In 1998, the Sara Lee Corporation decided to restructure its value chain by diverging from manufacturing many of its products to outsourcing and concentrating its resources on developing and managing its brands. In light of this change, Bil Mar Foods, a subsidiary of Sara Lee located in Zeeland,...

The purpose of this study was to develop a general model for strategy making in business organizations. The model was applied to a Norwegian farmer sales cooperative which market fruits and vegetables in order to test the model's feasability of developing a consistent approach to business...

A contract has recently been completed between the Economics Research Service of the U.S.D.A. and Michigan State University, under which the Department of Agricultural Economics at MSU. will analyze prospective changes in agricultural trade of E.F.T.A. countries. This study will be complementary...

This paper has been elaborated in an effort to set the basis for a research on a semi-collective production cooperative program in Panama. Three aspects are considered to be important when studying the program: the internal organization of the semi-collective cooperatives to be analyzed; the role...

The link between strategic planning and firm performance has been studied for over two decades. This paper examines this link, with emphasis on small agribusiness firms. A model of strategic planning and performance is developed and applied to small agribusiness firms. Implications for research...

In 1998, the Sara Lee Corporation implemented a corporate strategy of deverticalization. Bil Mar Foods, Inc., a subsidiary of Sara Lee responsible for the processing of packaged meat products, followed the strategy by shutting down its turkey slaughter facility in Zeeland, Michigan. As a...

This paper contrasts the successful transformation of the oil palm sector in Malaysia with the stagnation of the oil palm sector in Nigeria, and examines the factors determining the different paths that the oil palm sectors took in these two countries with the aim of drawing lessons for future...

The paper presents an analysis of cooperative investment decision based on the coalition theoretical framework (Staatz 1983, 1987, 1989). According to this framework, cooperatives can be considered as coalitions of groups with different interests. The behavior of any cooperative is determined by...