Introduction

A number of competing views are swirling around the literature concerning the impact of globalization on the ability of cooperatives to survive. Some argue that globalization provides co-ops with the incentives to improve their own performance and to better compete with conventional firms, while others maintain that globalization pushes co-ops out of the market. Others contend that the most efficient co-ops are those that gain a larger market share and thus are able to affect the state of competition in the product market.