The Potential of Classification Algorithms in the Socioeconomic and Resource-Based Determination of the Success Perceptions of Farmers

Strategic management of farms is closely related to the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers and the utilization of resources in the process of creating competitive advantage. This study provides perspectives about the success perceptions of farmers from a socioeconomic and resource-based view using classification algorithms. Among the features that are of high importance in the classification in general, the most frequent variables were found to be external labor as the socioeconomic feature and profitability as the resource feature. The comparison between the unsupervised classification algorithms indicated that C5.0 performed better than CHAID (Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection) and RF (Random Forest). Classifications of the success perceptions of family farmers differ from solo farmers in most of the features. Even though profitability and skills for exploiting opportunities are the key features in classifying financial success, as they are common among all farmers, there are distinctions for family farmers as well. Relevance such as self-determination success-organizational culture and emotional success-collaboration/networking skills refer to farming being a concentric business. This study provides unique insights for family farming as well, as most success perceptions are related to the resources available, but family-related means of success are associated with socioeconomic features.