Analysis of Effective Factors on Internationalization of Cooperative-oriented Businesses

AbstractContext and purpose: In recent years, cooperatives have attracted the attention of researchers as strategic elements to achieve sustainable economic development and greater social cohesion in the context of globalization. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the factors affecting the internationalization of cooperative businesses.Methodology: The present research is applied in terms of purpose and uses a qualitative approach through structured grounded theory. The process of studying the phenomenon was discovered based on the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 19 directors of active cooperative-oriented businesses with a history of international presence.Findings and Conclusions: The research findings in the form of a paradigm model include: causal conditions (context-oriented, entrepreneur-oriented, network-oriented), contextual conditions (organizational and extra-organizational), and intervening conditions (human, corporate, and institutional barriers), strategies (competitive and customer-oriented) Consequences (reputation and survival). Increasing and improving each component with a plan specific to each of them makes it possible to help the internationalization of cooperatives.Originality/innovation: The results of this research, while strengthening the literature on the internationalization of cooperatives, bring practical achievements to help managers develop the internationalization of cooperatives. It can also guide public policy on export and pave the way for the country's cooperative sector to increase international competitiveness. The innovation of the current research is its comprehensiveness, examining all the influencing factors of internationalization on cooperatives and in terms of the study's target audience to extract all the influential elements in line with the design of the internationalization model of cooperative-oriented businesses.