Investigating Factors affecting the Success of Official and Unofficial Range Management Cooperatives in three provinces of Iran

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the members' opinions regarding the influencing factors contributing the success of range management cooperatives in three provinces as Markazi, Tehran and Isfahan of Iran in 2014. The study populations were board and ordinary members of cooperatives (N=750) and the samples were selected using Krejcie and Morgan method through stratified and random sampling (n=98). Data of questionnaires were collected using scaling method. Statistical tests of Chronbach's alpha coefficient indicated high validity and reliability of data. The results demonstrated that the unofficial range management cooperatives were more successful compared to the official ones, but in overall, both cooperatives were not successful in achieving the given goals in the system and satisfying the expectations of members. To study the effects of independent variables on the success of both cooperatives, path analysis and multivariate regression were used. The results showed that the factors of education, technical skills of managers, social participation, financial elements, performance of public departments and knowledge of members as the promotion factors had the most impact on the success of the official cooperatives. For unofficial cooperatives, education, financial fairness, comprehension skills of managers, experience and skills of members and performance of public departments had the highest effects on the success of these cooperatives.