Impact Of Transaction Contracts Of Citrus Cooperatives On The Green Production Behavior Of Members

As an agricultural pillar industry in the southern hilly mountains of China,citrus industry has played an important role in driving farmers’ income,getting rid of poverty and solving the employment of rural labor force.In recent decades,the scale of China’s citrus industry continues to develop rapidly,bringing more intense market competition,facing many serious challenges such as low citrus yields and low rate of good fruit,citrus supply from shortage to surplus,and structural changes in consumer market demand.Therefore,China’s citrus industry production methods need to be transformed and upgraded,with green development as the guide,out of a high output efficiency,product safety,resource conservation,environmentally friendly road of quality development is the trend.As a typical representative of intra-organizational transactions,farmers’ professional cooperatives(hereinafter referred to as "cooperatives")are one of the important vehicles for guiding farmers to green production.Farmers trading agricultural products through cooperatives can enhance market negotiation ability,reduce transaction costs with various trading entities,and provide financial support for farmers to introduce green production technology and optimize factor allocation.However,due to resource endowment constraints and cost-efficiency measures,farmers and cooperatives face multiple opportunistic risks in the transaction process as well as coordination and cooperation challenges arising from non-opportunism.Contracts become an important governance mechanism for cooperatives’ transactions.Behind different transaction contracts,cooperatives differ in the services and supervision of production materials,information,technology,and other services provided by members in the process of agricultural production,as well as in the social trust and reciprocity relationships formed during the transaction process.The different transaction contracts have heterogeneous effects on the production patterns of the members and influence their decisions on green production behavior.Therefore,can the trading contracts of citrus cooperatives promote the adoption of green production behaviors by members in the production process and achieve the unification of economic,social and ecological benefits? By answering this key question,this paper puts forward policy suggestions for optimizing the path of cooperatives to drive members’ green production behavior,so as to promote the green and high-quality development of citrus industry.Firstly,this study draws on several theories,such as transaction cost theory,farmer behavior theory,incomplete contract theory and agricultural green development theory.To build a theoretical analysis framework.Secondly,it can sort out the characteristics and development laws of the citrus industry in China and Sichuan,comprehensively investigate the general situation of members’ selection on trading contract on the basis of microresearch data,and deeply analyze the current situation of members’ green production behavior in the citrus cultivation process.Thirdly,the binary Logit model is used to explore the influencing factors of member’s selection on transaction contract decision;the endogenous switching regression model(ESR)is used to investigate the impact of cooperatives’ transaction contract on members’ green production behavior;the step-by-step test method is used to analyze how the governance function of cooperatives’ transaction contract affects its members’ green production behavior;and the propensity score matching method(PSM)is used to analyze the performance of cooperatives’ transaction contract on its members’ green production behavior.Finally,according to the main conclusions of the full text,it puts forward targeted and operational countermeasures and suggestions.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Members’ green production behavior is deeply affected by cooperatives’ transaction contract.There are two main reasons why the transaction contracts of cooperatives influence members’ green production behavior.The first is to improve the bargaining power of members and product buyers,enhance the market competitiveness of high-end green agricultural products,and generate "continuous dynamic economic incentives" for the transformation of members’ green production methods.Secondly,it saves the transaction costs between members and various trading entities,and provides financial support for members to optimize factor allocation and introduce green production technology.At the same time,as the frequency and amount of transactions between members and cooperatives increase,and the stability of transactions increases,they will have more complex social interactions,which is conducive to the integration of cooperatives into the green industry chain.(2)The green production behavior of members in citrus production covers four aspects: fertilizer management,green pest prevention and control,tree management,and waste disposal.The mean value of green production behavior of members was 0.511,ranging from 0.093 to 0.944.The mean value of green production behavior of members who chose cooperatives’ transaction contract was 0.544,ranging from 0.139 to 0.944.The mean value of green production behavior of members who did not choose cooperatives’ transaction contract was 0.422,ranging from 0.093 to 0.726.0.422,with an interval of 0.093 to 0.726.(3)Members’ decision to choose transaction contracts is influenced by three transaction characteristics: asset specificity,uncertainty,and transaction frequency.The presence of wholesale fruit markets in the cooperatives’ townships,the richness of information services and technical training provided by the cooperatives,the quality certification of the cooperatives’ products and the processing assets and equipment owned by the cooperatives,and the social relationship of the board chairmen significantly and positively influenced members’ choice of cooperatives’ transaction contract,and the negative influence of the distance between the cooperatives and members’ homes was significant.The environmental uncertainty caused by the sales market significantly and positively influenced members’ choice of cooperatives,while the production uncertainty caused by pests and diseases had no significant effect.The frequency of transactions significantly and positively influenced members’ choice of cooperatives’ transaction contract.