Organizational–Individual Configurations Shaping Core Members’ Commitment in Specialized Farmers’ Cooperatives: An fsQCA Study in China

Abstract

This study examines how combinations of individual and organizational conditions shape organizational commitment of core members in specialized farmers’ cooperatives. Using survey data from 21 shiitake cooperatives in China, we apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify configurational pathways to high and low commitment. The results reveal two pathways to high commitment: one based on the complementarity between human capital and vertical integration, and another driven by large operating scale under limited external social capital. Commitment erosion occurs when individual resources exceed the cooperative’s structural capacity, leading members to seek external opportunities or experience dissatisfaction under insufficient returns. The findings point to a two-level logic of commitment formation, in which human capital serves as a necessary threshold, while the effects of individual resources depend on their fit with organizational capacity. These insights contribute to a configurational understanding of cooperative commitment and are relevant for smallholder systems facing structural constraints.

1.  Introduction

Agricultural cooperatives, as entities collectively owned and democratically controlled by farmers, are vital for enhancing bargaining power, lowering transaction costs, and facilitating resource sharing in agriculture (Cechin et al., 2013; Liang and Hendrikse, 2013). Especially in developing economies dominated by smallholder farming, they are indispensable for market linkage and rural economic growth (Awoke, 2021).

Member commitment is essential because it provides the cooperative with stability, competitive differentiation, and resilience. It ensures that members continue to patronize and support the organization even when short-term market incentives favor investor-owned firms (Fulton and Adamowicz, 1993). However, global industrialization and organizational scaling have exacerbated information asymmetry and increased member heterogeneity, ultimately undermining internal cohesion and member commitment (Grashuis and Cook, 2019).

Building on this, member heterogeneity is widely regarded as a major challenge for agricultural cooperatives, particularly because it raises governance costs and complicates democratic decision-making (Höhler and Kühl, 2018). China’s institutional context serves as an illustrative case. The evolution of specialized farmers’ cooperatives in China exhibits significant internal stratification: resource-driven core members utilize their social capital to initiate organizations, while common members are passively recruited (Liang and Hendrikse, 2013). This structure makes the commitment of core members critical not only for organizational formation but also for long-term sustainability.

Prior studies related to cooperatives, however, often rely on an idealized assumption of member homogeneity, overlooking the high degree of member heterogeneity (Österberg and Nilsson, 2009). Besides, in light of commitment’s multi-dimensional psychological state (Mottaz, 1988), traditional empirical approaches relying on net-effect methods fail to capture the synergistic effects and substitutions among influencing factors, leading to conclusions focused solely on average effects that often contradict the causal complexity observed in real organizational behavior (Awoke, 2021; Wassie et al., 2020).

Taken together, existing related research has not sufficiently examined member heterogeneity and causal complexity. Accordingly, this study aims to reveal how different configurations of organizational and individual conditions foster strong commitment or lead to its erosion. Specifically, drawing on field-based survey data, we examine organizational attributes and individual characteristics, and explore which combinations of these antecedent conditions give rise to high or low organizational commitment.

2.  Data and Method

(1)  Data collection

Lin County in Lüliang City, Shanxi Province was selected through theoretical sampling suited to fsQCA, which requires not random representation but sufficient variation across the conditions of interest. The county’s shiitake cooperatives, developed under targeted poverty alleviation policies since 2013, exhibit meaningful heterogeneity in conditions such as vertical integration, operating scale, and member social capital, while the focus on a single crop (shiitake) and region controls for confounding variation in market environment and agricultural technology, allowing organizational and individual factors to be compared across cases on a relatively even footing.

The cooperatives surveyed are formally registered under China’s Law on Specialized Farmers Cooperatives (hereafter “the Law”), which encompasses a wide diversity of organizational forms—including dragon-head enterprise-led arrangements and land-share equity structures in which control rests with external firms or quasi-corporate boards rather than members themselves. The specialized farmers’ cooperatives in this study are member-controlled: local smallholders voluntarily join, collectively hold equity stakes, and govern the organization internally. Yet this member-controlled structure is not internally homogeneous: the Law permits differentiated voting rights and surplus distribution based on capital contributions or transaction volumes (Articles 22 and 44, 2018 revision). Within this institutional context, the differentiation between core and common members is the central phenomenon this study investigates.

