Cooperatives are special because the members not only own the cooperative, but also patronize it. CEO’s decision has an impact on the overall members’ interests. Understanding how CEOs differ from members regarding their evaluations on cooperative performance and what causes the differences, is valuable for CEOs to best serve the members. This paper evaluates the difference between CEO and member evaluation regarding their cooperatives, and further examines the role of governance in predicting the evaluations and differences in evaluations, based on a set of first-hand data containing Chinese agricultural cooperatives (240 CEOs and 543 members). Cooperative performance is measured by three indicators: member profitability, social influence in the local community, and overall performance. The results show that members have higher scores than CEOs regarding member profitability and overall performance, while CEOs have a higher evaluation regarding social influence. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in 'The Social Science Journal' on 27 Jan. 2020 available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.soscij.2019.01.006. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiao-peng-20466772/
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presentation on the annual Reframe conference of the initiative of the regional cooperative Westerkwartier to built new and next communities in their regional food chain
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Considering the challenges on sustainable agriculture in the district, different institutions join hands to overcome these issues and respond to the felt need of working more integrative both in the agricultural sector and environmental knowledge system. Adding a sense of urgency due to COVID-19 into problem analysis, these institutions accelerated the ambition to develop a Digital Farmer Field School (DFFS). This paper elaborates on the co-construction of principles for the design of a Digital Farmer Field School (DFFS) by the local stakeholders in Enrekang district. The local design team design of the DFFS Enrekang is composed of a transdisciplinary team from relevant government institutions and research institutions. The design principles of DFFS are built around inclusive design principles, concepts of interface usability based on different type of access to digital technology models, responsible innovation criteria and learning principles of farmer field school (FFS). The DFFS Enrekang design principles serve as guiding principles and shared value among the collaborating institutions to combine ambition, inspiration, and accountability in the DFFS management and development processes. This tablet based digital learning platform aims to provide an alternative for farmers to access information on sustainable agricultural and environmental practices.
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Recent challenges such like climate, demographic, political, economy and market changes are the foundation for the establishment of the Regional Cooperative Westerkwartier (RCW) in the Northern Netherlands. This RCW is managing a vast range of regional programs and projects developed by multi-stakeholder groups within the region. These stakeholders are representatives of market, public administration, education, research and civil society. All the activities of the cooperative focus on strengthening the regional economy. One of the major programs is the development of a regional food chain (RFC) based on cooperation between small and medium sized enterprises and corporate purchasers. The cooperative is identifying its role within this RFC to develop this chain in an effective way. This article reflects the results of a literature study in the fields of green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis to understand the most important factors of chain development and enterprise symbiosis. Based on these results multiple in-depth interviews and a survey have been conducted. This results in a list of factors, ranked according to their importance for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the role of a RFC-agent the cooperative should focus on creating trust, achieving one overall goal and ensuring clear agreements within the RFC. Surprisingly, the factor “achieving a fair distribution of costs and benefits” throughout the chain is not as important as was expected to be. Based on these ranked factors the role of the RFC-agent has been clarified and an additional circular chain business model can be developed.
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The goal of this paper is to present the emergence of a new cooperative model for sustainable regional development through social enterprise, rooted in a historical context of societal change in the Netherlands. Our case study is the Gebiedscoöperatie Westerkwartier (GCW), a large-scale area and integrated cooperative with more than 600 organizational and institutional members within the scope of the Dutch northern rural region Westerkwartier. The paper focuses on the mechanisms by which the cooperative facilitates new connections between actors in the quadruple helix of government, entrepreneurs, education and civil society, with the goal of generating both economic and social returns. Based on empirical evidence, possibilities are explored for new business models that combine economic thinking with innovative ways of utilising regional qualities for shared, value-driven governance and enterprise.
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This is a case study which discusses the journey of a successful Ethiopian dairy entrepreneur. It turned out that the inclusiveness of the small holder farmer into the chain with fair incentive sharing mechainsms and guarenteed market access made her chain more efficient, reliable and profitable.
