IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rnd/arjebs/v10y2018i6p1-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficiency and Profitability Analysis of Agricultural Cooperatives in Mpumalanga, South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Thembi Xaba
  • Nyankomo Marwa
  • Babita Mathur-Helm

Abstract

Agricultural cooperatives are expected to generate sustainable profit as they are established as a vehicle of economic development. Efficiency and profitability analysis measures the performance of a firm, and assists management in decision-making through benchmarking with other firms (Marwa & Aziakpono, 2014). To understand the performance of agricultural cooperatives, our study analysed efficiency and profitability using an efficiency-profitability matrix to provide for multi-dimensional analysis. The study used secondary data from annual financial statements for the financial years 2015/16 collected from 19 agricultural cooperatives. Technical efficiency was estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and profitability was estimated using Returns on Assets (ROA). The median scores were 68% for technical efficiency and 10% for profitability. Using the 68% efficiency and 10% profitability benchmark, the matrix separated best performers from low performers. The matrix indicated that 26% of the cooperatives had high-efficiency levels with high profitability (stars), however there was an even distribution between the stars and sleepers: 5 out of 19 cooperatives were sleepers and 5 out of 19 were stars. The majority of the decision-making units (DMUs) at 42% (8 out of 19) are in quadrant 3, categorised as ‘question mark’. These DMUs had low-efficiency scores and low profitability ratios. Only 1 out of 19 cooperatives had high-efficiency levels and low profitability scores. The results demonstrate that technically efficient firms do not always translate to profitable firms: in this regard, management needs to investigate how best to allocate resources in order to remain relevant within the business context and competition. Policy makers need to investigate other drivers of efficiency and profitability when measuring the performance of a firm to influence future policy directives.

