The Influence of the Configuration Effect of Social Capital and Knowledge Absorptive Capacity on the Cooperation Intensity of Cooperatives Participating in Agricultural Industrialization Consortia

Abstract

Agricultural industrialization consortia fully realize the organizational advantages of division of labor, risk sharing, and benefit sharing, which mainly rely on close cooperation of members under integrated governance, but the current influence mechanism on the intensity of cooperation is yet to be explored in depth. Using 40 member cooperatives of agricultural industrialization consortia in Sichuan Province as research samples, this paper explores the mechanism by which the configuration effects of five conditional factors at the levels of social capital and knowledge absorptive capacity can generate different cooperative intensity of cooperative participation in consortia using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. It was found that (1) the driving mechanism of high cooperative intensity of cooperatives was divided into three paths; (2) the driving mechanism of non-high cooperative intensity of cooperatives was divided into two paths and had an asymmetric relationship with the driving mechanism of high cooperative intensity of cooperatives. The findings of this paper help to expand the research perspective on cooperative intensity at the level of social capital and knowledge absorptive capacity configuration, and provide useful insights for improving the cooperative intensity of cooperative participation in consortia and the cooperative tightness among consortium members.