Building agricultural cooperatives: A scoping review of the process, actors and factors

This scoping review explores the process of building new agricultural cooperatives, a challenging process with a high failure risk. Despite the prevalence of cooperatives, the formation process through which they come into being remains poorly understood. Through a systematic scoping approach, this paper synthesizes what is currently known about the key stages, the actor roles, and the determining factors that shape cooperative formation, and develops a research agenda that addresses existing knowledge gaps. Using Scopus, 28 articles were selected through a rigorous screening process and investigated through a thematic analysis with ATLAS.ti. The review reveals that cooperative formation is a non-linear process, whereby cooperatives may revisit earlier development stages, requiring the continuous realignment of actors. Key identified factors include social capital, facilitating cooperation and bridging to external resources, while commitment and leadership support a successful formation process. Building on the reviewed literature, this review develops a research agenda for the study of cooperative formation, with priority areas including the conceptualization of cooperative formation beyond its legal boundaries to encompass pre and post legal stages, the transition from social movement to formal organisation, and the role of actors, member commitment, and social capital across the non-linear stages of the formation process.