Determinants of Co‐operative Patronage in Alberta

Co‐operative managers face an increasingly heterogeneous pool of potential members. Because these members bring a variety of economic and noneconomic demands to their co‐operative, managers must know how different member characteristics and performance perceptions influence their decision to patronize a co‐operative. This study applies three models of co‐operative patronage to survey data from rural Alberta. A Poisson regression is used to determine the factors that explain the number of co‐operatives used, while an index of co‐operative patronage measures the relative intensity of co‐operative versus proprietary firm usage. A third model contucts a Tobit analysis of the amount of business conducted with each of several different types of co‐operatives. The results show that older farmers tend to partonize more co‐operatives, and larger farms do a greater share of their business with co‐operatives than do smaller fiarms. Farmers who believe co‐operatives offer innovative products and services are more likely to patronize them, while a belief that co‐operatives should play an active role in noneconomic matters is not important.