Empowering agricultural production cooperatives: a nationwide survey of definitions and strategies in Iran

The empowerment literature lacks a common understanding of the empowerment and the important elements in the empowerment process. This study aimed to create an empirically generated list of definitions and strategies for empowering agricultural production cooperatives (APCs). A nationwide survey was conducted in Iran to achieve the research objectives. Fifty-five (out of 80) government employees involved in agricultural cooperatives' empowerment and 85 (out of 277) board members of cooperatives who participated in empowerment programmes, were randomly selected to participate in this research. The perceptions of the two groups were compared using t-test to reach consensus. In the end 19 agreed definitions and 32 strategies were provided for empowering the cooperatives. An exploratory factor analysis was used to determine what sets of definitions and what sets of strategies hang together. The study results suggest that empowerment actors in Iran are trying to make cooperative principles govern the cooperative. The article concludes with the discussion of strategies for strengthening empowerment in APCs and implications for human resource development (HRD).