Sweden’s agriculture industry has faced many challenges in recent years. Among the most severe challenges are the decrease in the number of small and medium-sized farms, the decrease in the number of people employed in agricultural activities, and the increase in governmental regulations and legislation governing such activities. At the same time, the demand that agriculture contributes to sustainable social and ecological development has increased. Although research shows that sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) contributes to the creation of sustainable businesses and to the development of a sustainable society, Swedish agriculture has not been at the forefront in the use of SBMI. The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers to SBMI in Swedish agriculture in order to understand why farmers seldom engage in SBMI. This qualitative study follows the Gioia methodology and data for the analysis were acquired in semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs at six family farms in Sweden. The paper makes a theoretical contribution to the research on SBMI with its focus on sustainable entrepreneurship in the Swedish agricultural industry. The paper concludes that the barriers to SBMI are external, internal, and contextual.

As a complement to previous studies about barriers to development of business models (BM) and innovation in agriculture and agri-food, conducted in retrospective, this study were conducted during the pressure of an ongoing barrier in form of a crisis caused by the extreme drought of the summer 2018. The situation caused major challenges for Swedish farmers, and I was wondering how such an ongoing stressful situation affect strategic management and innovation of the farms? Hence, behaviours and thinking during the drought were studied by semi-structured in-depth interviews with six farmers in the southern part of Sweden. The paper answer to calls about further exploring how rural entrepreneurs absorb and recover from shocks (Korsgaard, Müller and Tanvig, 2014), and entrepreneurial strategies in agriculture to understand under what circumstances or among which type of farms an increased entrepreneurial orientation (EO) can lead to increased performance (Dias et al., 2019; Veidal and Flaten, 2014). Some general considerations appeared in the study. First, the farmers were hesitant about the word "crisis", as there are other things that have been much worse for them, both private and concerning not transitory business problems. Second, the mental stress was emphasized. Third, the effects of strategic planning, of both management, innovation, learning, and approach of stressful situations were illustrated. Mind-set, experiences and learning, and self-leadership were facilitating factors that emerged in the study. The study indicate that crisis creates new ways of thinking and acting, both in terms of new collaborations, innovative working methods, and product and process development, hence suggest that developed EO can lead to increased performance during stressful situations. Further, the importance of strategic long term discussions about both life situation and the business is emphasized. The paper also highlights some important factors when approaching challenges and strains, and complement previous research about barriers to BMI conducted in retrospective. This increased understanding is useful both for researchers and practice working with entrepreneurs and business development to facilitate prioritization of efforts and activities.

Agricultural advisors have recently received much critique both in practice and in the literature for not answering agricultural entrepreneurs’ need for support in the ongoing industry transformation. Advisors expect to guide highly pressured agricultural entrepreneurs operating in complex settings towards sustainable businesses in highly competitive markets. The current study using complexity leadership theory goes beyond the surface of the agricultural advisors’ everyday work by exploring challenges faced by the advisors and considering how to overcome them. The advisors’ genuine intentions and common mission guiding the development of sustainable agricultural businesses and a vibrant countryside is not enough to achieve the goals. We identify an emergent need for innovation in the leadership of advisory work and conceptualize enabling mechanisms to accomplish such change. We suggest that the creation of adaptive space as a lubricant gives innovation the opportunity to flourish through enabling leadership.

Purpose:

This article describes the five-phase process of a leadership development programme conducted with agricultural entrepreneurs who own and manage dairy farms in Sweden. The programme primarily focused on leadership of employees and on self-leadership. The article’s purpose is to present a template for leadership development programmes that can be used in the agricultural sector and in other industry sectors as well.

Design/Methodology:

The empirical data come from interviews with agricultural entrepreneurs, agricultural advisors and authors of a book on leadership in its various forms. Observations were also conducted of the instruction in the leadership development programme.

Findings:

First, agricultural entrepreneurs (and possibly entrepreneurs in other sectors) benefit from leadership development programmes in which the concept and practice of self-leadership are emphasized. Second, such programmes are more valuable to participants if other actors (e.g. academics and advisors) are participants. Third, coaches are useful as support for the programmes’ participants. Practical Implications: An implication of this study is the finding that working with the knowledge transfer and dissemination to advisors and entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector can enhance leadership competences in the industry. Role transformation (e.g. advisor to coach) can also enhance the transfer of such leadership competences.

Theoretical implications:

An implication for theory is to include a self-leadership module in leadership theories about learning leadership in development programmes.

Originality/Value:

Knowledge transfer and dissemination through leadership development programmes for agricultural advisors and entrepreneurs can have a beneficial effect on industry leadership and management. In addition to the traditional leadership skills that many leadership development programmes teach, such programmes also need to emphasize self-leadership.

This article contributes to the debate on entrepreneurs’ role in societies as well as the consequences of rural embeddedness and engagement, or the role of farmers in rural development and entrepreneurship. A contextualized view of farmers embedded—both spatially and positionally— in the entrepreneurial ecosystems is applied. The study, based on interviews with 24 farmers, 6 observations, and 8 interviews with actors within the agricultural support system, uses the Gioia methodology for analysis, thus enabling inductive theorizing. We find that farmers’ multifunctional role and their impact on societal development are central to understanding farmers’ entrepreneurial endeavours as well as their engagement in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Hence, this article discusses farmers’ embeddedness in rural society and development processes. It highlights the multifunctional role of farmers in society, which we argue make them enablers for rural development, an important role that has been overlooked in both entrepreneurship research and policy work.