In recent years researchers have proclaimed that cooperatives have demonstrated to be more competent at handling market failure than traditional for-profit organizations. In addition, it is also known that cooperatives have surge to stand out in different sectors such as medical care, credit and food. For example, in the food sector, an essential attitude to reduce coffee farmers’ disadvantages is through a development in production, sustainability and profit increase in agricultural cooperatives. Therefore, over the last decade there has been a fast-moving increment in citations inquiring more information regarding cooperatives around the world and how these agricultural corporations have emerged as fundamental organizations in easing rural poverty in developing countries. However, former researches have mainly emphasized, for example, the advantages that a coffee producer may obtain from cooperatives while others focus on the deficient business model of such corporations due to the expensive democratic decision-making procedure. Nevertheless, there is an absence of research regarding the reasons for agricultural cooperatives to emerge.

This research attempts to narrow this gap by examining the benefits, motivators and challenges faced to establish and join a cooperative. Through the utilization of qualitative research, employing grounded theory methods, this research examines founders and members of cooperatives in Honduras. The findings of this research lead to the discovery of 4 different phases that founders and members undergo prior to and after establishing or joining a cooperative respectively. Such phases help understand the motivators that incentivize the surge of cooperatives, nevertheless the challenges that hamper the establishment and growth of cooperatives can also be observed. These results offer an important contribution to the literature, as well as it creates a guideline for future founders and members to comprehend the different phases in the ecosystem of a cooperative.

In recent years researchers have proclaimed that cooperatives have demonstrated to be more competent at handling market failure than traditional for-profit organizations. In addition, it is also known that cooperatives have surge to stand out in different sectors such as medical care, credit and food. For example, in the food sector, an essential attitude to reduce coffee farmers’ disadvantages is through a development in production, sustainability and profit increase in agricultural cooperatives. Therefore, over the last decade there has been a fast-moving increment in citations inquiring more information regarding cooperatives around the world and how these agricultural corporations have emerged as fundamental organizations in easing rural poverty in developing countries. However, former researches have mainly emphasized, for example, the advantages that a coffee producer may obtain from cooperatives while others focus on the deficient business model of such corporations due to the expensive democratic decision-making procedure. Nevertheless, there is an absence of research regarding the reasons for agricultural cooperatives to emerge.

This research attempts to narrow this gap by examining the benefits, motivators and challenges faced to establish and join a cooperative. Through the utilization of qualitative research, employing grounded theory methods, this research examines founders and members of cooperatives in Honduras. The findings of this research lead to the discovery of 4 different phases that founders and members undergo prior to and after establishing or joining a cooperative respectively. Such phases help understand the motivators that incentivize the surge of cooperatives, nevertheless the challenges that hamper the establishment and growth of cooperatives can also be observed. These results offer an important contribution to the literature, as well as it creates a guideline for future founders and members to comprehend the different phases in the ecosystem of a cooperative.

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