Digitally Enabled Decission Making in Big Crop Farms: Inspiration for a Balanced Decision Making Metaphorical Model

This paper analysis decision making support systems in the big crops farms and proposes a metaphoric model to illustrate the interdependence of resources usage. The proposed metaphoric model is drawn considering that six types of resources (time, financial, people, knowledge, technology, relational capital) are spent to achieve an objective and puts forward a graphical representation, a hexagonal pyramid to illustrate the interdependence among these six types of resources (the polygon of resources) and the quality of the financial outcome (the height of the pyramid). Examples of digital decision support systems used in big crop farms were used to explain the model’s functioning. A particularity of the model consists in the adding of a second mirrored pyramid (resting on the same base) with its height representing the assessment of the environmental impact as a proxy for ESG results. Consequently, the evolved model proposed by the paper, dubbed as The Value Creation Diamond, provides a good springboard in visualizing and assessing the balance between the scaled heights of the two adjoined pyramids (Financial height vs ESG height). The model is deemed to be a useful tool for practitioners as well as educators in their quest to facilitate the wider use of balanced decision-making model considering the resources and outputs in the realm of sustainable development.

Further research will be instrumental to validate the possibility to use this model for other types of farms, firms and organizations.