© 1992 Oxford University Press and the Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics
research-article |
Diversification, size and growth of the Greek co-operative marketing unions
Department of Agricultural Economics, Thessaloniki Greece
*Professor G. Peters (Oxford University), S. Ludlow (L.S.E.) and the editor of this journal are thanked for helpful comments in an earlier draft of this paper. Any errors remaining are my own responsibility. Data were kindly supplied by the Agricultural Bank of Greece (Dept. of Agricultural Co-operatives). Financial support provided by the Greek Secretary of Research and Technology is gratefully mentioned
Received November 1, 1990;
Summary
The association of diversification and growth has been examined in the past in manufacturing industries; expanding to related and to unrelated product activities have been found to have different effects on the rate of growth of firms. These models appeared to suggest that any additional expansion into related activities always resulted in faster growth. However possibly different effects of diversification on the rate of growth of different sized organisations and the role of the initial diversification level were not examined. All these issues are investigated in the case of the Greek co-operative marketing unions over the period 1971–1985. The lack of similar studies, at least in European literature, and a general interest in improvging co-operative efficiency could lead this empirical work to have some general interest.
Keywords: co-operative, marketing, diversification, growth, structure.