Exploring Competitive Intelligence Practices of French Local Public Agricultural Organisations

Christophe Bisson

doi:10.37380/jisib.v4i2.94

Abstract

Modern agriculture has increased the need for information when making strategic decisions for farmers since they must be more entrepreneurial to survive. This paper investigates the levels of Competitive Intelligence practices in a French Regional Chamber of Agriculture and its four Departmental Chambers of Agriculture to examine the ability of these public organisations to keep fulfilling one of their missions which is to provide the necessary information and knowledge to farmers. Thus, this study proposes a behavioural and operational typology of Competitive Intelligence practice. Both types of organisations demonstrate that they are not well adapted to support the entrepreneurial farmers on this issue. The findings of this study and the diagnosis of the Competitive Intelligence practices applied to the typology could be of help to increase their and other public agricultural structures performance levels. Furthermore, the platform has the potential to inspire the public sector through subsequent adaptations.

Highlights

Agriculture is facing profound shifts (Vesala and Vesala, 2010; Woods, 2008) under the pressure of global trade agreements, climate change, the changing balance of the global energy economy (Blaney, 2006), increasing world populations (Pollock, 2007) and the debts of developed countries which have reached a threshold, radically altering the ability of the state to intervene (Bisson et al, 2012)
The research question which leads this study is: Are the Competitive Intelligence practices of the French local public agricultural sector congruent with the growing needs for information of farmers in facing environmental, social, and economic issues? through this lens, are French local public agricultural organisations adapted or not to the entrepreneurial mutation of agriculture?. To undertake such a diagnosis, this paper proposes a behavioural and operational typology of CI practices applied to a French Regional Chamber of Agriculture (RCA) and its four Departmental Chambers of Agriculture (DCA) (It was requested that the name of the French region be kept confidential.)
This survey is based on the model developed by Wright et al, (2012), a behavioural and operational typology of competitive intelligence practice applied to SMEs and construed as robust (Ross, 2012; Gaspareniene et al, 2013; Smith, 2012)

Summary

Introduction

Agriculture is facing profound shifts (Vesala and Vesala, 2010; Woods, 2008) under the pressure of global trade agreements, climate change, the changing balance of the global energy economy (Blaney, 2006), increasing world populations (Pollock, 2007) and the debts of developed countries which have reached a threshold, radically altering the ability of the state to intervene (Bisson et al, 2012). Agriculture used to be strongly subsidised in developed countries, “in recent decades, these policies have been substantially modified, from the multiple reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union and the various Farm Bills in the United States to the full removal of agricultural subsidies in New Zealand” (Latruffe, et al, 2013, p.10) Under such conditions, farmers in these countries need new strategies, new sources of revenues such as tourism and “ by adding value to farm products via processing and direct marketing” (Vesala and Vesala, 2010, p.22). Farmers, regardless of whether they do non-agricultural activities (e.g. tourism) or purely conventional production-oriented farming, are facing similar difficulties as other businesses, and are being obliged to become more entrepreneurial (Alsos et al, 2011; Morgan et al, 2010; Seuneke et al, 2013; Vesala and Vesala, 2010)

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