Responsible and sustainable farm business: Contextual duality as the moderating influence on entrepreneurial orientation

Abstract

Tackling poverty and injustices, protecting the environment and ensuring equality, all underpin ideas of being a responsible business. There are many arbitrators of what constitutes a responsible business and rethinking the United Kingdom’s farm business, post BREXIT, post COVID-19 and in relation to the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of farmers is timely and essential to tackle crisis, uncertainty and sustain a healthy rural ecosystem. This is an ethnographic study into contextual dualities. Data from one case farm are presented, and findings are triangulated through a grounded thematic data analysis of five in-depth interviews with other farms from the same community. An empirically informed framework is constructed explaining how, through duality, EO is moderated across six themes. The contributions to policy and practice are intertwined. Through identification of moderators of (and for) duality, the rural ecosystem can be better managed through effective policy design and responsible practice at grass roots. Accelerated professionalisation in the agricultural industry involves combining the rich, irreplaceable knowledge of older generations with shaping the values and behaviours of new generations. By synthesising EO with farmer mentality, we theorise and inform how to re-educate future generations in responsible and sustainable farm businesses.