Shiping ZHU，Shim in SUN，Lim in HAN

College of Economics and Management，Shandong Agricultural University，Tai'an 271018，China

1 Introduction

Shandong Province is China's third largest sheep breeding province following Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.In 2012，the province's sheep number was 21638100，and the mutton production was 331000 t，accounting for 7.59%and 8.25%of total amount of China，respectively，to a great extent meeting people's consumer demand for meat products.Although Shandong is a major sheep breeding province，it is not a strong sheep breeding province，and the building level of breeding records is low.This situation has largely restricted the disease prevention and control，technology application，breeding standardization and improvement of sheep quality for sheep industry in Shandong Province.Therefore，how to increase the proportion of sheep-raising households or farms establishing breeding records and regulate the sheep rearing management practices，has become a real problem that the government and scholars are generally concerned about.The breeding records are the word records with conservation value formed in the course of sheep-raising households or farms engaging in immunization，production，use of feed and veterinary drugs，disinfection，treatment，quarantine inspection，harmless processing of dead livestock and various other activities.In recent years，the domestic scholars have done some researches on the issues related to breeding records.Wang Weiming（2011）believes that the breeding records can play a role in immunity warning，inspection reminder，timely traceability，production control，and vaccine saving［1］.Wu Xuefeng（2012）maintains that the establishment of breeding records can further regulate the breeding behavior of raising households or farms，and improve the technical level，feeding practices and management practices to improve the economic efficiency of raising households or farms［2］.Yang Yinghai（2012）points out that we can increase the proportion of raising households or farms establishing breeding records by strengthening the training publicity，guidance，supervision，inspection，and incentives［3］.Shan Liujiang（2013）points out some prominent problems in China，such as low establishment proportion of breeding records，unscientific content of breeding records，unsound supervision mechanism and unscientific evaluation mechanism［4］.Yang Meicuiand Wang Furong（2013）think that the establishment and management of livestock and poultry breeding records is an important means to ensure the quality and safety of animal products［5］.Guo Sibao（2014）believes that the establishment and management of breeding records is an important way to implement the traceability of animal productquality andmajor animal diseases，and it isvery necessary to strengthen training and guidance for the raising households or farms to establish the breeding records［6］.Pei Yunhua（2014）think the breeding records can fully reflect the breeding level of livestock and poultry and improve the management level of livestock and poultry raising households or farms，and the record is also an important basis for assessing the quality of livestock and poultry products［7］.From the literature，it is found that the current academic world has reached a consensus on the role and significance of breeding records，and has studied the measures for the establishment of breeding records from a macro point of view.However，there is no study on the factors influencing the breeding records establishing behavior of sheep-raising households or farms as well as the correlation between the establishing behavior and its influencing factors.In this paper，using the survey data on 849 sheep-raising householdsor farms from 17 cities in Shandong Province，we employ the Logit binary choice model to determine the factors influencing the breeding records establishing behavior of sheep-raising households or farms，and then adopt ISM（Interpretive Structural Model）analysis method to analyze the correlation and hierarchy between various influencing factors，in order to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for establishing the breeding records of sheep-raising households or farms and achieve standardized development of sheep industry.

2 Theoretical analysis，data sources and variable selection

2.1 Theoretical analysis

2.1.1 Characteristic variables.The characteristic variables of policymakers include age，gender，and education level.The establishment of sheep breeding records is a relatively standardized feeding management behavior，and the older the policy makers，the smaller the proportion of policy makers establishing breeding records.Compared with men，women have poorer awareness of regulating feeding management behavior，so the proportion of women establishing sheep breeding records is small.Meanwhile，the higher the education level of sheep-raising households or farms，the stronger the awareness of accepting new things，so the proportion of sheep-raising farmers with higher education level establishing the breeding records will be higher.

2.1.2 Production and management characteristics.The production and management characteristic variables include feeding type，breeding scale，feeding length，degree of specialization，and rearing methods.The sales target of sheep breeding households and large-scale sheep breeding farms is standardized and fixed，so there is a larger proportion of specialized and large-scale sheep breeding farms establishing the breeding records.The sheep-raising households or farms with larger scale are more likely to employ professional and technical personnel，so the sheep-raising households or farms with larger breeding scale are more likely to establish breeding records.The sheep-raising households or farms with long period of feeding have relatively sound management practices，and have stronger willingness to pursue standardization of feeding and management，so they are more likely to establish breeding records.Establishing the breeding records will help improve the breeding management and breeding efficiency of sheep raising households or farms with higher degree of specialization，so the more specialized sheep-raising households or farms are more likely to establish breeding records.Compared with the free-range method，the captive rearing method makes it more convenient for the sheep-raising households or farms to record the information related to feed，vaccination，treatment and disinfection，so the sheep-raising households or farms using the captive rearing method are more likely to establish breeding records.

