Collaborative networking among agricultural production cooperatives in Iran

This research seeks to determine mechanisms in developing collaborative networking among agricultural production cooperatives in Iran. The research design was survey method and a network consisting of agricultural cooperatives has been defined as the core of the network. The statistical population of the study included managers of cooperatives which were administrated by the "Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare" and the "Rural Cooperative Organization" of the Alborz Province (N = 540). From this target population, 176 managers of cooperatives were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. A questionnaire was developed to determine the technical, economical, educational, legal, social, and policy making mechanisms that presented the collaborative networking model. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts in the field of Agricultural cooperative. To calculate the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which is used for multi-scale questions, was used. The mean of Cronbach's alpha coefficients in this study was 0.803. The results showed that policy making with a coefficient of 0.539, economic with a coefficient of 0.499, legal with a coefficient of 0.208, and educational mechanisms with a coefficient of 0.130 had the most impact, while technical and social mechanisms had no role in developing the collaborative networking.