IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/agribz/v6y1990i6p527-540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparative performance of cooperatives and investor-owned firms in US food industries

Author

Listed:
  • Zvi Lerman

    (Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, Hebrew University, Rehovot, Israel)

  • Claudia Parliament

    (Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN)

Abstract

The comparative financial performance of cooperatives and investor-owned firms (IOFs) in the fruit and vegetable processing and the dairy industries was analyzed for the years 1976 through 1987. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the cooperatives in both industries were found to perform as well as or better than the comparable IOFs by profitability, leverage, and interest coverage measures. No clear evidence was found of the hypothesized overinvestment in fixed assets or pronounced moral hazard behavior in cooperatives. The lack of significant differences in profitability between the two types of firms suggests that cooperatives may be following goals similar to IOFs.

Suggested Citation

  • Zvi Lerman & Claudia Parliament, 1990. "Comparative performance of cooperatives and investor-owned firms in US food industries," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(6), pages 527-540.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:6:y:1990:i:6:p:527-540
    DOI: 10.1002/1520-6297(199011)6:6<527::AID-AGR2720060602>3.0.CO;2-R
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sexton, Richard J. & Wilson, Brooks M. & Wann, Joyce J., 1989. "Some Tests Of The Economic Theory Of Cooperatives: Methodology And Application To Cotton Ginning," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, July.
    2. Parliament, Claudia & Lerman, Zvi & Fulton, Joan R., 1990. "Performance of Cooperatives and Investor-Owned Firms in the Dairy Industry," Journal of Agricultural Cooperation, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, vol. 5, pages 1-16.
    3. Staatz, John M., 1989. "Farmer Cooperative Theory: Recent Developments," Research Reports 52017, United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development.
    4. Kwo-Shin Chen & Emerson M. Babb & Lee F. Schrader, 1985. "Growth of large cooperative and proprietary firms in the US food sector," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(2), pages 201-210.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lerman, Zvi & Parliament, Claudia, 1990. "Comparative Performance of Food-Processing Cooperatives and Investor-Owned Firms in the U.S," Working Papers 232668, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Center for Agricultural Economic Research.
    2. Lerman, Zvi & Parliament, Claudia, 1990. "Comparative Performance Of Food-Processing Cooperatives And Investor-Owned Firms," Staff Papers 13455, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Achilleas Kontogeorgos & Panagiota Sergaki & Anastasia Kosma & Vassiliki Semou, 2018. "Organizational Models for Agricultural Cooperatives: Empirical Evidence for their Performance," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 9(4), pages 1123-1137, December.
    5. Zvi Lerman & Claudia Parliament, 1993. "Financing Growth in Agricultural Cooperatives," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 15(3), pages 431-441.
    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. Malvido Perez Carletti Agustina & Hanisch Markus & Rommel Jens & Fulton Murray, 2018. "Farm Gate Prices for Non-Varietal Wine in Argentina: A Multilevel Comparison of the Prices Paid by Cooperatives and Investor-Oriented Firms," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-14, January.
    8. Lerman, Zvi & Parliament, Claudia, 1989. "Industry And Size Effects In Agricultural Cooperatives," Staff Papers 14248, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    9. Louis-Antoine Saïsset & Géraldine Riviere-Giordano & Paul Amadieu, 2016. "The key role of stakeholders on wine cooperatives governance and performance," Post-Print hal-02742867, HAL.
    10. Lerman, Zvi & Parliament, Claudia, 1990. "Performance of U.S. Agricultural Cooperatives: Size and Industry Effects," Working Papers 232667, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Center for Agricultural Economic Research.
    11. Royer, Jeffrey S., 1991. "A Comparative Financial Ratio Analysis of U.S. Farmer Cooperatives Using Nonparametric Statistics," Journal of Agricultural Cooperation, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, vol. 6, pages 1-23.
    12. Hueth, Brent & Taylor, Christopher W., 2013. "Spatial Competition in Agricultural Markets: A Discrete-Choice Approach," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150506, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    14. Shannon Sutton, 2012. "Add Producers and Stir? (Re) politicizing Fairtrade participation," Working Papers 38, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    15. A. M. Hind, 1994. "Cooperatives – Under Performers By Nature? An Exploratory Analysis Of Cooperative And Non‐Cooperative Companies In The Agri‐Business Sector," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 213-219, May.
    16. Stefani, Gianluca & Lombardi, Ginevra Virginia & Romano, Donato & Cei, Leonardo, 2017. "Grass Root Collective Action for Territorially Integrated Food Supply Chains: A Case Study from Tuscany," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 8(4), October.
    17. Ebneth, O., 2006. "Internationalisierung und Unternehmenserfolg – Ein Vergleich europäischer Molkereigenossenschaften," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 41, March.
    18. Chaddad, Fabio Ribas, 2006. "Investment Constraints in Agricultural Cooperatives: Theory, Evidence and Solutions," 44th Congress, July 23-27, 2006, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil 143259, Sociedade Brasileira de Economia, Administracao e Sociologia Rural (SOBER).
    19. Liu, Jing & Bailey, DeeVon, 2013. "Examining Economies of Scale for Farmer Cooperatives in China’s Shanxi Province," Journal of Rural Cooperation, Hebrew University, Center for Agricultural Economic Research, vol. 41(2), pages 1-30.
    20. Ebneth, Oliver & Theuvsen, Ludwig, 2005. "Internationalization and Corporate Success - Empirical Evidence from the European Dairy Sector," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24750, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    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:wly:agribz:v:6:y:1990:i:6:p:527-540. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6297 .

    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.