Every day, numerous decisions are made that in one way or the other affect the development of the farm sector and the surrounding society.
Farmers make decisions that affect production animals, land use, environment, economic development, rural employment, etc. Managers in the food industry make decisions that affect what products should be produced and marketed and these decisions have consequences for farmers, consumers, employment and global development. Consumers make purchase choices and together they may push the development of new markets. This may be about new food products but also about farm products such as agricultural tourism. Taken together, all these decisions have consequences for the sustainable use and management of biological natural resources.
In the research group ’Decision-making and management’ we are interested in how these decisions are made and what consequences they may have. How is a certain decision reached? What influences the decision process? Why is one option chosen instead of another? How does this affect the agricultural business and the food industry? And how may, in the continuation, the surrounding society be affected? With our interest in individuals’ decision-making we aim to contribute to the understanding of the development of economic ventures in the agricultural and food industries by mapping out how decisions are made and what are the crucial factors affecting such decisions. We base our research in business administration and related field of economics. In addition, we also use psychological models in order to improve our understanding of the individuals’ decision-making.