Is competition really bad news for cooperatives? Some empirical evidence for Italian producers’ cooperatives

Maietta, Ornella Wanda; Sena, Vania

doi:10.1007/s11123-008-0100-z

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…() find no evidence of allocative inefficiency of cooperatives in the US cotton industry. On the other hand, in a series of studies using data from the Italian wine industry, Maietta and Sena (, , ) find that cooperatives tend to be more efficient than conventional firms, and that cooperative organization is conducive to improvement in productive efficiency in response to adversities such as tightening financial constraints or increased competitive pressure.…”

Section: A Brief Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Cooperatives More Productive Than Investor‐owned Firms? Cross‐industry Evidence From Portugal

Monteiro

Straume

2018

Ann Public Coop Econ

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We analyse empirically whether cooperatives and investor-owned firms differ in terms of productive efficiency. Using rich Portuguese panel data covering a wide range of industries, we apply two different empirical approaches to estimate potential differences in productive efficiency. The results from our benchmark randomeffects model show that cooperatives are significantly less productive, on average, than investor-owned firms, both at the aggregate level and for most of the industries considered. However, the results derived from a System-GMM approach, which is our preferred empirical strategy, are much less conclusive, and we cannot conclude that cooperatives are generally less efficient that investor-owned firms. With either approach, though, we find no evidence that cooperatives are more productive than investor-owned firms in any industry.We thank an anonymous referee and a co-editor for valuable comments and suggestions.According to the latest (2015) figures from Cooperatives Europe (Cocolina 2016), there are almost 180,000 cooperatives just in Europe, an increase of 9% from 2009. These cooperatives employ more than 4.5 million people and are present in a wide range of sectors. The largest sectors are industry and services (36%), agriculture (30%) and housing (22%) if measured by number of firms, and agriculture (39%), retail (30%) and consumer (12%) if measured by annual turnover. 2In terms of market shares, figures from the European Commission (http://ec.europa. eu/growth/sectors/social-economy/cooperatives/index_en.htm) show that, in several countries, cooperatives are dominant in the agricultural industry (83% in the Netherlands, 79% in Finland, 55% in Italy and 50% in France). In addition, cooperatives are strongly present in industries such as forestry, banking, retail, pharmaceutical and health care, with cooperative market shares in the range of 20-60% in several countries. 3 See Section 2 for a theoretical discussion of cooperatives versus IOFs, and Section 3 for a review of the empirical literature. 7 See also Soboh et al. (2009) for a more comprehensive and updated literature review.

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Section: A Brief Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Cooperatives More Productive Than Investor‐owned Firms? Cross‐industry Evidence From Portugal

Monteiro

Straume

2018

Ann Public Coop Econ

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“…El control mutuo actúa como un mecanismo de alineamiento implícito, lo cual hace innecesaria la necesidad de mecanismos de control materializados mediante contratos explícitos (Hart, 1995;Alchian y Demsetz, 1972). El compartir los beneficios organizacionales genera un incentivo a poner presión sobre los individuos oportunistas (Maietta y Sena, 2008), junto con motivar un esfuerzo mayor en las tareas desempeñadas, lo cual tiene un impacto positivo en el desempeño económico de la cooperativa (Vanek, 1970).…”

Section: Estructura De Propiedadunclassified

“…En este sentido, se han resaltado los inconvenientes a la hora de establecer esquemas de coordinación y motivación, producto de las particularidades de la forma cooperativa de organización (Ben -Ner, 1984, 1988Ballestero, 1983;Arruñada, 1991;Hansmann, 1996). Por su parte, el enfoque asociado a la Economía Social ha destacado el rol que juegan este tipo de organizaciones en el contexto económico, destacando el impacto que generan en la sociedad a partir de su capacidad de creación de capital social y minimización de externalidades negativas del mercado (Novkovic, 2008;Jones y Kalmi, 2009;Monzón, 2009;Maietta y Sena, 2008;Pencavel et al 2006;Pérotin, 2006;Vitaliano, 1983, entre otros).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

La sociedad cooperativa: motivación y coordinación. Un análisis desde las teorías económicas de la empresa y la economía social

Servós

Calderón

2013

REVESCO. Revista De Estudios Cooperativos

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RESUMENEste trabajo analiza el contexto de motivación y coordinación en la sociedad cooperativa, desde las teorías económicas de la empresa, utilizando como marco de referencia los Principios Cooperativos planteados por la Alianza Cooperativa Internacional y los aspectos más relevantes planteados por la literatura relacionada al tema. Para esto se desarrolla un modelo de análisis compuesto de cuatro dimensiones asociadas a: gobierno organizacional, pertenencia a la organización, obtención y utilización de recursos y relaciones internas y con el entorno, las ventajas e inconvenientes identificados dentro del contexto de motivación y coordinación de la sociedad cooperativa. Se concluye que las cooperativas constituyen un modelo organizacional que ubica a las personas en el centro del análisis de la actividad económica y que sus desventajas surgen a partir de criterios de evaluación que no siempre se ajustan a la naturaleza de estas organizaciones, haciendo necesario ampliar el criterio de análisis de organizaciones con características diferentes a la empresa convencional.

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“…Although no clear answer to this question has emerged, numerous studies have attempted to find an answer and identify the relationship between organizational form and efficiency. Diametrically opposed answers have been reported in the literature, including private firms outperforming cooperatives (e.g., Furesi, Madau, and Pulina 2013;Porter and Scully 1987), cooperatives outperforming private firms (e.g., Ferrantino, Ferrier, and Linvill 1995;Maietta and Sena 2008), and insignificant differences in efficiency between the two types of organization (e.g., Jones 2007). This variety of answers suggests that the efficiency of cooperatives ("co-ops") versus private firms depends on other factors that have not yet been studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical Efficiency of Producer Cooperatives versus Private Firms: A Longitudinal Empirical Study

Kapelko

Fuentes

Nickel

2017

Journal of Small Business Management

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In this paper, we hypothesize that producer cooperatives are more efficient than private firms, even when the impact of the political and economic environment is controlled for, and irrespective of the orientation with which efficiency is assessed; that is, whether firms target the reduction of inputs or the expansion of outputs. The empirical application focuses on a longitudinal population of olive oil manufacturing firms operating in the south of Spain from 1944 to 1998. The analyses clearly show that producer cooperatives are more efficient than private firms.1 There is also hyperbolic-oriented efficiency, which focuses simultaneously on increasing outputs and minimizing inputs. However, in this study, in addition to assessing the efficiency differences between cooperatives and private firms, we are also interested in determining whether any dissimilarities are linked to the orientation assumed. Therefore, we focus on both input-and output-oriented models.2 It is important to clarify that among private firms there is one specific group composed of sole proprietorship companies with a single owner-shareholder and the same characteristics as other private firms.

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Is competition really bad news for cooperatives? Some empirical evidence for Italian producers’ cooperatives

Abstract: Producers’ cooperatives, Technical efficiency, Market share, J5, L2, D4,

Cited by 19 publications

References 26 publications

Are Cooperatives More Productive Than Investor‐owned Firms? Cross‐industry Evidence From Portugal

Are Cooperatives More Productive Than Investor‐owned Firms? Cross‐industry Evidence From Portugal

La sociedad cooperativa: motivación y coordinación. Un análisis desde las teorías económicas de la empresa y la economía social

Technical Efficiency of Producer Cooperatives versus Private Firms: A Longitudinal Empirical Study

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