(4)Cooperatives’ transaction contract can effectively improve members’ green production level.After addressing the endogeneity issue,it was found that members’ nonselection of cooperatives’ transaction contracts leads to a decrease in their green production level with a decrease of 22.09%,indicating that cooperatives’ transaction contracts can enhance members’ green production level.Different types and modes of cooperatives’ transaction contracts have different impacts on members’ green production levels,and the written contract type enhances members’ green production levels to a greater extent than the verbal contract type.The "cooperatives + enterprise" model has the highest impact on the green production level of members,followed by the "cooperatives +wholesaler/wholesale market" model,while the "cooperatives + e-commerce" model has no significant impact on the green production level of members.There was no significant effect.(5)Cooperatives’ transaction contract restrict members’ green production behavior through governance functions.Cooperatives’ transaction contracts prevent opportunistic behavior of members in the production process through the controlling governance function,and use the coordinating governance function to solve the cooperation problems of members in the production process.The controlling governance function of cooperatives’ transaction contracts is mainly reflected in the factor input control mechanism that stipulates the types of inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides purchased by members,the production reward and punishment treatment mechanism for compliance with(violation of)green production behavior,the implementation of the surplus return system and the product settlement delivery mechanism that requires product quality standards.The coordinating governance function of cooperatives’ transaction contracts is mainly reflected in the production process management mechanism that regulates members’ fertilizer and pesticide use behavior,the production service support mechanism that provides technical training and market information services,and the product quality testing management mechanism that increases pesticide residue testing.(6)Cooperatives’ transaction contract has a significant impact on the economic,social and ecological performance of green production behavior of members.Green production behavior can significantly improve the economic,social and ecological performance of members.The degree of improvement of economic performance in terms of net income from citrus sales and selling price of citrus by cooperatives’ transaction contracts was 79.86% and 22.78%,respectively.The degree of improvement of social performance in terms of members’ initiative to consult technicians and motivation of surrounding farmers was 23.47% and 13.89%,respectively.The degree of improvement of ecological performance in terms of the degree of improvement of soil fertility and the degree of improvement of the surrounding environment by the cooperative trading contract was 14.59% and 10.51%,respectively.Based on this,this study puts forward the following policy suggestions:(1)pay attention to the cultivation and expansion of cooperatives,and promote the internalization of citrus industry trade link organization.(2)Promote the highquality development of cooperatives,and encourage members to conclude stable trading contracts with cooperatives.(3)Improve the internal governance structure of cooperatives and realize embedded collaborative green production between cooperatives and their members.(4)Create a good marketing environment,improve the government incentive and supervision of the policy system.The innovation of this study is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:(1)To build a theoretical analysis framework of "Situation-GovernanceConduct-Performance".This study will be cooperatives’ relationship between members is seen as a set of contract of the joint,green production,from the perspective of contractual interpretation members behavior,based on insider trading contracts and cooperatives’ member of green production outside the two dimensions of contractual behavior differences,among them,the former from members and cooperative contract connection close degree analysis,The latter is analyzed from the contractual connection between cooperatives and external market subjects,which makes up for the deficiency of previous studies that mainly investigate the influence of social participation behavior on members’ green production behavior,and expands and enriches the research on farmers’ green production behavior.(2)To expand the theory of farmer behavior from the perspective of transaction contract.This study considers the relationship between cooperatives and members as a set of contractual unions,explicates members’ green production behavior from the perspective of transaction contracts,and further examines the variability of members’ green production behavior under different types and modes of cooperatives’ transaction contracts.The types of cooperatives’ transaction contracts are analyzed in terms of the binding degree of cooperatives’ transaction contracts,and the modes of cooperatives’ transaction contracts are analyzed in terms of the choice of organizational models of cooperative transaction contracts.These studies make up for the shortcomings of previous studies that mainly examined the effects of membership behavior on members’ green production behavior,and expand and enrich the research on farmers’ green production behavior.(3)From the functional dimension of contract governance,it analyzes the action mechanism of cooperative transaction contract on members’ green production behavior,and enriches the theory of Chinese localized cooperatives.This study,alliance strategy management fields such as construction engineering project contract management idea is applied to the cooperative trading contract management practice,according to the control of contract management function and coordination function two dimensions analysis the behavior of members of the green production cooperatives trade contract works,reveal the logic behind the implicit contract of contractual governance,cooperative It provides empirical evidence for the governance of cooperative transaction contract,which is undoubtedly a beneficial exploration for the theory of Chinese localized cooperatives.