge and thinking of the farmers. Phil was certainly not bereft of ideas. He muses on issues of sheep psychology and behaviour and wonders if understanding the inner mental workings of his charges would help in their management. One cannot decide this without understanding issues around animal behaviour as Phil recognizes. Peter is fully of the opinion that imagination is a critical skill in many farm issues. Brad muses about the power of a brain and the need to store, literally, millions of bits of information relevant to primary production. Also, he emphasized to himself the need for complete and accurate observation both on and off the farm to obtain the current state of affairs both farmwise and market and conditions-wise.

Abstract Following on from the last one, this chapter narrates how Kip reflects further on ethics, recounting he has plenty of time to muse on issues as he drives his tractor up and down. Any farmer's actions stemming from their beliefs and training are heavily influenced by family life. Any farmer must wonder about ethics in the world of advertising.

This chapter discusses how regular farm walks and inspections are critical to efficient management as one farmer, Ben, clearly recognizes. One needs to know the current state of affairs to enable making the decisions appropriate for the current situation. Both farm walks and reviewing the outside world for situations that influence decisions (e.g. world markets, government/local body rules and regulations) require keen observation skills. Through being part of a group of farmers who meet to review decisions and accordingly help each other, with the support of professionals, Ben learnt a lot about the many principles of making good decisions. With practice these principles became part of his inherent thinking. This led to improved decision intuition. The core of the lessons learnt by the farmers, as concluded by the farmers, is listed in this chapter.

This chapter highlights the attitude change in farmers. Here, Anne is expressing her ideas about whether farmers can change their attitudes, thoughts, planning methods and plan implementation skills with respect to running a farm. This is clearly an important topic if indeed farmers are to be able to improve their management skills. Fortunately the research is very clear that humans can indeed improve their skills given the correct attitudes, processes and training. Issues related to skill improvement and related factors covered in this chapter include the following: epigenetics, personality, and intelligence.

Over the decades, many researchers have explored the concept of intuition as a decision-making process. However, most of this research does not quantify the important aspects of intuition, making it difficult to fully understand its nature and improve the intuitive process, enabling an efficient method of decision-making. The research described here, through a review of the relevant literature, demystifies intuition as a decision system by isolating the important intuition determining variables and relating them to quantitative intuition research. As most farm decisions are made through intuition, farmers, consultants, researchers and students of farm management will find the review useful, stimulating efforts for improving decision-making skills in farmers. The literature search covered all journals and recent decades and includes articles that consider the variables to be targeted in improving intuitive skill. This provides a basis for thinking about intuition and its improvement within the farming world. It was found from the literature that most of the logical areas that should influence decisions do in fact do so and should be targeted in improving intuition. One of the most important improvement processes is a farmer’s self-criticism skills through using a decision diary in conjunction with reflection and consultation leading to improved decisions. This must be in conjunction with understanding, and learning about, the many other variables also impacting on intuitive skill.

This chapter discusses investments and capital of the farmers. Anne mused on the chance of buying land at the right time to make good capital gains (post-inflationary impacts had been removed of course). Search the web for information on local rural land values, all in the more or less same environment so the values are not confounded by land quality, and also search for information on local inflation rates. Inflate the land values by the inflation rates cumulatively to create a series comparable with today's land values. The chapter finishes on thoughts on the ethics of trying to change farmers'attitudes and approaches.

Background: Past research has shown farmer anxiety and stress have significantly affected many farmers and their families due not only to the impact on feelings of happiness and success, but also on output efficiency, accident rates, and health. The past approach to ameliorating anxiety has been through utilizing coping mechanisms such as sharing with significant others, venting, planning, self-blame, and positive thinking. A problem has also been farmers' reluctance to voice difficulties and seek help. Method: An alternative, more basic approach to anxiety amelioration is possible. This involves isolating the human characteristics that lead to anxiety, and subsequently modifying these to reduce anxiety and its associated impacts. Accordingly, the extensive literature on anxiety and stress was reviewed to facilitate developing an hypothesis outlining the important components explaining farmer anxiety. To assess the parameters of farmer anxiety, a random survey of New Zealand farmers was used to obtain their ratings on their anxiety. Regression models were used to quantify the relationships. Results: Specific farmer personal characteristics were shown to be highly related to anxiety. These included a farmer's personality, objective set, belief in their ability to control outcomes, as well as education and age. Conclusion: This analysis provides the information required to direct counseling efforts to modify the anxiety creating personal variables and, consequently, reduce anxiety and its impact on a longer term basis.

The importance of procurement relationships in food supply chains is increasing in importance due to issues of food safety, food security, changing consumer preferences, ethical concerns and greater awareness of the environmental impact of food production. Despite the considerable research on buyer-seller relationships in the marketing and management literature, only a small proportion of this has focused on procurement relationships between producers and buyers in food supply chains. Hence, this paper specifically focuses on examining the impact of relationship quality on supplier performance in the context of food supply chains. The theoretical framework is derived from the tenets of the resource-based view and the relational view of firms. Using this framework, the definition, measurement and structural dimensions of relationship quality is established in the context of food producers and buyers. This construct is then tested in relationship to supplier performance. Utilizing data from a mail survey of 954 red meat producers in New Zealand, the model of supplier-buyer relationship quality and its effects on supplier performance is tested using structural equation modelling. The results demonstrate that relationship quality is an essential factor in procurement relationships with suppliers in food supply chains and shows that, as hypothesized, higher quality relationships lead to positive performance outcomes. The results support the theoretical framework indicating that relationship quality, conceptualized and defined in this context, is indeed a valuable relational resource due to its impact on supplier performance. Managerially, this resource can be manipulated to improve supplier performance, and hence potentially provide firms with competitive advantage that has high replication barriers.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate a farm manager’s personal characteristics (personality, age, education, objectives, experience, etc.) as drivers of debt payback success and rates. Traditionally bankers have used historic business statistics, and equity levels, to assess loans and credit worthiness. It is hypothesised that a managers’ personal characteristics are likely to be a better predictor of future debt payback performance. Design/methodology/approach The literature was searched to isolate the managers’ personal variables likely to determine debt payback. The information led to defining a quantitative model based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) which was hypothesised as determining payback rates where a choice was available. A postal random stratified survey of NZ owner operator farm managers provided the data to test the model and define its parameters using regressions, structural equation modelling and statistical comparisons. Findings The modelling results make it clear a manager’s personal characteristics are highly correlated with debt payback and, logically, are very likely to be the drivers. Four random effects equations and a comparison of high- and low-debt payback managers led to this conclusion. Practical implications Bankers should use the managers’ personal characteristics, as defined in the regressions, alongside traditional measures when assessing farm business loan requests. This approach is opposite to the traditional methods using mainly historic data. Originality/value The use of the TPB in assessing debt payback is a new and novel approach showing how enduring personal characteristics can be used in assessing proposals, and particularly, entrepreneurs’ adventurist investments in situations where historic data are not available.