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The objective of the study was to evaluate the capacity of Northern Bandung Dairy Farmer Cooperative (KPSBU) to support farmers in producing good quality milk within the milk value chain in West Bandung Regency, West Java. The study used qualitative research strategies including desk study, case study, and focus group discussions. The study compared the involvement of three milk collecting actors that were classified into large cooperative (KPSBU), small cooperative (KUD Puspa Mekar), and private company (Bina Kitri Bersama). A total of 18 dairy farmers, 3 milk collecting actors, 2 milk processors, and one livestock officer were interviewed. Three focus group discussions were conducted. The large cooperative performed better in services, milk collection, and milk quality assessment compared to other milk collecting actors. Members’ commitment, inconsistent milk quality, and shortage of good quality fodder were the hindering factors that influenced the collection of good quality milk in the large cooperative. In conclusion, the large cooperative had better performance in service provision, it also had better infrastructures in milk collection and milk quality assessment compared to other milk collecting actors. Increasing the milk quality standard by milk processing companies affected the milk price since 2000.
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A year later, in 2013, the Westerkwartier Area Cooperative was established – a new form of cooperation at the regional level, involving hundreds of dairy farmers, other SMEs, Terra MBO as the representative of the knowledge institutions in the region, the National Forest Service in the Netherlands (‘Staatsbosbeheer’), the Groningen Countryside Association (‘Landschapsbeheer Groningen’) and, later on, the De Zijlen healthcare institution. A year later, this initiative was followed by the establishment of the Southwest Drenthe Area Cooperative, another formalised multi-stakeholder cooperative on a large scale, bound together by a shared agenda. The members of these two new cooperatives sought to bring together and strengthen local and sectoral initiatives at the regional level. Because of their close cooperation with knowledge institutions, they hoped that practice-based research would yield a lot of results. At the many evening meetings and during workshops, spirited debates were held about new concepts such as bio-based economy, new concepts in food and health, alternative methods of energy production, but also ways of improving the quality of life in the region, strengthening the tourism industry and creating jobs for young people. Those involved were all too aware that the existing educational and research institutes and government agencies, and the organisational structures used by businesses, tend to do more harm than good, which led to the call for Next Education, Next Governance and Next Business. It became apparent from these discussions that there were many knowledge questions to be explored, and the need arose for a permanent link with the knowledge institutions through the establishment of a separate professorship focused on sustainable and cooperative entrepreneurship for the benefit of the entrepreneurs involved as well as for the education sector, the government and the general public. This is how the Sustainable Cooperative Entrepreneurship professorship came about, as part of the Sustainable Financial Management professorship chaired by Dr Margreet Boersma at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen’s School of Financial and Economic Management. I am honoured to be giving this new professorship shape, and I would like to point out that I will not be doing this on my own – I am only the figurehead of a very substantial group of innovative and ambitious entrepreneurs, students, lecturers, public servants, citizens and colleagues. The Innovation Army is marching. And if you are not a part of it yet, now is the time to get involved!
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This publication follows and analysis the proces in the region Westerkwartier in the Netherlands in their effort to built a whole new regionale food chain. In this report there is a remarkeble role for the knowledge instutions on vocational and applied level.
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Banana is an important commercial fruit crop for smallholder farmers in Arba Minch, southern Ethiopia. However, its sector is experiencing many constraints and limited attention given to productivity and marketing. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the banana value chain in order to identify constraints on productivity and marketing, and possibilities of improvements towards a sustainable value chain in Arba Minch. Data were collected through a survey, key informants’ interviews, and focus group discussions. Different analytical and statistical tools were used for data analysis. Results describe actors, supporters, and influencers of the existing banana chain. The current banana chain has three different distribution channels in Arba Minch. The channel that connects with rural consumers has the highest value share for farmers while the channel that includes traveling traders has the lowest value share for farmers. The marketing cooperative channel has an intermediate value share for farmers in the chain. Poor agronomic practice, diseases, pests, and climate change were the major constraints for the banana yield while limited market information, lack of cold store and refrigerated trucks, poor post-harvest handling, lack of alternative markets, and weak capacity of cooperatives were the main constraints for banana marketing in Arba Minch. Economic, social and environmental indicators have a moderate sustainability performance within the Ethiopian context. The chain has an advantage in terms of profitability, employment, emission of air pollutants and constraints in terms of coordination, value share, profit margin, market diversity, product and market information, transportation, waste management, and safety and hygiene.
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