Cooperative and Other Rural Associative Enterprises – Case Studies
A set of 14 case studies (4 for Spain, 4 for Germany and 6 for Romania) gathering best practices related to farmers/producers cooperatives in the involved countries – in different sectors – vegetal, vegetables, fruits, dairy, etc. and with different functions – marketing, credit, insurance, procurement, etc. depending and competitiveness factor are developed in the project.
The case studies have as learning objectives: coop start-up / setup processes (deciding the issue / problem to address, vision, mission of the organization, identifying and getting the relevant stakeholders around the table, legal form), managing a coop, designing and planning the business, services and products and their relation to member/ clients/ owners need and social economic interests, target market/s, revenue streams.
The case studies cover for each cooperative the context and history of the enterprise, the socio-economic context and historical background, the sector/s of activity and location, life cycle phases and more specifically:
- Conditions which allowed start up and founding as well as implementation
- Organizational design—legal form, governance models, stakeholders, etc.
- Growth and expansion, focusing on the various resources (finance, voluntary, etc.) mobilized at each stage; crisis and how were these resolved/addressed;
- Core business model – the added value created by the main business activity – products and services, particularities which distinguish the cooperative from investor owned companies in the same sector – ways of production distribution, clientele, profit distribution – patronage rights
- Institutional/ governance structure, legal form – describe the particularities / distinctive features of the legal form – ownership/patronage, decision-making rights, member relationships, external relations and basic economic data.
Each case study has an Executive Summary- Executive Summary, including bibliography, charts, and graphs.