In this study, core members are identified as the largest shareholders within each cooperative (i.e., holding a share not lower than any other member), who are typically also the founder or primary manager responsible for key operational decisions. Under China’s cooperative governance structure, such ownership concentration is closely associated with the authority to make binding decisions on production planning, financial management, and external contracting—functions from which common members who participate primarily through land-share or labor arrangements are structurally excluded. In practice, most respondents concurrently held the roles of executive director and general officer—and several also as financial officer—consolidating strategic and operational authority within a single individual. Each cooperative has between 5 and 20 members, of whom one or two are core members.

Data collection was conducted in July–August 2023. A total of 21 shiitake cooperatives from different townships were surveyed, with one core member interviewed per cooperative to provide information on organizational attributes, personal characteristics, and commitment levels.

(2)  Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

This study employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify how organizational-individual configurations shape core members’ commitment.

Following Fiss (2011), the analysis proceeds in three steps. First, all variables are calibrated into fuzzy-set membership scores. Dichotomous conditions are directly coded as 0 or 1, while continuous variables are calibrated using the direct method, with the 5th percentile, median, and 95th percentile serving as the full non-membership, crossover, and full membership thresholds.

Second, necessary condition analysis examines whether any condition or its negation is indispensable for the outcome, using the conventional consistency cutoff of 0.90 and coverage cutoff of 0.50.

Third, sufficiency analysis proceeds through the truth table algorithm. Each case is assigned to the configuration row matching its calibrated condition profile, and rows meeting the frequency threshold of 1 (i.e., at least one empirical case) are retained for analysis. The remaining rows constitute logical remainders, which are configurations logically possible but empirically unobserved, and are addressed through the intermediate solution by incorporating counterfactual assumptions only when theoretically justified. Rows satisfying both the raw consistency threshold of 0.80 and PRI consistency threshold of 0.80 are treated as sufficient for the outcome. Boolean minimization then derives parsimonious, intermediate, and complex solutions; interpretation is based on the intermediate solution, with core conditions identified by their presence in both intermediate and parsimonious solutions.

(3)  Causal conditions

The study utilizes a conditional set composed of five core factors spanning individual and organizational levels. To ensure the appropriateness of this analytical design, the model specification is validated following Marx and Dusa (2011): with 21 cases and 5 conditions, the benchmark contradiction score of 0.95 exceeds the recommended minimum of 0.90, confirming that the present case-to-condition ratio is suitable for fsQCA analysis. The individual-level conditions are defined as follows:

Human capital (HUMCAP) captures the breadth of accumulated capabilities that core members bring to the cooperative, integrating age, agricultural experience, and educational attainment as constituent dimensions. Its effect on commitment is theoretically ambiguous. Greater seniority and education may deepen members’ identification with cooperative values and long-term organizational goals, reinforcing affective and normative commitment (Wassie et al., 2020). Conversely, higher human capital elevates external opportunity costs and market bargaining power, potentially weakening continuance commitment (Fulton and Adamowicz, 1993). Its net effect is therefore expected to be highly contingent on organizational context.

Social capital (SOCAP) reflects the external social status and influence core members hold outside the cooperative, combining political identity and other social roles. High social capital fosters inter-organizational embeddedness, amplifying members’ influence in cooperative decision-making and raising reputational exit costs (Awoke, 2021). However, it is a double-edged resource: under weak institutional constraints, it may enable rent-seeking and governance bypass, redirecting relational resources away from the cooperative and eroding commitment.

Ownership share (SHARE) measures the proportion of total equity held by the core member, reflecting the depth of economic investment. Drawing on continuance commitment theory, a higher equity stake raises exit costs and aligns the member’s economic interests with cooperative performance, reinforcing commitment (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001). However, an excessively concentrated ownership share may also generate tensions when cooperative governance fails to match the member’s perceived contribution, potentially fostering a sense of disproportionate burden rather than ownership pride, and thereby undermining affective commitment.

