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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of agricultural cooperative membership on farmers’ decisions to adopt integrated pest management (IPM) technology and to estimate the impact of IPM adoption on farm economic performance.

An endogenous switching probit model that addresses the sample selection bias issue arising from both observed and unobserved factors is used to estimate the survey data from a sample of 481 apple households in China. A treatment effects model is employed to estimate the impact of IPM adoption on apple yields, net returns and agricultural income. In order to address the potential endogeneity associated with off-farm work variable in estimating both cooperative membership choice specification and IPM adoption specifications, a control function approach is used.

The empirical results show that cooperative membership exerts a positive and significant impact on the adoption of IPM technology. In particular, farmers’ IPM adoption decision is significantly associated with household and farm-level characteristics (e.g. education, farm size and price knowledge). IPM adoption has a positive and statistically significant impact on apple yields, net returns and agricultural income.

The findings indicate that agricultural cooperatives can be a transmission route in the efforts to proliferate the adoption and diffusion of IPM technology, and increased IPM adoption tends to improve the economic performance of farm households.

Despite the widespread evidence of health and environmental benefits associated with IPM technology, the adoption rate of this technology remains significantly low. This paper provides a first attempt by investigating to what extent and how agricultural cooperative membership affects IPM adoption and how IPM adoption influences farm economic performance.

Knowledge management (KM) is widely adopted by organisations to improve their performance and make informed decisions. Prior research has confirmed that Information Systems (IS) play a critical role in effective KM. The purpose of this study is to examine the existing literature on the role of cloud-based KM systems (C-KMS) in small- and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) by understanding its impact on the five KM processes: knowledge acquisition, creation, storage, sharing and usage.

This study conducted a systematic literature review by examining 133 journal articles and 24 conference papers from 2010 to 2021 on the role of cloud computing in KM for SMEs.

This study revealed that there are numerous empirical analyses on KM processes and tools in SMEs; however, only few studies demonstrate how the whole gamut of KM processes can adopt cloud computing in SMEs. Therefore, SMEs are ineffective at KM with limited IS intervention. This paper offers a proposition on how C-KMS can impact all five KM process, thereby increasing its effectiveness of KM in SMEs. This study analysed the benefits of C-KMS that brings to SMEs in terms of availability, scalability, reliability, security and cost.

This systematic review is restricted to certain databases (ScienceDirect, Sage journals, Scopus and Emerald Insight) and specific IS conference proceedings to source articles. The selection of search criteria and time frame is based on this study’s assessment and choice. This study adds value to our understanding of the role of KM in SMEs, and it reinforces the role of cloud computing in effectively managing knowledge in SMEs. The proposal of C-KMS for the enhancement of KM has significant implications for SMEs to effectively use knowledge for their survival and superior performance.

This study suggests three practical implications. First, adopting and using C-KMS provide a strong foundation to manage knowledge for SMEs in a cost-effective way. Second, C-KMS improves the effectiveness of KM by increasing availability of knowledge artifacts, which in turn aids SMEs’ growth. Third, C-KMS is useful to codify SME’s knowledge, and accordingly supports employees to acquire and use knowledge based on their requirements.

This study discussed C-KMS with contemporary social issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic challenges for SMEs and demonstrated how C-KMS can support SMEs to handle such crises by managing knowledge effectively.

This research highlights the importance of the implementation of a C-KMS for the enhancement of KM in SMEs. The review provides empirical evidence on the challenges faced by SMEs regarding KM, as they often only have enough resources to focus on a single KM process, predominantly knowledge sharing. Consequently, a holistic approach to KM cannot be realised by SMEs. In this context, the findings of this study offer theoretical and practical insights into the role of cloud computing by addressing the challenges of KM in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structural problems emerging in the course of managing and safeguarding a French association for home care to a thousand elderly or disabled people between 2007 and 2012, employing 150

190 people and on the verge of bankruptcy. In France, small local businesses not only compete with major capital outlets in this sector but also with associations of varying size and origin. Free market rules apply, under the legislation of 2003, to what is, in part, “competition free”, being “in the public interest” and within the framework of local and national public funding.

This paper analyses those pragmatic solutions put in place to meet the aim of shared governance and in the context of a generalized financial crisis.

Borrowing from cooperatives and associations, the non-profit-based management structure the authors arrived at, including worker participation in the decision-making processes, raises questions for researchers as to the advisability of any short-term models and the validity of present social and supportive economic models.

The hybrid management of this paper is offered as a working model in what the authors have termed an “adhocracy of stakeholders”.

