Samenvatting

Differences in the perception of opportunities for farm development is researched in this thesis in relation to differences in the embedding of the farm in the socio-material context. This study contributes to a Sociology of Entrepreneurship in focusing on the decision-maker specific aspects using the concepts Opportunity Identification, Strategic Decision-Making and Embeddedness. In a case study of family dairy farmers operating in a highly comparable socio-material context at the level of the case study, a mix of quantitative and qualitative data were used to analyse differences at the level of the decision-makers on the family farm. Based on the perceived viability of 15 opportunities for farm development to contribute to farm income, four clusters of opportunities were found that represent different farm development strategies: 1) maximising production; 2) optimising the use of own resources; 3) diversifying production; and 4) ending dairy farming.