The organizational-level conditions are defined as follows:

Operating scale (SCALE) represents the cooperative’s overall economic capacity through cultivated land area and annual revenue. Larger scale signals stronger market bargaining power and organizational stability, reinforcing member loyalty (Österberg and Nilsson, 2009). On the other hand, rapid expansion may introduce governance complexity and information asymmetry, potentially marginalizing core members and weakening their sense of organizational control (Cechin et al., 2013).

Vertical Integration (VI) reflects the extent to which the cooperative internalizes its core business functions, operationalized as the joint presence of corporatization and low outsourcing. Higher vertical integration deepens members’ functional dependence and reduces service substitutability, strengthening commitment (Awoke, 2021). However, corporatization-driven centralization may alienate core members if participatory mechanisms are not preserved, introducing a potential negative pathway under concentrated governance.

(4)  Outcome condition

Organizational commitment (OC) is a key construct in organizational behavior, referring to the psychological bond that ties an individual to an organization (Meyer et al., 1993). In this study, core members’ organizational commitment is measured using the three-component model of Meyer et al. (1993), which identifies three coexisting dimensions—affective commitment (emotional attachment to the organization), continuance commitment (perceived costs of leaving), and normative commitment (sense of obligation to remain). The overall OC score is calculated as the mean of the relevant five-point Likert-scale items across these dimensions.

(5)  Measurement and calibration

All variables in this study are treated as sets; thus, prior to fsQCA analysis, raw data are converted into fuzzy-set membership scores ranging from 0 to 1. For dichotomous variables, the raw scores are directly mapped to fuzzy-set membership scores of 0 and 1, respectively. For continuous variables, we employ the direct calibration method (Ragin, 2008). Given the absence of established theoretical thresholds for the conditions examined, calibration anchors were determined using a distributional approach: the 95th percentile, median, and 5th percentile serve as the anchors for full membership, the crossover point, and full non-membership, respectively. This approach ensures that the resulting membership scores capture meaningful variation across cases while remaining grounded in the empirical distribution of the data, and is consistent with established practice in fsQCA research (Fiss, 2011).

Following individual calibration, composite conditions are constructed via set-theoretic operations. HUMCAP, SOCAP, and SCALE are each operationalized as the fuzzy union (max function) of their sub-dimensions, specifically HUMCAP=max (AGE, EXPER, EDU), SOCAP=max (POLI, SOCIA), SCALE=max (AREA, INC), reflecting that high presence in any constituent dimension is sufficient for high composite membership. VI is operationalized as the fuzzy intersection (min function) VI=min (FIRM, 1-OUT), reflecting the conjunctive requirement that both corporatization and internalization must simultaneously obtain. Table 1 summarizes the results of the calibration and statistical analysis.

Table 1. 

Calibration and descriptive statistics.

Set	Unit/*Note	Fuzzy-Set Calibration			Descriptive Statistics
		Full Membership	Crossover Point	Full Non-Membership	Mean	SD	Max	Min
HUMCAP	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
- AGE	yr	61.6	49	32.1	47.29	7.89	62	32
- EXPER	yr	12.9	7	0	6.33	3.83	13	0
- EDU	*1)	4.9	2.0	1.1	2.67	0.97	5	1
SOCAP	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
- POLI	*0/1 binary	—	—	—	0.33	0.48	1	0
- SOCIA	*0/1 binary	—	—	—	0.62	0.50	1	0
SHARE	%	99.91	75	20	64.98	32.84	99.95	20
SCALE	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
- AREA	mu2)	261	55	35.2	81.10	59.63	270	35
- INC	104 yuan	745	172	82	224.24	176.23	750	80
VI	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
- FIRM	*0/1 binary	—	—	—	0.48	0.51	1	0
- OUT	*0/1 binary	—	—	—	0.38	0.50	1	0
OC	—	4.935	4.17	3.506	4.26	0.51	4.94	3.50

Source: Calculated based on the data analysis using Stata 18 and fsQCA 4.1.

1) EDU is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1=Primary School, 2=Junior High School, 3=Senior/Vocational School, 4=College, and 5=University.

