Challenges for agricultural policy in the service-driven economic system

During last decades the essential shift occurred in the structure of the economy from industrial product-driven to the post-industrial service-driven economic system. A growing number of manufacturing firms throughout the world are shifting from selling goods to offering more and more services alongside their products. This movement is termed the 'servitization'. The movement is pervading almost all industries but still is weak in agriculture. The aim of the paper is to draw an agricultural sector-specific picture of servitization and discuss the differences between the business models of product-driven and service-driven farms. Servitization of farming is a transformational process that requires rethinking all aspects of the business: production structure and methods, marketing, pricing, service delivery infrastructure and financial management. The aims and means of current agricultural policy should be transformed in accordance with the emerging new business vision of the post-industrial farmers' generation. The article analyses the needs and perspectives to develop agricultural policy in line with the success factors of the service-driven economic system and highlights the main new post-industrial rural policy trends, which corresponds to the needs of new farmers' generation oriented towards servitization of farming in the new programming period after 2020

The role of social movements in transformative tourism development: Lessons learnt from a case study in Lithuania

This study responds to the need for theoretical and empirical research on value co-creation in tourism. Previous research has mainly adopted a perspective centred on the collaborative relationships between tourists and service providers, i.e., has been focused on a relationship called ‘one-to-one’. According to the emerging trends in value co-creation theory, value co-creation activities, however, are more complex. The research provides empirical support to previous general conceptualisations of value-creation and brings some new insights to value co-creation involving multiple actors from a perspective called ‘many-to-one’. The research is focused on the role of the most active stakeholder in transformative tourism that represents ‘many’ actors as a whole – the social movement. The paper describes a case on a transformative tourism initiative that is a particularly rich setting for expanding value-cocreation in a network of activities’ research for a more complex understanding of value networks in the tourism sector. The case study examines extensively the role of social movements in transformative tourism development through value co-creation. The findings develop a more complex value co-creation mechanism and enable the conceptualisation of the value co-creation process by identifying drivers of collaboration, value co-creation activities, and outcomes. The research demonstrates the potential of social movements for the development of transformative tourism in value co-creation and has implications for both entrepreneurs and policymakers seeking to develop transformative tourism and leaders of a new generation of social movements aiming to transform society

Servitization as A Tool to Increase Vitality of Ageing Rural Community

Recently, the EU policy measures have been widely applied to encourage early retirement from farming. Current age structure of society requires opposite approach. Key challenges for rural development policy aiming to increase quality of life of elder people are dealing not only with traditional help and support measures, but also with the involvement of elder generation into economic and social life. New EU agricultural policy measures should ensure that funding and institutional incentives support extending working and active social life of elder farmers. One of the possible ways to change the approach deals with servitization. However, despite implementation of service-driven business model in agriculture, which opened new possibilities to use knowledge and experience of old generation, the servitization movement is still weak in agriculture. Restricted adoption of service-driven business models in agriculture largely depends on the lack of research on this topic and guidelines for practitioners. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize the organizational model aiming to implement product-service system in agricultural business by joint efforts of elder farmers and beginning gardeners. Case study on innovative servitization initiative “Rent a piece of garden” in rural areas of Lithuania is used as an illustration of innovative business model in agriculture and territorial servitization with multifaceted impact on vitality of ageing rural community and as a source to gain new knowledge on how to organize similar projects

Service-Driven Farming: Keeping Quality of Life for Ageing Rural Community

Early retirement from farming was proposed by many of the EU measures. The age structure in the EU currently demands a shift from such an outdated approach, and to focus on the highly-valued experiences of elderly people, which should be utilized by involving them in social and economic activities. Among the key challenges for rural development policy aiming to increase the quality of life of elderly, next to the traditional help and support measures, is the involvement of the elder generation in economic and social life. Therefore, the new EU agricultural policy measures should ensure that funding and institutional incentives support extending the working and active social life of the elderly farmers. One of the possible ways to change such an approach deals with servitization. The literature on servitization in manufacturing has been growing rapidly in the last decades, but only a few studies demonstrate how to apply a service-driven business model in agriculture. This paper aims to demonstrate a creative way to use a service-driven business model in farming and, at the same time, the ability of servitization projects to influence the vitality of rural communities by generating economic, social, and cultural effects. A case study on an innovative servitization initiative in rural areas of Lithuania “Rent a piece of garden” is used as a theory generating approach, which considers the needs of the elderly rural generation

Challenges for farmers’ collaboration in the post-industrial economy

This article discusses the differences between incentives and forms of farmers’ collaboration in agrarian, industrial and post-industrial economies and introduces collaboration examples based on the concept of a two-sided network as a new phenomenon appropriate for the post-industrial era. During the last decade the concept of a two-sided network (market) has been utilised predominantly by ICT businesses, however, the authors believe it has potential to become a general theoretical background for the revision of cooperative movement goals and means relevant to a post-industrial economy