Female smallholder farmers in low-income countries face barriers to accessing capital and commodity markets. While agricultural cooperatives provide services that contribute to the income and productivity of small-scale producers, evidence of cooperatives' social and economic empowerment of female smallholders remains limited. We apply Sen's capability approach to female entrepreneurs' socioeconomic empowerment to examine whether women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative from rural western Uganda benefits their social and economic position within their household. First, we study the relationship between women's cooperative participation and their household coffee sales and savings. Second, we investigate the link between women's cooperative participation and their intra-household decision-making and whether the inclusion of the husband in his wife's cooperative strengthens or lowers women's decision-making power.

We carry out a case study of a hybrid coffee and microfinance cooperative that promotes social innovation through the integration and empowerment of female smallholders in rural Uganda. Using a cross-sectional survey of 411 married female cooperative members from 26 randomly selected self-help groups of Bukonzo Joint Cooperative and 196 female non-members from the identical area, employing propensity score matching, this paper investigates the benefits of women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda. We present and discuss the results of our case study within an extensive literature on the role of institutions in collective action for women's empowerment.

Our findings provide new empirical evidence on female smallholders' participation in mixed cooperatives. Our results indicate that women's participation in microfinance-producer cooperatives appears to be a conditional blessing: even though membership is linked to increased women's intra-household decision-making and raised household savings and income from coffee sales, a wife with a husband in the same cooperative self-help group is associated with diminished women's household decision-making power.

The focus of this study is on female coffee smallholders in an agricultural cooperative in rural western Uganda. In particular, we focus on a case study of one major coffee cooperative. Our cross-sectional survey does not allow us to infer causal interpretations. Also, the survey does not include variables that allow us to measure other dimensions of women's empowerment beyond decision-making over household expenditures and women's financial performance related to savings and income from coffee cultivation.

Our empirical results indicate that female smallholders' cooperative membership is associated with higher incomes and coffee sales. However, husband co-participation in their wives' cooperative group diminishes wives' decision-making, which suggests that including husbands and other family members in the same cooperative group may not be perceived as an attractive route to empowerment for female smallholders. For these reasons, an intervention that encourages the cooperation of both spouses and that is sensitive to context-specific gender inequalities, may be more successful at stimulating social change toward household gender equality than interventions that focus on women's autonomous spheres only.

While the literature thus far has focused on microfinance's potential for women's empowerment, evidence on agricultural cooperatives' affecting women's social and economic position is limited. First, our findings provide novel empirical evidence on the empowering effects of women's participation in a self-help group-based coffee cooperative in rural Uganda. Second, our data allows us to explore the role of husbands' participation in their wives' cooperative and SGH. We embed our hypotheses and empirical results in a rich discussion of female entrepreneurship, microfinance and cooperative literature.

Various theories predict that firm buyouts survive longer than newly created firms. The study aims to know whether it is the case for worker-owned firms (WOFs), i.e. firms owned and controlled mostly by their workers.

The author conducted a comparative survival analysis of French WOFs distinguished by their entry mode (i.e. newly created, worker buyouts (WBOs) of sound conventional firms, WBOs of conventional firms in difficulty or WBOs of non-profit organizations).

The hazard of exit is 32% lower for WBOs of sound conventional firms than newly created WOFs, 18% for WBOs of conventional firms in difficulty and 64% for WBOs of non-profit organizations. The current study confirms that WBOs, even of conventional firms in difficulty, have on average a survival advantage over newly created WOFs. Surprisingly, the author also shows that this survival advantage is similar across sectors with different knowledge intensity but is lower in high capital-intensive sectors than in low capital-intensive ones.

Endogeneity issues limit the scope of the results and should be tackled in future research. Overall, these findings show that WOFs are composed of groups with different survival likelihoods that are obscured if one only looks at the aggregate population.

With caution, support agencies could foster WBOs of firms in difficulty and of non-profit organizations as viable forms of entrepreneurship.

The current study offers the first survival analysis distinguishing four modes of entry among WOFs.

Member-owned business organizations, such as cooperatives, are engaged in various economic activities that touch our everyday lives. Sitajakhala Dugdha Utpadak Samabai Samiti Limited (Sitajakhala Dairy Producers Cooperative Society Limited) is a successful cooperative society in the northeastern region of India. The purpose of this case study is to illustrate how the cooperative manages its production and supply chain of milk and milk products and highlights several issues that the cooperative encountered in the recent past and how those issues were managed. This case also illustrates how an agribusiness cooperative has been growing over the years, including expansion of business and the creation of a brand image, as well as benefiting its members and their communities.

The authors used a case study approach where they went for in-person interviews of Sitajakhala's executive members and office staff; in addition, the authors were given access to Sitajakhala's marketing and financial records as well as its annual reports and vision documents.