2.1.3 Organizational characteristics.Organizational characteristics refer to whether to join sheep breeding cooperative organizations or the sheep industrial management organizations such as＂company+sheep-raising households or farms＂.The sheep-raising households or farms joining the sheep breeding cooperative organizations have more standard breeding management and are more likely to establish breeding records.The sheep industrial management organization is a new mode of production，and a mode of application of supply chain management.After the sheep-raising households or farms join the industrial management organization，the breeding records keeping breeding management information become the main source of information，so the sheep-raising households or farms joining the industrial management organization are likely to establish breeding records.

2.1.4 Environmental characteristics.Environmental characteristics manifest themselves as government support and origin characteristics.Government support means offering financial support and technical training for the sheep-raising households or farms to establish breeding records，and the sheep-raising households or farms obtaining more government support are more likely to establish breeding records.Origin characteristics refer to whether the sheep-raising households or farms are in the main sheep producing areas，middle-yielding areas or low-yielding areas.Compared with the non-primary producing areas，the main producing areas have relatively complete policy orientation and supporting facilities for sheep breeding industry，and sound supervision and management departments，so the sheep-raising households or farms in the main producing areas are more likely to establish breeding records.

2.1.5 Cognitive characteristics.The cognitive characteristics mean the sheep-raising households or farms' awareness of establishing breeding records，and awareness to a certain extent dominates people's behavior，so the sheep-raising households or farms having higher awareness of the importance of establishing breeding records are more likely to establish breeding records.

2.2 Data sourcesThe data used in this paper are obtained by the undergraduate and graduate students of College of Economics and Management，and College of Animal Science and Technology，Shandong Agricultural University，by field survey in the summer in 2013.1000 questionnaires were sent out and 849 valid questionnaires were called back.The survey objects are the sheep-raising households or farms in 17 cities of Shandong Province.Linyi City，Jining City and Heze City are the main producing areas，and the number of slaughtered sheep in the three cities accounts for 50.42%of the province's total number of slaughtered sheep；Weifang City，Binzhou City，Dongying City，Zaozhuang City，Dezhou City，Jinan City，Liaocheng City and Tai'an City are the middle yielding areas，and the number of slaughtered sheep in the eight cities accounts for 42.32%of the province's total number of slaughtered sheep；Weihai City，Qingdao City，Yantai City，Laiwu City，Zibo City and Rizhao City are the low-yielding areas，and the number of slaughtered sheep in the six cities accounts for 7.36%of the province's total number of slaughtered sheep.Among 849 respondents，men account for 66.90%；respondents aged between 30 and 49 account for 38.87%；respondents with education level of junior high school and above account for 70.79%；respondents engaged in sheep breeding for more than three years account for 71.38%.The respondents are mostly men with long average years of education，who are familiar with the basic essentials of sheep breeding management and better understand the content of the questionnaire，so the survey data are highly representative and credible.

Table 1 Regional distribution of the sheep-raising households or farms

2.3 Variable selectionAccording to the theoretical analysis，this paper selects 5 categories of 13 variables when building the econometricmodel of sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records.The name，explanation and expected impact direction of the variables are shown in Table 2.

3 Empirical analysis and discussion

3.1 Determining of the influencing factors based on Logit model

3.1.1 Model selection.This paper studies the factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records，namely the probability of sheep-raising households or farms establishing breeding record.In statistics，Logit model is a type of probabilistic statistical classification model.It is also used to predict a binary response from a binary predictor，used for predicting the outcome of a categorical dependent variable based on one or more predictor variables.That is，it is used in estimating the parameters of a qualitative response model.The probabilities describing the possible outcomes of a single trial are modeled，as a function of the explanatory（predictor）variables，using a logistic function.It is suitable for the analysis of the choice of behavior in accordance with the principle of utility maximization.Generally，when making a decision on whether to establish breeding records，the sheep-raising households or farms will rationally make the best choice on the basis of comprehensively weighing various factors.Therefore，this paper uses Logit model to analyze the factors influencing the sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records.Logit regression model is generally as follows：

whereZis the linear combination of variablesX1，X2，……，Xn，namely：

Transform according to equation（1）and（2）to obtain the form of Logit model expressed by odds：

wherePis the probability of sheep-raising households or farms to establish breeding records；Xi（i＝1，2，……，n）is the explanatory variable，namely the main influencing factor；b0is the constant term；bi（i＝1，2，……，n）is the regression coefficient of influencing factori；eis the random error.The value ofb0andbi（i＝1，2，……，n）can be estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation method.

