In this study, it verified the effects of the social capital of agricultural producer organizations for the organizational commitment and management performance of farmers who participate in the organization. Additionally, through the efficient social capital management performance of the agricultural producer organization, it suggests the practical implications about improving the management performance of the organization.
The agriculture product distribution market is diversifying due to the opening the agricultural markets, the expansion of large distribution centers, and the increasing the various consumers needs. Correspondingly, it is going on the training the agricultural producer organizations and pushing ahead with the scaling, organizing, and specialization in production area via various agricultural product distribution policies and capacity building of distribution entities of production area.
Agricultural producer organizations are being concentrated in the more distribution part than in the improving the productivity via collaborative work. Since 2008, the co-selection and shipping organizations has been nurturing for collaborative selection, shipping, and calculation instead of existing crop cultivation team. Also, It is expanding the participation of integrated marketing organizations.
However, it is very different the production scale, equipment conditions and ideas and management ability of the farmers who participate in the producer organization. Therefore, it causes the problems on the decrement of co-selection uniformity and increment of management costs due to the downward leveling of production technology, unpaid rides, and the co-selection fees. It also affects the withdrawal and withering of organizations, resulting in the several problem such as weakening of market bargaining power.
In particular, the agricultural production value of strawberries exceeds 1 trillion won, accounting for 2.6% of the total agricultural production value. Compared to other crops, the organization of producers of strawberries is expanding, such as the increment of agricultural management groups and agricultural corporations and co-selection and shipping organizations. It is difficult to achieve economies of scale through direct scale expansion because the cultivation of strawberry was conducting in facility with the high initial investment costs. Therefore, it is first necessary to reduce the long-term average cost by improving management efficiency such as technological innovation, production organization, and price reduction of production factors, instead of directly expanding the management scale. In addition, it is needed to complexly promote the organization participation such as co-selection and shipping through the expansion of management scale.
The conditions for scaling and organizing the agricultural producers organizations must be premised on the strengthening of organizational power. Organizational power promotes cooperation among members who participate in the organization, and influences organizational commitment and management performance through the accumulation of social capital, which is an intangible asset generated from social relationships such as trust, norms, and networks.
Social capital reduces transaction costs between employers and employees. Increasing the organizational commitment and dedication of organizational members for their duties has the effect of improving productivity. Organizational commitment as acting on the circle of connections between members of this organization and the organization will be improve the management performance through many implications for the productivity and effectiveness of the entire organization and induction of activity to make the benefit the organization.
To confirm the role of the social capital on agricultural producers'' organizations, it performed the analysis with the 159 questionnaires using the Namwon Strawberry Federation, which is a single-item production organization with a common goal in the community.
It verified the effects of the social capital of agricultural producer organizations for the management performance of farmers who participate in the organization. And it was verified the mediation effect between the social capital and organizational commitment for enhancing the management performance.
The results are as follows. First of all, trust in the social capital of agricultural producers'' organizations was found to have a significant effect on affective commitment and no direct effect on continuance commitment. Second, it was found that the network conformation has no significant effect on both of affective commitment and continuance commitment. Third, it showed that the norms has the significant effect on non-financial effect and affective commitment, but not direct effect on continuance commitment. Overall, this results showed that empirical studies on the impact of social capital on organizational commitment report that trust and norms in social capital have a significant impact on affective commitment, but social capital has no direct impact on continuance commitment.
Next, it is about that organizational commitment of the farmers who participate in the organization of agricultural producers affect on management performance. It showed that both of affective commitment and continuance commitment have the direct and significant effect on non-financial performance. It was also confirmed that organizational commitment of agricultural production organizations affects on the financial achievement due to the improvement of non-financial performance.
In conclusion, the accumulation of social capital shows influence the management performance for mediating organizational commitment. It suggests that agricultural producer organizations need to settle up the conditions for organizational commitment through the increment of farmers trust, establishment compliance with norms. In particular, it is prioritized and implemented the incentives for the accumulation of trust and normative awareness and continuance commitment and continuance commitment to be suggested in this study.
It is indispensable the co-selection and shipping organizations, which is the subject of this study to be scaled and organized. In order to ensure the uniformity of agricultural products and the quality stability over the long term, it is necessary to continuously strengthen the organizational power. Internally, it will form a continuous business relationship that puts the interests of participating agriculture first, and provide an improvement in the price received by farmers and supply the stable sales channel through a relationship of trust with the organization operator. Farmers must also adhere to strict standards and norms such as quality and standards, shipping obligations, and have a sense of attachment and belonging to the producer''s organization. And there is a need to increase agricultural organizational commitment to achieve the common goals of producer organizations.
In case of the strawberry co-selection and shipping organizations, it is going to speedly introduce new technologies such as hydroponic cultivation and smart farm, to rapidly cultivate the diverse varieties, and to make the proceed in the influx of new farmers and the advancement of facilities. It is needed to be the tailored policy support depending on the scales and management groups, in consideration of changes in external conditions at the site. It is important to foster sustainable agricultural production organizations through the cooperation with agricultural technology center and agricultural cooperatives in the region.
Furthermore, it is need to analyze the impacts on social capital, organizational commitment, and management performance according to the demographic sociological characteristics of the survey target, strawberry cultivation characteristics, participation characteristics of production organizations, etc., and the actual management performance on objective materials such as profits and expenses.