Sitajakhala Co-op provides a platform where individual dairy farmers (most of who are small farmers and many of them are illiterate) can unite to bargain for higher prices for their milk. Due to its member-oriented business strategy, Sitajakhala Co-op has been growing well with active support of its members. Consistent quality control and marked improvements in labeling, bottling and packaging of milk and milk products has helped the cooperative to establish itself as a leader in dairy products supplier in Assam among bulk buyers as well as individual consumers. Sitajakhala cooperative also provides dairy farming related services to its members for free of charge to improve milk production and quality. One of the shortcomings of the cooperative is underutilization of its modern milk processing plant which needs to be addressed by the management in earnest.

This case study is based on information from one dairy cooperative in Assam, India; thus, the findings of this case may not translate into other dairy cooperatives in India or elsewhere. Nonetheless, cooperative practitioners may find the findings useful from a management perspective.

Sitajakhala Co-op management was keenly aware of the non-dairy related needs of the community it serves. Some of such services include free medical ambulance service for its members, supporting secondary education through providing merit and need-based scholarships and funding physical improvements to a local high school and a local college. In addition, the cooperative regularly provides funding to local sports and cultural events and local social institutions which have positive impact on the larger community. Sitajakhala cooperative has been providing employment to the local youth in the Morigaon area and plans on continuing to do so.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case study focusing on the management and operations of a dairy cooperative in the northeastern part of India. Knowledge gained from such study is expected to benefit not only Sitajakhala cooperative but also other dairy cooperatives in a similar situation. This case study will also benefit senior undergraduate and/or graduate students specializing in agricultural economics/agribusiness and can also be used for executive training for the management of academic institutions and food companies.

This paper reviews the evolution, current state and ongoing trends of the empirical literature on employee-owned firms (EOFs).

Using a structured literature review methodology, I analyze 280 empirical publications on EOFs published in English peer-reviewed academic journals over the 1970–2019 period.

Two generations (before and after 2001) of the EOF empirical literature are identified and characterized in terms of authors, journals, topics, methods, targets, relations to theoretical modeling and countries studied. Two research trends are structuring the current generation: one investigating diverse research questions engaging EOFs as emblematic forms of social economy, and the other comparing EOFs to conventional firms to offer insights mainly into the seminal question of the EOF relative rarity.

The sample studied does not take into account articles written in languages other than English and does not include books.

This article displays the first structured literature review of the EOF empirical literature.

As majority of studies of employee ownership (EO) take place in developed markets and primarily focus on the impact on firm performance, scholars have recently called for other markets, especially large developing markets to be considered, as well as alternative outcome measures.

Through the examination of the implementation of EO by Chinese listed firms during the period of 2011–2019 with total 3,473 firms and 21,204 observations, the authors provide empirical evidence on the positive effect of EO on firm R&D investment within the rapidly growing Chinese market.

The authors find that the adoption of EO promotes higher level of firm R&D investment. This positive relationship is more evident among small firms, non-state-owned firms and local state-owned-firms, compared with their counterparts. As for the plausible channels, the authors find that adopting EO provides a favorable institutional environment, which attracts more technical staff, improves workplace quality, and encourages job stability and greater employee effort, leading to greater R&D investment.

Though the connection between R&D investment/innovation and firm survival performance has been known for decades, the innovation side of outcomes has been ignored by EO research. Therefore, the authors explore the relationship between EO implementation and firm R&D investment within the rapidly growing Chinese market.

This study aims to identify informal institutions for bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) business models in the agricultural sector through the case study of banana growers’ cooperatives.

A case study of six banana cooperatives from Colombia was conducted. The research followed a mixed design, using both qualitative and quantitative data and the application of structural equations.

This study shows that social capital, networking and alliances are essential in BoP businesses.

Authors defined a model of informal institutional factors for the generation of economic and social value in inclusive business, using the new institutional theory and the conceptual development of BoP in agri-business.

The mainstream framework for corporate governance is that all corporate activity should be directed towards shareholder wealth maximization. This article posits that public policy should move away from shareholder primacy and instead recognize employees as key contributors to corporate value-creation. One way to implement this approach is to require the creation of Employee Equity Funds (EEFs) at large corporations, which would pay employees dividends alongside external shareholders and establish a collective employee voice in corporate governance. EEFs may reduce economic inequality while improving firm performance and macroeconomic stability. This article provides an original estimate of average employee dividends, illustrating the potential of employee equity funds.

Analysis of employee dividends for Employee Equity Funds at large U.S. corporations, using publicly available corporate finance data.

Based on historic dividend payments and employee counts in public 10-K filings, I find that, if EEFs held 20% of outstanding equity, the average employee dividend across this sample would be $2,622 per year, while the median is $1,760. This indicates that employee dividends can be a small but meaningful form of redressing wealth inequality for the low-wage workforce, though it should emphatically not be seen as a replacement for fair wages.

Original data analysis of a proposed policy reform to increase the benefits of employee equity in the United States.