Assessing the usefulness of accounting information as an instrument to predict business failure in Spanish cooperatives

Accounting information has been employed in many economic-financial models applied to registered corporations to predict business failure. Nonetheless, there are practically no research works that predict failure in agricultural cooperatives. The fundamental elements of this legal form justify the development of specific prediction models. The Delphi methodology has been used to define agricultural cooperative failure and to assess the usefulness of accounting variables. The conclusions suggest considering those agricultural cooperatives with negative equity or cash-flow problems to be failures or to come close to this concept. Similarly, indebtedness volume, cash flow and solvency are the most relevant variables that can act as business prediction instruments.