What are agricultural economics Ph.D. students learning about agribusiness research methods and subject areas1

NACTA Journal, Jun 2003 by House, Lisa, Sterns, James

Abstract

Despite widespread demand for agribusiness Ph.D. graduates, and numerous departments offering specializations in agribusiness, the agricultural economics profession still lacks a widely accepted specification of "agribusiness" as an academic sub-field. This ambiguity not only limits any assessment of agribusiness Ph.D.-level training, but also undermines the academic endeavors of those interested in pursuing agribusiness-focused research and graduate instruction. Yet, most agricultural economics Ph.D. students, particularly those who self-identify as having a specialization in agribusiness, have had some exposure to many, but certainly not all, of the core subject areas and research methods germane to the sub-field. For example, numerous Departments of Agricultural Economics are offering courses that cover strategic management, finance, and supply chain management subject areas (57% of students responded they had at least one class within the department on these subjects). What appears to be widely missing is coursework in human resource management (7% of students indicated they had a class in this subject) and certain analytic techniques, particularly conjoint, cluster and factor analyses (22% of students indicated these subjects were covered in classes in the department). Also of note, case study methods are not being used by agribusiness students in their graduate research.

Introduction

Recent developments in the agricultural economics profession suggest a growing emphasis on "agri-business" topics in graduate programs. First, many universities have begun offering Masters degree programs in Agribusiness that differ significantly from traditional Master of Science programs in agricultural economics (Boland et al., 1999), while a growing number of agricultural economics graduate programs are offering Ph.D. fields in agribusiness (Table 1). Second, a large number of recent job offerings at agricultural economics departments have specified agribusiness as an important component of the position descriptions (Table 2). Boland and Oleen (2001) report similar results for the agricultural economics profession, noting, "at least 39 academic positions and 17 government positions have been advertised in the area of marketing and management since 1997." Finally, there has been increasing interest in research methods closely associated with agribusiness research -methods that differ from the traditional econometric and math programming approaches pursued in most agricultural economics research programs. For example, several pre- and post-conference workshops at recent annual meetings of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) have featured these methods.

With these developments as a backdrop, the objective of this paper is to investigate what research methods and subject areas today's Ph.D. students in agricultural economics, specifically those interested in "agribusiness," are learning.

Methods

This study utilizes the results from a series of telephone interviews of graduate program coordinators, and a web-based survey (available upon request) of current Ph.D. students and recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in agricultural economics. Requests to complete the survey were sent via e-mail to all members of the American Agricultural Economics Association Graduate Student Section (AAEA-GSS). We also solicited the aid of graduate program coordinators and all members of the USDA-supported Western Coordinating Committee on Agribusiness (WCC-72), asking these colleagues to forward our requests to all appropriate graduate students or recent graduates. The letter of request specifically asked students and recent graduates to complete the survey if they felt they either had an "agribusiness" specialization, might consider applying for a faculty position announced as an agribusiness position, or might seek employment in industry. A brief summary of the respondents is presented in Table 3.

Results are not intended to be representative of certain schools, as many schools only had one respondent. In fact, in the sections that follow, no claim of "representativeness" or generalizations of findings are made about these data. This survey was preliminary and exploratory in nature, and we only attempted to get an initial snapshot of agribusiness students and to generate discussions among our colleagues as to what skills Ph.D. students are learning to analyze agribusiness issues.

Results

There were 53 respondents, with 30 reporting an "agribusiness specialization." These data give some insight into the topics Ph.D. students in agricultural economics are learning. Presented with a list of 24 topics, respondents were asked whether they had learned about various methods of analyses and subject areas, and if so, in what context (i.e., in classes taught in their home department, in classes taught outside their department, through research with their professors, and/or in seminars). Respondents also could choose an "other" category, but this is not reported in the results for brevity, as there were only two cases where the respondent indicated that the sole source of learning about the given topic was from some other setting. Also, four topics originally listed in the survey are not reported in the results that follow as it appears there might have been some misunderstanding of the meaning of the topic, or because few data were gathered. These topics were accounting, structural equations modeling, consumer behavior theory, and marketing management.