A road map through the maze - a typology of farm management decision making research

A review of 183 papers published between 1990 and 2006 lead to development of a typology of farm management decision making (FMDM) research. An existing model which categorises decision research according to purpose as being either D: descriptive, N: normative or P: predictive was blended with a second form of categorisation based on six emergent decision domains: (1) factors, (2) processes,(3) events, (4) evaluation, (5) patterns and (6) aids. The result was a typology of seven main discernible types of FMDM research. Each of these types is outlined and examples of representative publications listed. Finally, some trends in publication patterns, in accord with this typology, are presented. This work is presented in the hope it helps readers to navigate more easily though a large and complex literature