Development of Community Businesses Centered on Business Cooperative Associations That Support Local Primary Industries

This study examines the actual situation and issues of community businesses centered on business cooperative associations that support local primary industries, focusing on the expansion of business domains. The target cases of this study are a business cooperative association in eastern Shimane Prefecture that operates a direct-sales store for agricultural and marine products in a depopulated and aging mountainous area and a business cooperative association in western Shimane Prefecture that supports community-based farming corporations and the daily lives of its members. The analysis revealed the following findings: First, the cooperative started as a business to support the management of the primary industry in the region, and as the business grew, it developed a network with stakeholders in various industries. Second, the expansion of the business domain began with the expansion of business systems that directly supported the management of the local primary industry, and the growth of these business systems provided an opportunity to expand into livelihood support businesses for local residents and community contribution businesses. Third, the factors that enabled management development and business domain expansion were strong leadership and a system in which the rural community tolerated and supported the conditions that allowed it to be fully exercised. In the above management developments, there was an expansion of the “community” frame with business growth. As an implication of this study, it is suggested that in order to examine community business by business cooperative associations, we need to be careful about the scope of “community” to be cut out as a mechanism.