The New Farmers’ Cooperatives:Behavior Of Cooperators、Organizational Institution And Organizational Performance

The emergence of new farmers’ cooperatives is an important change and innovation in the process of China’s agricultural modernization and the development of new operational institutions in rural areas. The change and innovation is driven forward by the behavior of different individuals who seek to further their own interests by participating in cooperatives. Ordinary farmers, large-scale production and operation farmers, companies, supply and marketing cooperatives, the rural service sector and local government are involved in the main body of the new farmers’ cooperatives. Participants in these cooperatives implement their "profit maximization" strategies based on "bounded rationality". Therefore, studies of the relationships among participants’ behavior, organizational institutions and organizational performance are required to gain insights into approaches to improve the organizational performance of cooperatives.This study combined the use of theoretical and empirical methods to analyze the interaction between participants’ behavior and organizational institutions, using farmers’ cooperatives in Hunan Province as a research model. Factors influencing the performance of farmers’ cooperatives were investigated using theoretical methods, surveys and quantitative analysis. The study results showed that:(1)Diversified participant in new farmers’ cooperatives is a realistic prospect against the background of the current Chinese economy.(2)Based on evolutionary game analysis, the behavior of participants in all cooperatives affects the institutions, and changes in the institutions will affect the participants’ strategic choices as a consequence.(3)The results of empirical analysis showed that the organizational performance of the new farmers’ cooperatives in Hunan Province is poor. The main factors affecting the performance of new farmers’ cooperatives are (ranging from high to low impact) social impact, organizational development, organizational operations, membership benefits and organizational size.(4)Participants’ behavior and organizational institutions in the new farmers’ cooperatives have a certain impact on organizational performance. The involvement of a full-time accountant, the largest shareholder, whether the promoters are farmer or non-farmer, the additional investment proportion of voting rights and investment ratio of the council all have significant impacts on organizational performance.Therefore, to improve the organizational performance of farmers’ cooperatives, improvements are required in the following areas:(1) Affirm the active role of different participants in the development of new farmers’ cooperatives.(2)Continue to improve the property relations, internal governance structures and mechanisms, collaborations with institutions with similar interests and entry into and exit from the cooperatives.(3)In order to promote the standardization of cooperatives, we should improve the relevant laws, regulations and policies according to the needs of new farmers’ cooperatives’ at different stages of development.(4) Both central and local government should explore new ways to support new farmers’ cooperatives actively, with the aim of providing more public services, the quantity and quality of which meet the needs of the cooperatives.The innovations of this study are listed as follows: One is the innovative research perspective. First, this study researches the new farmers’ cooperatives against the background of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. Furthermore, this study analyzes the interactions of behavior, institution and performance among different types of cooperatives. Finally, this study focuses on farmers’ cooperatives in Hunan Province, central China; thus, the data obtained will complement existing studies. Another innovation is the research methods used in this study, based on industrial organization theory, organizational behavior theory, new institutional economics and evolutionary game theory. In order to obtain novel results, this study describes the status quo of development of cooperatives; use statistical modeling to analyze selected samples, with the aim of providing a three-dimensional model of the development of the farmer cooperatives.