TOPIC 4–STAGE 5–MESO In the European Union agricultural cooperatives have a market share of around 60% of the processing and marketing of agricultural commodities, and around 50% of inputs supply (FAO, 2013a). Nevertheless... [ view full abstract ]
TOPIC 4–STAGE 5–MESO
In the European Union agricultural cooperatives have a market share of around 60% of the processing and marketing of agricultural commodities, and around 50% of inputs supply (FAO, 2013a). Nevertheless in contrast to investor-owned firms (IOFs), cooperatives are member-owned, member-controlled and operated for the benefit of producer-members (James and Sykuta, 2005). Thus, many authors agree that the evaluation of the performance of cooperatives must not be limited to a simple analysis of traditional financial ratios.
The harmonization of the interests of cooperative’s members significantly hampers its operational management. Fulton (2001) observed that due to their more heterogeneous interests, agricultural cooperatives are more likely to become trapped in an inefficient state. Their conservative and democratic quality, whilst desirable in itself, becomes problematic within an environment that demands rapid decisions (Chloupková, 2002). Thus, cooperatives have been recognized as business models facing the greatest difficulties in mobilizing resources for the implementation of adaptive processes (James and Sinkula, 2005). The characteristics of these organizations (mainly attributed to their system of ownership and governance), and the greater difficulties they have to face, compared to IOFs, when they undertake any process of change and/or improvement, highlight the need to advance and deepen the study of innovation activities for agricultural cooperatives.
The main aim of this paper is to propose a model that incorporates the effect of the cooperatives’ characteristics (i.e., their objectives, configuration and operational dynamics in decision-making processes) on the innovation activities of cooperatives. We try to test the influence exercised by variables related to the nature of cooperatives (i.e., organizational culture, learning orientation, marketing capabilities) and variables related to decision-making in cooperatives (risk aversion, willingness to innovation) on the degree of novelty of innovations developed by cooperatives, and accordingly, on their performance levels.
We selected a sample of 50 marketing cooperative of the Spanish food industry. This study used a survey questionnaire to gather the data through personal interviews. We are currently analyzing the obtained results in order to formulate the main conclusions.
References
Chloupková, J. (2002). European Cooperative Movement. Background and common denominators. Unit of Economics Working Papers 2002/4.
Fulton M. (2001). Leadership in Democratic and Participatory Organizations. Presidential Address to the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, CAES-AAEA Annual Meeting, Chicago.
James, H.S., Sykuta, M.E. (2005). Property right and organizational characteristics of producer-owned firms and organizational trust. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 76(4), 545-580.
