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The case method is increasingly popular with instructors teaching about management in the food system. While many have adopted this approach, others would like to but feel they need to know more about the method before doing so. This article aims to help them by explaining this technique. It starts by describing what case studies, or simply “cases,” are, and the benefits of their discussion in class. Then it describes the roles and responsibilities of students and instructors when working with cases. Finally, it gives instructors pointers on how to produce effective class discussions using cases. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The challenge of managing a farm business is becoming more like that facing other types of business. As this happens, general management principles that have proven useful to nonfarm managers are likely to prove useful to farm managers. This article explores the applicability of a simple general management model to farm management. The model is found to apply, and in the process helps dimension the complexity and integrated nature of decision‐making on the farm. Further research is called for to extend the application of the general management approach to farm management.

Recently, the strategic management approach used in business schools to look at questions of general management has been suggested as an alternative way for considering farm management. This paper tests empirically whether this approach is appropriate to farm management. It finds that more successful farm managers appear to think more along the lines of strategic management than less successful ones, supporting a strategic management approach to farm management. This result is important because it opens up a whole new avenue for teaching and research in farm management.Dernibrement, la demarche de la gestion strategique utilisCe dans les ecoles de commerce pour scruter les questions de gestion gCnCrale a etC proposee comme faCon d'envisager la gestion de I'exploitation agricole. L'auteur vCrifie empiriquement la pertinence de cette mithode pour la gestion agricole. I1 appert que les exploitants agricoles les plus prospbres pensent davantage selon les principes de la gestion strategique que les chefs d'exploitation moins prospbres, ce qui montre que la mCthode meriterait d'Ctre adaptee a ce domaine. L'importance de ces conclusions est qu'elles ouvrent une toute nouvelle avenue a l'enseignement et a la recherche dans le domaine de la gestion de I'exploitation agricole.

Managers of farm supply and grain elevator (FSG) businesses are searching for competitive strategies that will help their businesses perform better in a more competitive environment. The source of increased competition has been the maturation of the market in recent years after a long period of considerable growth. The information available to help them determine how they can be better competitors is limited. Many studies on this are old and were performed under a different set of market conditions (Milner, Norton). Many recent studies have a strong financial bias, providing comparative summaries of accounting data (Sharp and Lytle, Siebert), but do not point out which differences are important. Nor do they consider the competitive situation of the business. This paper uses the concept of competitive strategy to identify factors that managers of FSG businesses might consider as they look at ways of making their businesses more competitive. The results should provide them with fresh insights into what counts when trying to improve the performance of their businesses. The article will proceed by first reviewing the theory and relevance of competitive strategy. This is followed by a section in which the concept is applied using data on FSG businesses. Finally, the implications of the results of this study are discussed. The ConceptsInthis section the concepts of competitive strategy, generic strategy, and descriptors of strategy are considered. Competitive Strategy