Petri Ollila

Motivation Behind Members’ Loyalty to Agricultural Cooperatives

This article explores the importance of a number of motivational factors that may be related to farmer-members’ loyalty to their agricultural cooperative. A review of relevant literature allowed four factors to be identified: the farmers’ view of cooperative ideology, their conception of the cooperative as an assured market channel, their view of the cooperative as providing business orientation, and their trust in the information provided by the cooperative to members. Data from a survey of Finnish farmers showed that the four factors were stronger among loyal members than disloyal members. There were no statistically significant differences between loyal and disloyal farmers with respect to their age and the size of their farm operations.

Member influence in cooperatives: Contributions of Scandinavian studies to the research conducted in the United States

This literature review summarizes research on member influence in cooperatives conducted in Scandinavia and some of the research conducted in West Germany. The review divides the contents of member influence into three components: individual factors, the cooperative organizations internal factors and the organizations external factors. As individual factors, participation, representation and representativeness are considered. Conflict in cooperative organizations, the effect of the growth of the organization and the rules of decision making are discussed as organizations internal factors. The major interest groups in addition to members (the market, personnel and the society) are presented as external factors. The external factors are increasingly challenging the nature of cooperatives as member interest organizations.