The business orientation of agri-food cooperatives in Crete
2007
Dokimakis, S.
This study aims to throw light on the changing business orientation of Cretan agri-food cooperatives with respect to internal (i.e., business age, financial performance) and external environmental influence (i.e., changing agricultural law). The chairman statements and other archive sources for a period of five years (200-2004), in-depth interviews conducted in 2003 and financial statements for the 3 year period of 2000 to 2002 were collected for seven Unions of agri-food cooperatives in Crete, Greece. Using the technique of semantic analysis the qualitative data quantified, and a corporate orientation index was calculated. Furthermore, the relationships between corporate orientation of the selected firms and their business age, passage of time and financial performance respectively was assessed. The empirical results indicate that that corporate orientation, as opposed to member orientation, is driven by the business age and the passage of the time. These findings may provide useful insights to cooperative policy decision makers for assessing appropriately the balance between the primary objectives (i.e., member service and benefit) and the business orientation of agri-food cooperatives in Greece.
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