Motivational Factors for Remaining in or Exiting a Cooperative

ABSTRACT Cooperative attributes were incorporated into a push–pull framework to explain exit/remain behavior for dairy farmers delivering to dairy cooperatives. The exit behavior meant establishing a marketing or processing operation in parallel to cooperative deliveries or the planning such an action. Scale development to measure cooperative attributes resulted in six latent variables: A need to restructure the farm business, the membership role in the cooperative, opportunity, fear of negative evaluation, self‐efficacy, and cooperative (dis)loyalty. The latent variables identified were tested against behavioral intentions in two logistic regressions where the dairy farmers’ plans for remaining or exiting the cooperative and their plans for postfarm gate entrepreneurial activities were the dependent variables. Two latent variables emerged as significant predictors: restructuring the farm business and the membership role. These predictors were push factors in the model, suggesting that dissatisfaction with delivery to existing dairy cooperatives, rather than job or life satisfaction from setting up their own business, acted as farmers’ motive to exit. These results can be used in developing communication and strategies for more viable dairy cooperatives and in understanding the incentives behind the ongoing restructuring of the dairy market from a supply perspective. [EconLit citations: Q130, J230, D810].