Web-site Management and Utilization Strategies for Family Farm Businesses

농촌형 가정기업의 웹사이트 관리실태와 활성화를 위한 제언

The farming type in Korea is predominantly a small farm managed by family members. This study mainly examines the current usage of the website of family farms as a management tool for small farm business and discusses the strategies for effective utilization of the website. A county that currently employs governmental project of information system was purposely selected. Among all the websites operated by small farm businesses in that county, websites of which purpose is introduction of the business, advertisement, or e-business were included for analysis; it yielded total seven websites, The study was conducted with two phases; on-line website analysis and interview with business owners. The websites were analyzed based on four categories; content, interface, design, and site management. With regard to the content of the websites, the lack of connection between domain names and product names was found. Moreover, the problem relevant to site management was shown as low utilization of bulletin boards and delayed upload of new information. However, design and interface were comparatively well presented. Business owners reported that the motivation to initiate the websites was mostly supports from the governmental project for the agricultural information system. The barriers to effective management of websites were found i) business owner's misinterpretation of business website with e-business ii) very limited opportunity for website management education in small farm business, and iii) lack of regional infrastructure for information system. Based on the findings, this study suggests as followed; i) construction of infrastructure should be preceded to make effective management for websites; ii) education for website management should include small business management strategies as well as computer skills, iii) the education should be provided in diverse ways considering subject's characteristics iv) small farm business owners should be informed that their websites could play a role only to provide information about the products and hand over the practical load for e-business to retailing web sites such as portal shopping mall; and v) wives' participation should be encouraged.