Identifying the antecedents of opportunism in agri-food cooperatives: a comparative analysis between first- and second-tier cooperatives

Agri-food cooperatives allow farmers to improve their competitiveness and bargaining power. However, the specificities of their organizational form, in which owners are decision makers, suppliers, and clients, open the door to conflicts of interest. Members’ opportunism comes in the aftermath of this and adversely affects cooperatives’ performance. Hence, knowing the antecedents of these undesirable opportunistic behaviors is an important management concern. This study analyzes the factors that promote cooperative members opportunism by exploring the differences between memberships of first-tier cooperatives and second-tier cooperatives. To this end, an ordinary least squares linear regression model with interaction terms was estimated. The results show that in the case of first-tier cooperatives, environmental uncertainty, members’ heterogeneity, and the cooperative's market orientation increase members’ opportunism, while members’ dependence on the cooperative, long-term orientation of the relationship, and members’ market orientation reduce it. For second-tier cooperatives, our results reveal that cooperative market orientation increases members’ opportunism, while members’ market orientation reduces it. Moreover, we find that members’ dependence on cooperatives, long-term orientation, and environmental uncertainty have different effects on opportunism in each type of membership.