Exploring the possibilities of creating shared value in Japan’s urban agriculture: using a mixed methods approach

The purpose of this research is to clarify the mechanism of creating shared value in Japan’s urban agriculture by focusing on the cognitive innovation of social entrepreneurship and urban residents’ cognition and behavior toward urban agriculture. Specifically, we introduce a mixed methods approach by integrating a multiple case-based qualitative exploration method for clarifying the cognitive innovation of social entrepreneurship and a quantitative sociological approach to the authors’ original questionnaire for analyzing the urban residents’ cognition toward urban agriculture. The following results are obtained from our empirical analysis. First, the results of latent class analysis clarified that diversified cognition and behavior toward urban agriculture are existing in urban residents. Second, the results of case analysis clarified that social entrepreneurs with radical cognitive innovation and gradual cognitive innovation are able to solve social problems and enhance competency through urban agriculture with stakeholders. However, social entrepreneurs fallen into social dilemma of cognitive innovation should pay more attention to organizational learning while involving residents in urban agriculture. Policy implication drawn from the above-mentioned results suggests that a system change may happen when urban agriculture in Japan becomes more familiar to general urban residents through collective social entrepreneurship.