Suggested Citation

  • Thembi Xaba & Nyankomo Marwa & Babita Mathur-Helm, 2018. "Efficiency and Profitability Analysis of Agricultural Cooperatives in Mpumalanga, South Africa," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 10(6), pages 1-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:rnd:arjebs:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1-10
    DOI: 10.22610/jebs.v10i6(J).2587
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ojs.amhinternational.com/index.php/jebs/article/view/2587/1739
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ojs.amhinternational.com/index.php/jebs/article/view/2587
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22610/jebs.v10i6(J).2587?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chibanda, M. & Ortmann, Gerald F. & Lyne, Michael C., 2009. "Institutional and governance factors influencing the performance of selected smallholder agricultural cooperatives in KwaZulu-Natal," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 48(3), pages 1-14, September.
    2. Léopold Simar & Paul Wilson, 2000. "Statistical Inference in Nonparametric Frontier Models: The State of the Art," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 49-78, January.
    3. Peter Helmberger & Sidney Hoos, 1962. "Cooperative Enterprise and Organization Theory," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 44(2), pages 275-290.
    4. Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Pinheiro, António E., 1993. "Efficiency Analysis of Developing Country Agriculture: A Review of the Frontier Function Literature," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 88-101, April.
    5. Nyankomo Marwa & Meshach Aziakpono, 2016. "Technical and scale efficiency of Tanzanian saving and credit cooperatives," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 50(1), pages 29-46, January-M.
    6. Lerman, Zvi & Parliament, Claudia, 1991. "Size and industry effects in the performance of agricultural cooperatives," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 15-29, October.
    7. Richard Phillips, 1953. "Economic Nature of the Cooperative Association," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 74-87.
    8. C. Lovell & Shawna Grosskopf & Eduardo Ley & Jesús Pastor & Diego Prior & Philippe Eeckaut, 1994. "Linear programming approaches to the measurement and analysis of productive efficiency," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 2(2), pages 175-248, December.
    9. Porter, Philip K & Scully, Gerald W, 1987. "Economic Efficiency in Cooperatives," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 489-512, October.
    10. A S Camanho & R G Dyson, 1999. "Efficiency, size, benchmarks and targets for bank branches: an application of data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 50(9), pages 903-915, September.
    11. Nyankomo Marwa, 2014. "Efficiency and Profitability of Tanzanian saving and Credit Cooperatives: Who is a Star?," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 6(8), pages 658-669.
    12. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min & Lin, Bruce J.Y., 2013. "A survey of DEA applications," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 893-902.
    13. Boussofiane, A. & Dyson, R. G. & Thanassoulis, E., 1991. "Applied data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-15, May.
    14. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    15. Piesse, Jenifer & Doyer, Tobias & Thirtle, Colin & Vink, Nick, 2005. "The changing role of grain cooperatives in the transition to competitive markets in South Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 197-218, March.
    16. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    17. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    18. Sexton, Richard J. & Iskow, Julie, 1988. "Factors Critical to the Success or Failure of Emerging Agricultural Cooperatives," Information Series 11921, University of California, Davis, Giannini Foundation.
    19. Schrader, Lee F., 1989. "Equity Capital and Restructuring of Cooperatives as Investor-Oriented Firms," Journal of Agricultural Cooperation, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, vol. 4, pages 1-13.
    20. Rafat A. M. E. Soboh & Alfons Oude Lansink & Gerard Giesen & Gert van Dijk, 2009. "Performance Measurement of the Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives: The Gap between Theory and Practice," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 446-469, September.
    21. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    22. Rafat A. M. E. Soboh & Alfons Oude Lansink & Gerard Giesen & Gert van Dijk, 2009. "Performance Measurement of the Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives: The Gap between Theory and Practice," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 446-469.
    23. Ortmann, Gerald F. & King, Robert P., 2007. "Agricultural Cooperatives I: History, Theory and Problems," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, March.
    24. Hardesty, Shermain D. & Salgia, Vikas D., 2004. "Comparative Financial Performance of Agricultural Cooperatives and Investor-Owned Firms," 2004 Annual Meeting, November 2-3 31797, NCERA-194 Research on Cooperatives.
    25. Ortmann, Gerald F. & King, Robert P., 2007. "Agricultural cooperatives II: Can they facilitate access of small-scale farmers in South Africa to input and product markets?," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 46(2), pages 1-26, June.
    26. Condon, Andrew M. & Cotterill, Ronald W. & Rhodes, V. James & Shaffer, James D. & Staatz, John M., 1987. "Cooperative Theory: New Approaches," Service Reports (SR) 280614, United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development.
    27. Emelianoff, Ivan V., 1948. "Economic Theory of Cooperation: Economic Structure of Cooperative Organizations," Monographs: Applied Economics, AgEcon Search, number 143135, July.
    28. Moller, Lynn G. & Featherstone, Allen M. & Barton, David G., 1996. "Sources of Financial Stress in Agricultural Cooperatives," Journal of Cooperatives, NCERA-210, vol. 11, pages 1-14.
    29. Sunil Kumar, 2008. "An Analysis of Efficiency–Profitability Relationship in Indian Public Sector Banks," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 9(1), pages 115-129, June.
    30. Sykuta, Michael E. & Chaddad, Fabio Ribas, 1999. "Putting Theories of the Firm in Their Place: A Supplemental Digest of the New Institutional Economics," Journal of Cooperatives, NCERA-210, vol. 14, pages 1-9.
    31. Mark Andor & Frederik Hesse, "undated". "A Monte Carlo Simulation comparing DEA, SFA and two simple approaches to combine efficiency estimates," Working Papers 201177, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    32. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edson Mbedzi & Munacinga Simatele, 2022. "Lending Technologies, Firm Characteristics and Small Business Efficiency in South Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-16, November.
    2. Paean Hugo Nyawo & Oluwasogo David Olorunfemi, 2023. "Perceived Effectiveness of Agricultural Cooperatives by Smallholder Farmers: Evidence from a Micro-Level Survey in North-Eastern South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-21, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Theo Benos & Nikos Kalogeras & Martin Wetzels & Ko De Ruyter & Joost M. E. Pennings, 2018. "Harnessing a ‘Currency Matrix’ for Performance Measurement in Cooperatives: A Multi-Phased Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-38, December.
    2. Kuhle Prudence Mnisi & Abdul Latif Alhassan, 2021. "Financial structure and cooperative efficiency: A pecking‐order evidence from sugarcane farmers in Eswatini," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 261-281, June.
    3. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    4. Caetano Luiz Beber & Sebastian Lakner & Ioannis Skevas, 2021. "Organizational forms and technical efficiency of the dairy processing industry in Southern Brazil," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Agbo, Maxime & Rousselière, Damien & Salanié, Julien, 2015. "Agricultural marketing cooperatives with direct selling: A cooperative–non-cooperative game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 56-71.
    6. Pavlos Almanidis & Robin C. Sickles, 2016. "Banking Crises, Early Warning Models, and Efficiency," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Juan Aparicio & C. A. Knox Lovell & Jesus T. Pastor (ed.), Advances in Efficiency and Productivity, chapter 0, pages 331-364, Springer.
    7. Maxime Agbo & Damien Rousselière & Julien Salanié, 2013. "A Theory of Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives with Direct selling," Working Papers halshs-00906894, HAL.
    8. Ortmann, Gerald F. & King, Robert P., 2007. "Agricultural Cooperatives I: History, Theory and Problems," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, March.
    9. repec:hal:journl:halshs-01098762 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ortmann, Gerald F. & King, Robert P., 2006. "Small-Scale Farmers in South Africa: Can Agricultural Cooperatives Facilitate Access to Input and Product Markets?," Staff Papers 13930, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    11. Ahmet Candemir & Sabine Duvaleix & Laure Latruffe, 2021. "Agricultural Cooperatives And Farm Sustainability – A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1118-1144, September.
    12. Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Jara-Rojas, Roberto & Lachaud, Michee A. & Moreira L., Victor H. & Scheierling, Susanne M., 2015. "Water and Farm Efficiency: Insights from the Frontier Literature," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 206076, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Luis R. Murillo‐Zamorano, 2004. "Economic Efficiency and Frontier Techniques," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 33-77, February.
    14. Daraio, Cinzia & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Nepomuceno, Thyago & Sickles, Robin C., 2019. "Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review," Working Papers 19-005, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    15. Lampe, Hannes W. & Hilgers, Dennis, 2015. "Trajectories of efficiency measurement: A bibliometric analysis of DEA and SFA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 1-21.
    16. Yildirim, Alev, 2020. "The effect of relationship banking on firm efficiency and default risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Ahn, Heinz & Clermont, Marcel & Langner, Julia, 2023. "Comparative performance analysis of frontier-based efficiency measurement methods – A Monte Carlo simulation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 294-312.
    18. Subal Kumbhakar & Efthymios Tsionas, 2008. "Scale and efficiency measurement using a semiparametric stochastic frontier model: evidence from the U.S. commercial banks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 585-602, June.
    19. Mousavi, Mohammad M. & Ouenniche, Jamal & Xu, Bing, 2015. "Performance evaluation of bankruptcy prediction models: An orientation-free super-efficiency DEA-based framework," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 64-75.
    20. Andor, Mark A. & Parmeter, Christopher & Sommer, Stephan, 2019. "Combining uncertainty with uncertainty to get certainty? Efficiency analysis for regulation purposes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 240-252.
    21. Thanh Ngo & Kan Wai Hong Tsui, 2022. "Estimating the confidence intervals for DEA efficiency scores of Asia-Pacific airlines," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3411-3434, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rnd:arjebs:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Muhammad Tayyab (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ojs.amhinternational.com/index.php/jebs .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.