Center Director and Associate Professor Brent Hueth presented research on board behavior in agricultural cooperatives at the Joint Annual meeting of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association in July. His presentation was part of a session on “Human Capital: Competing on Capabilities in Agriculture”.
Although agribusiness research regularly explores topics such as markets, competition, and the internal resources requirements for firm success, literature on human resource capabilities within agribusiness firms has been lacking. Agribusiness cooperatives in particular face unique human resource issues. Structurally, cooperative governance is dependent on member-elected boards to monitor the balance between patron value and the return-on-investment considerations that are part of the management perspective. These potentially diverse sets of interests present both the board and the management team with challenges in cooperative decision-making.
Brent’s research empirically examines the interactions between boards and managerial teams in a large sample of agricultural cooperatives. Preliminary findings show significant variability in both board structure, board participation in strategic planning, and board monitoring of managerial behavior. Continued research will identify those factors correlated with this decision-making variability. These results will provide insight into why cooperatives choose different business strategies that significantly affect and influence cooperative performance. An evaluation of these differences will generate a better understanding of effective governance practices in cooperatives.
This research is based on data being collected through a longitudinal cooperative business survey, which is part of the Center’s multi-year Research on the Economic Impact of Cooperatives project being funded by USDA.
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