3.1.2 Estimation results.This paper uses SPSS soft ware to per-form the Logit regression of sample data.First，we consider the impact of all independent variables on formula（3）and get Model Iby estimation.The impact of six variables concerning the sheep breeding policymakers（gender，age，feeding type，rearing methods，whether to join the sheep breeding cooperative organizations and origin characteristics）is not significant.Second，based on the concomitant probability，we gradually eliminate the insignificant variables until all variables are statistically significant at the 10%level，to get Model II.The coefficients and statistics of the variables are shown in Table 3.As can be seen from Table 3，the coefficients and statistics of statistically significant variables in Model I and Model II are very close，and the P values of both are 0.000，so the two models have similar meaning and are of statistical significance. According to the regression results， policy makers' education level，breeding scale，feeding length，degree of specialization，government support，whether to join the industrial operation organization，and awareness of breeding records，are of statistical significance to the sheep-raising households or farms 'behavior of establishing breeding records.In fact，the above 7 factors play independent role and they are also interrelated，to form a influence system of the behavior of establishing breeding records with a hierarchical structure.Although Logit model can determine these influencing factors，it can not derive the correlation and hierarchy between these influencing factors.Therefore，we use ISM model to determine the correlation and hierarchy between the7 influencing factors.

Table 3 Logit model regression results of the factors influencing the sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records

3.2 Structural analysis of influencing factors based on ISM model

3.2.1 Model building.The ISM method（Interpretative Structural Model ling）is a method developed by Professor Ophelia Stewart in 1973 for the analysis of complex structural problems of socioeconomic system.The basic principle is that by determining the factors affecting the system and their relationship，it uses the correlation matrix in graph theory and computer technology to process the information concerning the influencing factors and their relationship，in order to determine the correlation and hierarchy between factors and thus find the main factors and their internal relations（Wang Yingluo，1998）.The structural analysis of the factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms 'behavior of establishing breeding records is as follows：

（i）Building the logical relationship between structural factors.We useS0to represent whether the sheep-raising households or farms establish breeding records，and useS1，S2，S3，S4，S5，S6andS7to represent the 7 factors influencing the sheep-raising households or farms' establishment of breeding records（policy makers' education level，breeding scale，feeding length，degree of specialization，whether to join the industrial operation organization，government support，and awareness of breeding records），respectively.On the basis of analysis，discussion and consultation，we display the logical relationship between the factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms 'behavior of establishing breeding records，as shown in Fig.1.In Fig.1，V means that the row factors have a direct or indirect impact on the column factors and H means that the column factors have a direct or indirect impact on the row factors.

（ii）Building the adjacency matrix.According to the logical relationship between influencing factors shown in Fig.1，we use equation（4）to show the adjacency matrix R between the factors.

where＂1＂means that there is an impact；＂0＂means that there is no impact.

and Matlab7.0 software，we use the adjacency matrixRto get the reachability matrix（M）of influencing factors.

whereIis the unit matrix，2≤λ≤k，and the Boolean operation is used in the matrix exponentiation algorithm.

（iv）Determining the hierarchy among factors.First，on the basis of the third step，we calculate a multi-level hierarchical highest element set（L1）based on equation（6）.

whereP（Si）is the set of all the factors that can be reached from factorSiin the reachabilitymatrix；Q（Si）is the set of all the factors that can reach factorSiin the reachability matrix.Namely：

wheremijandmjiare the factors of reachability matrixM.

Then，we delete the rows and columns that factors correspond to inL1from the original reachability matrixMto get matrixM′.We conduct the operation of equation（6），（7）M′on to get the factors in the second layerL2，and delete the rows and columns that factors correspond to inL2fromM′to get matrixM″.The same operation is performed onM″to get the factors in the third layerL3.In a similar manner，we get the factors in all layers.According to the above method，we first get the highest layer of factors from the reachability matrixL1＝｛S0｝，and then get the factors in other layersL2＝｛S6，S7｝，L3＝｛S4，S5｝，L4＝｛S1，S2，S3｝.

Finally，according to the classification results of factor level，we rearrange the rows and columns of reachability matrixMto get the hierarchy matrix（B）of factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records.（v）Building the interpretive structural model.From matrixB，S0is in the first layer；S6andS7are in the second layer；S4andS5are in the third layer；S1，S2andS3are in the fourth layer.Thus it forms a chain of influencing factors with logical relationship.We use the factors in adjacent layers and the factors in the same layers to get the correlation and hierarchy between the factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records，as shown in Fig.2.

