Research Accomplishment Reports 2011

Family Firms and Policy in Times of Disruption (NC1030)

L. W. Robbins
Department of Agricultural Economics

 

Non-Technical Summary

Outcomes or projected Impacts include the following. The panel data has established the national prevalence of family businesses affected by natural disasters and begun to address the utility of federal disaster funding in the sustainability of small businesses in disaster-declared areas. The new small business demise and recovery data will provide new perspectives on federal disaster policy and support for small businesses and their owning families. Results will provide considerable insight into survival because it enables comparisons of survivors and non-survivors and understanding of why some businesses met demise after a disaster and why others did not.

Previous work on disaster survivors has not included non-survivors so we know little about how survivors and non-survivors differ. We will be able to characterize what factors contributed to survival and what contributed to demise.

These new characterizations have the potential to change the preparation, mitigation, response and recovery actions of business owners since the new data may well show that some of the currently recommended actions are not productive or are counter-productive with respect to survival.

2011 Project Description

I visited two universities in Michigan (Michigan State University - MSU and Western Michigan University - WMU) and four in California (Santa Clara - SCU, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Davis and Chico State). In Michigan I visited with eight faculty and four Graduate students, representing seven centers or units. They ranged from the CS Mott Center of Sustainable Agriculture, to the TelFarm Records program and included the Ag Products Center, the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, MSU's Agricultural Economics Department Chair and WMU's Consumer Package Goods Marketing Program. Two individuals in Michigan had close and recent experience with two other important centers: The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and The Retail Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota. The Michigan visit has already resulted in one prospective PhD student visiting UK. Contacts were also made with WMU undergrads who might be interested in a masters with an emphasis in food and agribusiness. They have received from us customized information on the agribusiness and food work being done in our department for those students as well as others that may surface.

In California I visited eight faculty or staff representing another seven centers or units. They ranged from the Davis Center for Entrepreneurship to the Agribusiness Master and Undergrad program at Chico State and included the SCU Food and Agribusiness Institute, Sweet Green Fields LLC (that grows and processes Stevia an all natural sweetener also referred to by the trade name as Rebiana or Reb-1), the Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute, Chico's Agribusiness Institute and Davis' Center for Advanced Processing and Packaging Studies. Contacts were also made with undergrads and MS students who might be interested in a masters with an emphasis in food and agribusiness.

Preliminary discussions have started at UK on the possibility of establishing an Entrepreneurship Initiative in the College in conjunction with a group from UK composed of the Center for Business and Economics research (CBER), Innovation for Network Entrepreneurial Thinking (iNet) in Communications and the Martin School.

2011 Impact

I expect to discuss the above topics with the FSIC, CEDIC and KCARD as follows: Advisory committees, Sponsoring companies, Affiliate members, Client mentors, Undergraduate internships, and Such student competitions as Marketing (NAMA, FDRS, AAEA), case study competitions and quiz bowls, I also to continue interacting with those with whom I visited, introducing them to my UK colleagues who are interested and might gain from such collaborations as these.

2011 Publications

Robbins, Lynn W., November 2011.Stage 2 Firms and Innovation Counselors, Notes form the University of Kentucky Food Systems Innovation Center, an industry newsletter.