The role of members' commitment on agri-food co-operatives' capitalization, innovation and performance

Undercapitalization has been recognized as a problem affecting Italian co-operatives to perform in modern agri-food markets. An empirical study on 50 Italian agri-food co-operatives was carried out to investigate co-operatives members' commitment capability to impact on the level of capitalization. The level of capitalization was also investigated as a mean to influence co-operatives' innovation and subsequently their performance. The results show how co-operatives with more committed memberships display higher levels of capitalization and that capitalization positively relates with innovation levels. The latter is also confirmed to enhance co-operatives' performance. These results are relevant from a managerial point of view as they reveal the importance of members' commitment in this particular type of organizations and provide new insights to improve co-operatives’ innovation and performance.