CIRIEC Working Papers 2020/13- FREE ACCESS

Jos BIJMAN
Markus HANISCH

This paper discusses the importance of acknowledging and understanding the heterogeneity among cooperatives.
Many studies on agricultural cooperatives, particularly on the impact of membership, do not account for the large differences in organisational and functional characteristics across cooperatives.
We identify and discuss five core differences that have implications for theoretical and empirical research.
We propose a classification that can be used by scholars in their research on understanding the evolution, performance and impact of producer cooperatives, and that can be used by policy makers in better targeting their support policies.