Celem badań było określenie potencjału rolniczych spółdzielni produkcyjnych (RSP) w przekroju zasobów. Zaprezentowano podejście zasobowe w procesie kształtowania przewagi konkurencyjnej. Egzem- plifikację stanowiły rolnicze RSP działające na terenie województwa opolskiego, wśród których przeprowadzono badania z użyciem kwestionariusza ankiety. Badania dotyczyły okresu 2008-2010 i obejmowały 28 jednostek. Dokonana charakterystyka i analiza zasobów badanych spółdzielni pozwoliła wyodrębnić zasoby, które stanowią mocne bądź słabe strony w kontekście budowania przewagi konkurencyjnej.
The paper focuses on comparisons of the size of the labour force between cooperatives and other legal forms of enterprises in agricultural area. Precisely, the purpose of the paper is to analyse differences between cooperatives and other enterprises in the agricultural sector in the context of employment. An empirical analysis is done on the example of Polish agricultural production cooperatives (APC) and other farming entities. The paper brings answers to the following research questions: Do the agricultural cooperatives provide more employment than other farming entities? What was the level of employment in agricultural cooperatives and other farming entities and what will it be? How does the level of employment influence the profitability of agricultural cooperatives and other farming entities? The conclusions are made on the basis of an analysis of the “List of the 300 best agricultural enterprises” prepared by the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics – the National Research Institute in Poland. The analysis includes the following types of agricultural enterprises: agricultural production cooperatives, government-owned companies, individual farms, private companies and other farming entities. The time range of this research covers the years 2009–2015. The comparisons are made using analysis of variance, extrapolation method and correlation analysis. The main finding is that there are no clear and significant differences between agricultural production cooperatives and other farming entities in terms of the level of employment, its impact on the overall profitability and partially on increase thereof. However, some of the entities are able to create a lot of jobs. Moreover, they can increase the return on sales by increasing the level of employment and maintain the existing jobs even in the time of a crisis.
In the introduction, the article presents a brief reflection on collaborative farming in Poland and abroad. There is also a formulated objective of the study, which is to show the essence of agricultural productive cooperatives’ activity and their role in the farmers’ and local communities’ protection. The following section presents used research methods and the subjective, spatial and temporal scope of own research. Subsequent parts of the article relate to the description of the history of APCs in Poland with an explanation of the causes of their foundation and liquidating, presentation the essence and the role of cooperative activities in agriculture with an indication of the advantages of collective farming and characteristics of agricultural, economic and social activities of Polish APCs. At the end of the article there is the summary of the undertaken considerations and conclusions.
Celem badań była analiza stanu organizacyjnego i zakresu procesów integracyjnych spółdzielczości rolniczej w Polsce i innych krajach europejskich. Wykorzystano metodę analizy i przegląd literatury. Przedstawiono wyniki badań instytucji związanych ze spółdzielczością rolniczą oraz posłużono się wynikami badań własnych przeprowadzonych na grupie ok. 33 rolniczych spółdzielni produkcyjnych (RSP) z województwa opolskiego.