The Future of U.S. Agricultural Cooperatives: A Neo‐Institutional Approach

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Michael L. Cook is Robert D. Partridge Professor in the Social Sciences Unit, College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, at the University of Missouri. 'Marketing share estimates represent cooperative activity at the farmgate or first-handler level. Farm supply share estimates represent cooperative activity in selling farm supplies to farmers for use in production. For a detailed explanation of how these aggregated market shares are estimated, see USDA Farmer Cooperatives

The impact of cooperative structure and firm culture on market orientation and performance

“…suggests that co-ops can be formidable competitors to IOFs~investor-owned firms!, other research building on agency and game theory suggests that co-ops' traditional principles undermine optimal resources allocation and investment policies~Vitaliano, 1983! as well as the stability of coalitions of various groups in the cooperative~Sexton, 1986;Staatz, 1983!+ In an effort to reconcile these conflicting perspectives, a growing research stream proposes a variety of cooperatives models~Barton, 1989;Cook, 1995Cook, , 1997Kyriakopoulos, 2000;Nilsson, 1998;Van Dijk, Kyriakopoulos, & Nilsson, 1997!, capturing the emergence of a new model for cooperatives variously called new generation, re-engineered, or proportional co-ops+ In addition to changes in cooperative structure, cooperative firms are reorganized to bolster an entrepreneurial and innovative management and culture~Cook, 1995; Kyriakopoulos, 2000!+ Changes in cooperative structure and culture are suggested to facilitate market-oriented strategies~Meulenberg, 1996! as a response to increasing and global competition and changing customer preferences+ Positioned in the cooperative models research stream, this study seeks to shed light on the impact of two key cooperative organizational features-cooperative structure and cooperative firm culture-on the market orientation and performance of cooperative firms by addressing the following gaps associated with cooperative research+ First, while re-engineered cooperatives have been discussed extensively, they have not been clearly distinguished from traditional cooperatives by unambiguous and measurable variables+ In this study we differentiate these two classes of cooperatives, traditional and re-engineered on the basis of specific structural factors related to the three basic principles of cooperative structure, user-owned, user-controlled and user-benefit+ Second, features of the cooperative firm, such as entrepreneurial culture and leadership, though they are suggested to explain firm success, in general,~e+g+, Deshpandé, Farley, & Webster, 1993;Moorman, 1995!, have been overlooked in the cooperative studies+ Third, our study also seeks to extend prior empirical research on the performance of cooperatives by introducing market orientation, which is a familiar concept in the business science literature~e+g+, Deshpandé, 1999;Porter, 1980!, as an outcome variable of cooperative structure and culture+ Studies of cooperative performance in the past have relied on a limited number of financial indicators, such as balance sheet ratios~e+g+, Gentzoglanis, 1997;Hind, 1994;Lerman & Parliament, 1990!+ However, in this study we introduce an overall evaluation of cooperative performance as proposed by Deshpandé et al+~1993!+…”

Barrieren der Markenführung bei Winzergenossenschaften

“…In diesem Kontext kann ein weiteres Problem, das Trittbrettfahrer-Problem, bei Genossenschaften auftreten (Cook, 1995). Das Genossenschaftsgesetz verbietet eine zeitliche Diskriminierung der Mitglieder, so dass neu hinzukommende Mitglieder den gleichen Auszahlungspreis für ihre Trauben erhalten wie langjährige Mitglieder.…”

“…Zum anderen ist auch der Planungshorizont (HorizontProblem) der Mitglieder der Winzergenossenschaft heterogen (Cook, 1995). Speziell die älteren Genossen und die deren Nachfolge nicht klar geregelt ist unterliegen diesem Problem, welches dazu führt langfristig angelegte Investitionen nicht zu unterstützen.…”

Institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry

“…Many previous studies have investigated co-operatives that have run into difficulties, using a variety of theoretical bases such as cultural theory (Hogeland, 2006), population ecology (Bager, 1996), social capital theory (Nilsson, Svendsen and Svendsen, 2012), the notion of "vaguely defined property rights" (Cook, 1995), transaction cost theory (Harte, 1997), management theory (Hind, 1999), the notion of free-riding (Nilsson and Svendsen, 2011), social psychology (Nilsson, Kihlén and Norell, 2009) and sociology (Ilmonen, 1992). The present study is the first to use the theory of institutional change to explain why a cooperative collapsed -and thereby caused a decline in an important industry.…”