Publication Date
1989
Description
Herbage seed industry productivity improvements derive traditionally from better understanding the biology and effective management of seed production. These may then aggregate to enhance industry productivity. There are however situations when greater gains in industry productivity and stability may be achieved through the powerful tool of organisational or institutional change (Kingma, 1985). Seed industries in Australia (Potts and Ison, 1987) and internationally (McMullen, 1987) are changing rapidly ; future research cannot ignore the need to investigate organisational constraints given the frequent inability of organisations to change and adapt to rapidly changing business environments (Schwendiman, 1986). Traditional, reductionist research approaches which predominate in agriculture appear inadequate for understanding and generating new knowledge about these problem situations. The development of action research approaches for facilitating organisational change within the Australian herbage seed industry is reported. In 1985/86 the industry was gravely concerned about its future ; features were declining real seed returns, highly competitive marketing, the demise of many seed merchandising companies, the prospect of Plant Variety Rights (PVR) legislation, and substantial import competition, from often agronomically inferior cultivars. Action research was considered an appropriate strategy to attempt to improve this complex problem; Lewin (1946), credited with the initial concept, saw action research as comprising cycles of analysis, fact finding, conceptualization, planning, implementation and evaluation to simultaneously solve problems and generate new knowledge.
Citation
Ison, R L.; Potts, W.H C.; and Beale, G, "Improving Herbage Seed Industry Productivity and Stability Through Action Research" (2025). IGC Proceedings (1989-2023). 29.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/1989/session5/29
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
Improving Herbage Seed Industry Productivity and Stability Through Action Research
Herbage seed industry productivity improvements derive traditionally from better understanding the biology and effective management of seed production. These may then aggregate to enhance industry productivity. There are however situations when greater gains in industry productivity and stability may be achieved through the powerful tool of organisational or institutional change (Kingma, 1985). Seed industries in Australia (Potts and Ison, 1987) and internationally (McMullen, 1987) are changing rapidly ; future research cannot ignore the need to investigate organisational constraints given the frequent inability of organisations to change and adapt to rapidly changing business environments (Schwendiman, 1986). Traditional, reductionist research approaches which predominate in agriculture appear inadequate for understanding and generating new knowledge about these problem situations. The development of action research approaches for facilitating organisational change within the Australian herbage seed industry is reported. In 1985/86 the industry was gravely concerned about its future ; features were declining real seed returns, highly competitive marketing, the demise of many seed merchandising companies, the prospect of Plant Variety Rights (PVR) legislation, and substantial import competition, from often agronomically inferior cultivars. Action research was considered an appropriate strategy to attempt to improve this complex problem; Lewin (1946), credited with the initial concept, saw action research as comprising cycles of analysis, fact finding, conceptualization, planning, implementation and evaluation to simultaneously solve problems and generate new knowledge.
