Studying the variables that separate entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial agricultural producer cooperatives (APCs) for predicting group membership

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to predict the group membership of entrepreneurial or nonentrepreneurial agricultural producer cooperative based on a linear combination of the interval variables. Discriminant function analysis was used in this research for access purpose. The study’s sample consisted of 250 agricultural cooperatives in Iran. The variables that indicate the entrepreneurial situation of a cooperative include the number of jobs that were created by cooperatives, increase or decrease of cooperative members, number of enterprise(s) created by cooperatives and growth in cooperatives' funds or possession. After recognition of these two types of cooperative, independent variables [individual, educational, economic, managerial (structural), managerial (financial), policy making, social and psychological] were entered into the discriminant function. The independent variables were obtained by factor analysis technique and each of them consists of many components. A questionnaire that was made by researchers based on literature review was used for data gathering. The questionnaire’s content and face validity were established by a panel of experts consisting of faculty members and managers in cooperation ministry. The reliability of the questionnaire was measured by Cronbach Alpha ( α=0.88). The results obtained based on the structure matrix of independent variables showed that the individual characteristics of cooperative members have the most discriminant power of separating entrepreneurial from non-entrepreneurial APCs. After this variable, psychological, social and managerial (structural) variables have more discriminant power to separate these two kinds of agricultural producer cooperatives.