株式会社きたなかふぁーむの『組織文化』

<p>This paper illuminates the organizational culture nurtured in Kitanaka Farm, a farming corporation in Yasu, Shiga Prefecture. Kitanaka Farm, a renowned grower of cucumbers, has developed a highly inclusive working environment where the diversity of employees, along with their needs and aspirations, is appreciated. The company’s purpose is to make the employees’dreams come true rather than to improve productivity or maximize profit. Our aim is to unpack and analyze this unique company culture through the lens of Teal Theory, an evolutionary perspective garnering attention in recent organizational theories and management studies. A Teal organization, the most recent organizational model in human history, possesses three major features : 1) “self–management,” or autonomous actions by employees themselves (rather than the top management) to steer organizational decision making, 2) “wholeness,” or the exposure of employee’s full personalities (rather than characters bound only by their roles), and 3) “evolutionary purpose,” or the organization’s purpose that guides its life and actions. It is postulated that some of a Teal organization’s features are exhibited in Kitanaka Farm, where employees have demonstrated autonomous actions for self–management. Both in–depth interviews and informal conversations with employees, along with participant observation, were employed to collect qualitative data. The results demonstrate that while what the ideal Kitanaka employee, the president, embraces has much to do with the current corporate working environment, that does not mean that he can manipulate the corporate culture as he wishes. Instead, his ideas have been reflectively affected by other employees and the corporate atmosphere they have created. Arguably, this indicates the impossibility of a single person directly maneuvering a corporate culture, even if (s) he is the leader. The employees, meanwhile, have developed a self－management scheme that accommodates their varying interests and concerns. Making the desires and dreams embraced by the employees, including the part–time staff members who have children to care for, full–time employees who wish to become independent farmers, and foreign apprentices who want to earn as much money as possible to send it back home to their families back, come true is the priority of the corporation. These findings are examples of the traits of a Teal Organization as reflected in Kitanaka Farm’s management. This paper concludes, first, that, as shown above, in the Kitanaka corporation, the president’s philosophy and the corporate operation reflect features of a Teal organization. Second, the “materiality” of farming as such is an important factor enabling an inclusive culture that accommodates diverse individuals with varying interests. Third, Kitanaka Farm’s underlying assumption, the most foundational aspect of the organizational culture, seems to reside with the very weak “going concern,” namely, interest in sustaining the company. What is at stake for Kitanaka Farm in turn lies in its “purpose concern,” that is, its mission to build a platform that helps its employees fulfill their dreams.</p>