Crisis, sectoral and geographical factors: financial dynamics of Italian cooperatives
ISSN: 1450-2194
Article publication date: 11 June 2018
Issue publication date: 30 July 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the financial structure of Italian cooperatives in the period before and during the crisis (2004-2013), in relation to two discriminating factors. At this end, it focuses on two research questions: What financial dynamics the Italian cooperatives have involved before, during and after the 2008 crisis, that is, in the decade 2004/2013? Are there statistically differences between business sectors and geographic area?
Design/methodology/approach
Secondary data on AIDA database have been used. The financial structure is assessed using two ratios: the financial leverage ratio and quick ratio. The final sample consists of 1,446 cooperatives. The trend and exploratory analysis, analysis of variance and Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test have been used.
Findings
The financial structure of cooperatives has not been substantially affected by the crisis in any geographic area and business sector, by virtue of resilience of their business model. Moreover, these two factors produce statistically significant differences in the financial structure of cooperatives.
Research limitations/implications
The study takes into account only the cooperatives that survived the crisis, so, presumably, the strongest. Moreover, another and more ratios should be considered at the end to have a more complete view on the financial dynamics.
Originality/value
The literature on resilience of cooperatives is still not very rich. Moreover, this work analyses and integrates aspects and approaches that are not usually considered together.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The paper is the result of a collaborative work. However, the following paragraphs can be attributed mainly to Floriana Fusco: research questions and hypotheses, research methodology, results, discussion and conclusion; while the others, that are introduction, theoretical background and implications, can be mainly credited to Guido Migliaccio.
Citation
Fusco, F. and Migliaccio, G. (2018), "Crisis, sectoral and geographical factors: financial dynamics of Italian cooperatives", EuroMed Journal of Business, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 130-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/EMJB-02-2016-0002
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited