Abstract:
Rural cooperatives, as a small member
-
owned organizations, are the
potential to
facilitate socio
-
economic development in rural areas. Despite this fact, in Iran and many
other developing countries, they have not had remarkable successes in this regard.
Because strategy formulation and management is a plan to obtain far
-
r
eaching
development effects of any organization. This study aimed to present a hybrid method to
formulate and choose strategies for rural cooperatives development. It combined SWOT
analysis, TOWS matrix, and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). We applied
b
rainstorming technique to analyze the external and internal environment of rural
cooperatives using the contributions of an experts’ team comprising 10 individual CEOs
of rural cooperatives and senior employees of the Central Organization of Rural
Cooperat
ives. When this team identified key SWOT factors, TOWS matrix was
constructed to create good strategic alternatives. Finally, ANP was applied to prioritize
the strategies. According to results, 19 key strategic factors such as lack of management
knowledge
(W4), and ability to improve value and supply chains (S4) were identified. In
addition, this team identified 11 strategic alternatives which among them
Implement public
policy and provide technical and financial services (SO2), Facilitate procurement of in
puts and
develop supply and value chains (SO1) and Involve rural cooperatives in policy planning (ST1),
had
greater priority in Iran. The experts’ team believed that the presented combined
approach helps decision makers and managers to make and choose the
best alternative
strategies and factors that affect rural cooperatives development.
Keywords:
Analytical network process, Farmers’ cooperatives, Strategic development
,
SWOT Analysis, TOWS matrix
.
