Assessment of Members Perceptions towards Factors Influencing the Success of Cooperatives: A survey of Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives in Becho Woreda

This survey study aimed at assessing and identifying the factors influencing the success of agricultural marketing cooperatives in Becho Woreda. The targets for this research were members of AMCs. For the sake of achieving the objectives of this study, responses were elicited from two hundred twenty (220) respondents who were drawn from the target population using two-stage random sampling procedure. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 10 officers’ and cooperative leaders of AMCs. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential analyses. Besides, the qualitative data collected were analyzed using descriptive narrations through concurrent triangulation strategy. To facilitate the data processing and analysis activity SPSS version 20 was used. The empirical study identified six major factors for the success of AMCs which include: member participation factor, member commitment factor, structural factor, communication factor, managerial factor, external factor. The results showed that, “participation in cooperative governance, “mutual trust”; “membership homogeneity”; “communication medium”; “interpersonal skills” and “market access” are the highly influential factors for the success of AMCs. The findings further indicate that, there exists positive significant ranging from low to strong relationship was found between independent variables and dependent variable. Moreover, the selected independent variables significantly explain the variations in the dependent variable. Finally, the study has suggested cooperative promoter, government, and prospective members should prioritize those factors that have greater impact on their success than do others i.e., commitment of members and their participation. Key Words: AMCs, success, member participation factor, member commitment factor, structural factor, communication factor, managerial factor, external factor.