Kalkyleringsmodeller i lantbruksföretag

This study aims at identifying and explaining how small entrepreneurs conduct cost-revenue analyses for their investment decisions. The project investigates to which extent entrepreneurs use different models and if they apply the most suitable models for various decision-making situations. With such knowledge, it is possible to help entrepreneurs to improve their skills in management control so that they can make better investment decisions. The study includes entrepreneurs within the "green industries". The focus is on agricultural entrepreneurs. The empirical material consists of crop producers. Agricultural entrepreneurs are more interesting than the most other categories of small businessmen as agriculture is characterized by large fixed investments. A review of behavioral theoretical literature provides a number of conditions for and restrictions on people's ability to act rationally in their decision-making. The empirical basis of the study consists of sixteen personal interviews with grain producers, equally distributed in the southern and the eastern part of Sweden. Entrepreneurs had to tell about how they reasoned, when they in recent years had invested in machinery halls, machinery, property, and crops. Some of the respondents used formal methods, while others used informal methods, i.e., intuition, gut feeling, experiences and advice from people in their social environment. The formal methods respondents used were only investment budgets and unit contribution analyses. As the chosen methods are related to type of investment decision, a pattern emerges; property investments are often based on investment budget, but there are also farmers who do not make any cost-revenue analyses at all for these large investments. The choice of crop is often made on the basis of a computer-based unit contribution analyses. In the case of the construction of a machinery hall or the purchase of a tractor, a combine harvester or other machinery, the picture is varying. Many decision makers do not make any analysis. Farmers with a university degree are more likely to conduct analyses for their investment decisions. Two of the respondents are managers of very large agricultural enterprises, which have a Board of Directors. These two are therefore obliged to make formal analyses. The self-employed farmers very often decide on investments without any analysis but they rather consider their liquidity. If they have enough money on their bank accounts, they may make large investments. They are most often not willing to take credits. There are some differences between farms of various sizes, but the pattern is not completely clear. When these results are interpreted in the light of behavioral theories, it is not difficult to understand the sometimes seemingly irrational behavior of business people. Their limited interest in conducting calculations can be explained by the fact that self-employed entrepreneurs are inherent risk unwilling, because the firms' finances and their personal economy are interconnected. Furthermore, the calculation work is resource demanding, which means that the value of the analytical work itself may be less than the value increase that better investment decisions would be worth for the entrepreneur. The overall conclusion is that the teaching of financial management must include not only different analyses methods, but also issues about how this knowledge should be used.