Human capital and innovative capacity: what are the specificities of the agricultural cooperatives of the Souss Massa region-Morocco?

Abstract

The appealing growth of farmer cooperatives, which have progressed from the assortment and pre-handling stage to full processing, requires innovative measures, in order to steadily align their performance with the tremendous changes they are experiencing. Furthermore, their cross-sectional position in the agricultural value chain raises concerns about their ability to innovate. Subsequently, innovation is as of now not an option, yet an outright need for these organizations to reinforce their competitiveness and consequently support their standing, both in the agricultural value chain and in the sector overall. However, innovation assumes the presence of a capacity to innovate, allowing to carry out and implement resourceful plans.  

In this viewpoint, this article tries to investigate the significance of human resources in the cooperative innovation setting. Starting from the speculation that the quality of human capital is decidedly correlated with the capacity to innovate, our acquired outcomes feature the enormous significance of human capital as a major determinant in the innovation process. These findings are based on responses from a sample of 50 farmer cooperatives operating in the area of the “Souss Massa” region. This research is a part of an ongoing analysis process of the innovative capacity in the Moroccan cooperative context.

JEL Classification: O31, O34, Q12   

Paper type: Empirical research