Using Balanced Score Card to Explore Organic Farm Performance

• Main Authors: YU, HUI-JUAN, 余惠娟
• Other Authors: YIEN, JUI-MEI
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/34gu7f

碩士 === 康寧大學 === 企業管理研究所 === 106 === The rise of environmental awareness has increased the public attention to food safety and sustainable agriculture, which emphasizes water and soil conservation and ecological balance. This paper discusses the operational performance of organic farms through the perspectives of experts who are familiar with the management and operation of organic farms, including scholars, senior managers, and administrators of organic farms, in developing directions for improving organic farm management and operations. This study adopted the balanced score card, a tool developed by Kaplan and Norton (1996), as a theoretical basis. Through a literature review and discussions with experts, a questionnaire was developed and then revised, which consisted of four perspectives regarding organic farm operations (viz., financial, customer, process, and learning and growth perspectives) and 17 evaluation criteria for these perspectives. A total of 12 questionnaires were distributed for investigation. The Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory technique was adopted to construct an organic farm operational model. The results were then integrated and analyzed. The following results were obtained: “process perspective” served as the overall source of influence to all the four perspectives of organic farms’ operational performance; “customer relationship management” served as the overall source of influence to the customer perspective; “extent of cost control and effective use of resources” served as the overall source of influence to the financial perspective; “increase in product types and novelty” served as the overall source of influence to the process perspective; and “employee in-service training” served as the overall source of influence to the learning and growth perspective. From these results, the following suggestions were provided to organic farm managers: develop diversified and unique products, enhance employees’ knowledge and skills regarding sustainable agriculture, provide customized services, deploy equipment and human resources effectively, and implement effective damage prevention and control. These suggestions serve as a reference for organic farm management in the future.