The Nexus of Value Chain Integration and E-Business Applications on Public Sector Agriculture R&D Management

This paper examines the potential impact of interconnectivity of supply chain partnerships through electronic means (e-business practices) on the governance and management of Public Sector Agriculture R&D in Australia. We review the global forces driving the move towards supply chain involvement in Public Sector Agriculture R&D in the first section of this paper. We show that this movement is largely a mechanism (consistent with fifth generation R&D) to spread risk and minimize market failure. Public sector R&D organizations are having to reassess who their customers are and in the case of Agriculture R&D, extend the arena past the farm gate to include all constituents along the supply chain. In the second section, we examine the communication and administrative processes that are theoretically consistent with the move towards supply chain involvement and the increase in active constituents in Public Sector Agriculture R&D. We then examine the potential of emerging e-business models to change the patterns of inter-connectivity, speed and omnipresence of partners in the supply chain that are on one hand eliminating these barriers and on the other creating new ones. Amongst the emerging new barriers is the increased instability of these supply chains because of the decrease in switching costs that the e-connectivity brings with it. Value net business models can potentially capture these fluctuations in alliances and may provide a useful tool for guiding public sector Agriculture R&D management. Implications of these e-business practices for R&D corporate governance and project management are discussed