3.2.2 Discussions on results.（i）Analysis of apparent direct factors.The regression coefficient of awareness of sheep breeding records is 0.856，and is statistically significant at the 1%level，indicating that sheep-raising households or farms' awareness of breeding records has a significant positive impact on the establishing behavior of breeding records，consistent with theoretical expectations.According to the basic theory of behavior（Stephen P.Robbins，2005），awareness determines behavior，and sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records is necessarily based on the awareness of breeding records.Therefore，the sheep-raising households or farms have some awareness of breeding records.The sheep-raising households or farms' awareness of breeding records is also affected by two indirect factors（whether to join the industrial operation organization，degree of specialization）.The regression coefficient of government support is 0.191，and statistically significant at the 10%level，indicating that the government support has a significant positive effect on sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records，which verifies the hypothesis of this paper.Currently，the proportion of establishing sheep breeding records is very low in Shandong Province，and among the 849 sheep-raising households or farms，only 26.53%of them establish breeding records.The sheep-raising households or farms do not realize the importance of breeding records，therefore，the government can strengthen the publicity of the importance of breeding records and technical training for the establishment of breeding records to make sheep-raising households or farms have a real understanding of the role of breeding records.Therefore，the government support can influence the sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records.（ii）Analysis of middle indirect factors.The regression coefficient of whether to join the industrial operation organization is0.916，and statistically significant at the 1%level，indicating that whether to join the industrial operation organization has a significant positive impact on the sheep-raising households or farms' behavior of establishing breeding records，which verifies the hypothesis of this paper.Establishing the breeding records is an important way to ensure the product quality and safety，so the sheep-raising households or farms joining the industrial management organizations are required by the industrial management organizations to establish breeding records.Therefore，whether to join the industrial operation organization has an important significant impact sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records.The regression coefficient of degree of specialization is 0.387，and statistically significant at the 1%level，indicating that the degree of specialization has a significant positive impact on the sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records，which verifies the hypothesis of this paper.One possible explanation is that for the sheep raising households or farms with higher degree of specialization，the proportion of sheep breeding income to total income is higher.Out of self-interest demands，the sheep-raising households or farms with higher degree of specialization will constantly improve their feeding and management levels and regulate their own behavior to achieve scientific sheep breeding.（iii）Analysis of underlying important factors.The regression coefficient of policy makers'education level is 0.093，and statistically significant at the 5%level，indicating that policymakers'education level has a significant positive impact on the sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records，which is consistent with the hypothesis of this paper.The establishment of breeding records requires a certain level of culture and related training，so the policymakers with higher education level are more likely to establish breeding records.The regression coefficient of breeding scale is 0.200，and statistically significant at the 10%level，indicating that the breeding scale has a significant positive impact on sheep raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records，which verifies the hypothesis of this paper.When the breeding scale reaches a certain level，the breeding records will become an important means of traceability.So the sheep-raising households or farms with larger breeding scale are more likely to establish breeding records.The regression coefficient of feeding length is-0.509 and statistically significant at the1%level，indicating that the feeding length has a significant negative impact on sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records，which is inconsistent with the hypothesis of this paper.The possible explanation is that for the sheep-raising households or farms with many years of feeding are difficult to change the feeding and management habits，and they prefer their own feeding habits.As the underlying factors，policy makers'education level，breeding scale and feeding length directly affect whether to join the industrial operation organization and degree of specialization，and have an important impact on sheep-raising households or farms'establishment of breeding records from the source.

4 Conclusions and policy recommendations

4.1 ConclusionsBased on the field survey data，this paper combines the Logit binary choice model and ISM model to analyze the factors influencing sheep-raising households or farms'behavior of establishing breeding records as well as the hierarchy between factors.The results show that whether to establish breeding re-cords is not determined by one or some of the factors but by the three-level hierarchical complex system consisting of 7 factors（policy makers'education level，breeding scale，feeding length，degree of specialization，whether to join the industrial operation organization，government support，and awareness of breeding records）.The awareness of breeding records and government support are the apparent direct factors；whether to join the industrial operation organization and degree of specialization are the middle indirect factors；policy makers'education level，breeding scale and feeding length are the underlying factors.

｀4.2 Policy recommendations（i）It is necessary to strengthen training and improve the cultural quality of sheep-raising farmers.There is a need to set up training courses and use the channels of radio，television，Internet and newspaper columns to enhance the sheep-raising households or farms'standardized feeding and management philosophy，and introduce technical and management skills concerning the establishment of breeding records to the majority of sheep-raising households or farms.（ii）It is necessary to strengthen the publicity and education to enhance sheep-raising households or farms'confidence in production and operation，keep sheep-raising households or farms'optimistic attitude toward sheep breeding，and expand the breeding scale of sheep-raising households or farms.（iii）It is necessary to give play to the role of government departments to speed up the optimization of the spatial layout of the sheep industry.Relevant government staff should scientifically develop the sheep industry development plan，make a clear direction for the development of sheep industry in different regions，and expand and accelerate the development of main sheep producing areas.（iv）It is necessary to promote the development of the sheep industrial management organization and give full play to the supervisory role of the organization to achieve the effective integration of upstream and downstream information.

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