LAUSR

Cooperatives are a specific type of organisation. For nearly a century, they have represented an important means of organisational and strategic structuring of agricultural and food sectors in France. By the early 1990s, an accelerated process of concentration was observed among agricultural cooperatives. Our study aims to analyse the concentration process of agricultural cooperatives mainly through mergers with take-over. The analysis of 14 wine cooperatives mergers in Languedoc-Roussillon between 2004 and 2010 is our empirical field. The main results indicate that there are different types of merger processes with cognitive and partnership dimensions: some are done without any backup strategy, while others respond to local policies. Finally, in other cases, mergers are based on real corporate strategic projects leading to synergies between the involved cooperatives.