Organizing the Human Resource: A Review of Centralization, Decentralization, and Delegation in Agricultural Business Management

¹ Department of Psychology
² Wolfe's Neck Farm, University of Southern Maine, Portland 04103

Although the dairy industry is on "the cutting edge" in certain technologies, dairy businesses are frequently outdated in overall management and organizational structure. This paper provides an overview of high quality management set in the context of dairy businesses and also reviews research findings relating organizational structure to business success, delegation, and management effectiveness. Issues surrounding manager's personality, delegation, centralization, and decentralization are presented. Research findings suggest that managers are likely to structure their organizations in ways that are highly similar to their typical patterns of interaction with others outside of the work setting (i.e., with spouse and family). The need to separate the family system from the business system in order to establish an effective organizational structure (in family-owned operations) is discussed.

Key Words: agricultural business • management • employee • human resource

Submitted on June 23, 1992
Accepted on January 19, 1993