An Entrepreneurship Framework for Improved Productivity and Financial Performance of Primary Agricultural Cooperatives in North West Province

The study was conducted to establish an entrepreneurship framework for the improved productivity and financial performance of agricultural cooperatives in South Africa. For this reason, a sample of twenty-nine (29) agricultural cooperatives were selected in the North West Province using the snowball sampling method. Descriptive analysis was used to assess the nature and characteristics of primary agricultural cooperatives from the views of the cooperative managers. The results were presented using the general frequency distribution, and a summary of the descriptive analysis, such as frequencies and percentages, is illustrated using graphs, charts, and tables. Productivity was tested using a stochastic frontier, and three financial ratios (liquidity, solvency, and profitability) were used to measure financial performance. The study's findings assert that most of the agricultural crop cooperative managers are older men with primary education as the highest qualification, which is the lowest level of education. Moreover, the study finding from the stochastic frontier measure of technical efficiency revealed that the predicted technical efficiency varies slightly among cooperatives, with a minimum value of 0.9920, a maximum value of 0.9922, and a mean efficiency of .9920437. According to the results, the distribution of the technical efficiency shows that 100% of the sampled cooperative’s technical efficiency skewed in the 0.90-1.00 range. It also identified that financial performance was the main contributor to the performance of the crop cooperatives. Moreover, the study's findings were used to formulate the proposed entrepreneurship framework, which will help improve the performance of agricultural cooperatives and affiliated members (smallholder farmers). The developed entrepreneurship framework suggests that agricultural managers should have management skills, opportunity skills, and networking skills to be entrepreneurial. By exploring these sets of skills, entrepreneurs will be developed in the agricultural value chain. Furthermore, this framework suggests that financial performance is the main contributor to crop cooperatives' performance.