Coordinating Units: Farmers’ Cooperatives in China ------A Comparative Study of Organizational Design in Agriculture between China and Japan

From the perspective of organization design, this paper investigates and compares the levels and characteristics of China and Japan’s agricultural organization. (1) In Japan, the individual household is the building block of the agricultural organization in that they possess complete moving rights of their labor and complete property rights over land (although the land mobility is limited by government). On the other hand, in China, the basic building block of agricultural organization is transferred from the individual (in the PC period) into the household (in the HRS period). Nevertheless, the rural households in China are an incomplete economic entity in that they possess incomplete moving rights over their labor and incomplete property rights over the land. (2) For the organizational design in Japan, it is a dual organization encompassing JA and government. Whereas in China, the transition from the PC to HRS left a blank in the coordinating functions, which explains well the reason why the farmers’ cooperatives are needed urgently. (3) The farmers’ cooperatives function as coordinating units in that, they are able to work as a complete economic entity, they coordinate the agricultural production and marketing between petty scale farmers and government, and they perform part of the functions of middle management.