Supporting industrial cooperatives in developing countries: some Tanzanian experiences

This paper draws upon both case-study and statistical materials, gathered in Tanzania, in an attempt to determine how industrial producer cooperatives might be promoted. A logistic pattern of cooperative growth is tested and found to dominate a view that the number of coops grows because of support organizations. Drawing upon an ecological model it is suggested that the factor which limits growth is the availability of management and, further, that the growth of the competing 'small-scale sector' is at the expense of the cooperative sector. Management nurtured in the cooperative sector moves into the small-scale sector. Case-study analysis using a Boolean analysis suggests that legitimate and capable management are essential to success of cooperatives particularly with technologies which generate production interdependencies. Finally, supporting evidence for the significance of management competence and interdependence in explaining performance is outlined using an augmented CobbDouglas production function framework.