Peformance of innovation in cooperatives

Resumen

Cooperatives differ substantially from investor-owned firms in terms of their organisational structure, systems of governance, and operating dynamics. Within producer cooperatives, these issues are complicated by the existence within the cooperatives of members who assume a ‘triple role’ as partners-owners, suppliers, and internal customers. In theory, the heterogeneous interests of the cooperative and its main stakeholders are likely to have a deleterious influence on organisational decision-making. The present study explores these theoretical difficulties by examining the types and intensity of innovations carried out by producer cooperatives in Spain and the extent to which these innovation activities contribute to their performance. The results reveal that radical innovations make a greater contribution to performance than do incremental innovations; however, the study finds that the cooperative firms continue to engage in incremental innovation rather than radical innovation. The paper concludes with a discussion of why this is so, and the remedies required.