2) Mu is a traditional Chinese unit of land area. The modern conversion rate is 15 mu=1ha.

3.  Results and discussion

(1)  Analysis of necessary conditions

Prior to sufficiency analysis, necessary condition analysis was conducted to determine whether any single condition or its negation constitutes an indispensable prerequisite for the occurrence of OC or ~OC, applying the standard consistency threshold of 0.90 and coverage threshold of 0.50. The results are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. 

Analysis of necessary conditions

	Outcome variable: OC		Outcome variable: ~OC
	Consistency	Coverage	Consistency	Coverage
HUMCAP	0.9568	0.6707	0.7979	0.4978
~HUMCAP	0.2835	0.6118	0.4721	0.9068
SOCAP	0.7237	0.4730	0.9060	0.5270
~SOCAP	0.2763	0.7675	0.0940	0.2325
SHARE	0.6166	0.6372	0.5310	0.4884
~SHARE	0.5049	0.5474	0.6055	0.5843
SCALE	0.7615	0.7307	0.5652	0.4826
~SCALE	0.4608	0.5435	0.6846	0.7187
VI	0.2340	0.6500	0.1416	0.3500
~VI	0.7660	0.5006	0.8584	0.4994

Source: Calculated based on the data analysis using fsQCA 4.1.

For high commitment, human capital (HUMCAP) emerges as the sole necessary condition, suggesting that members’ competence forms the indispensable foundation for organizational identification. Conversely, for the absence of high commitment, social capital (SOCAP) satisfies the necessity threshold. This identifies high external social connectivity as a structural “centrifugal force”. When core members possess high external connectivity, the maintenance of their commitment becomes heavily contingent on the organization’s ability to absorb and utilize these relational resources.

Next, the study performed sufficiency analysis using both high organizational commitment (OC) and non-high commitment (~OC) as outcome variables. The final configurational results are presented in Table 3.

Table 3. 

The configurational result of high and low commitment.

	Outcome: OC			Outcome: ~OC
Configuration	H1a	H1b	H2	NH1	NH2
HUMCAP	●	●	●	●	⊗
SOCAP	●	●	⊗	●	●
SHARE	⊗	●	●		●
SCALE	⊗	●	●	⊗	⊗
VI	●	●	⊗	⊗	●
Consistency	0.893	0.935	1.000	0.913	0.966
Raw Coverage	0.120	0.117	0.174	0.434	0.085
Unique Coverage	0.058	0.055	0.174	0.434	0.085
Solution Coverage	0.348			0.519
Solution Consistency	0.939			0.921

Source: Calculated based on the data analysis using fsQCA 4.1. Black circles (●) indicate the presence of a condition; circles with an “X” (⊗) indicate the absence of a condition. Large circles represent core conditions; small circles represent peripheral conditions.

(2)  Core pathways for high commitment

The sufficiency analysis identified three configurations (H1a, H1b, H2) that lead to high organizational commitment, with the overall solutional consistency of 0.939 and coverage of 0.348. These configurations represent two primary logic models based on how individual endowments are aligned with specific organizational structures.

Path H1: Capability complementarity through functional integration.

This pathway, represented by configurations H1a and H1b, emphasizes the synergistic relationship between high human capital (HUMCAP) and high vertical integration (VI). When cooperatives internalize core business functions such as processing and marketing, the specialized skills of core members become “cooperative-specific assets” embedded within these internal workflows. This deep matching between individual talent and the organizational platform raises exit costs and strengthens members’ identity as key organizational drivers, thereby reinforcing both affective and continuance commitment.

Path H2: Scale-driven economic dependence.

Configuration H2 represents a pathway dominated by economic rationality. In the context of large-scale operations (SCALE), high-capacity members (HUMCAP) align their economic interests with the cooperative through significant equity stakes. Because these members lack extensive external social resources (~SOCAP) as alternative outlets, they are more inclined to rely on the cooperative’s scale advantages and stable returns. Here, organizational scale provides the material basis for loyalty, while the lack of external alternatives reinforces the member’s dependency on the existing organization.

(3)  Failure modes for non-high commitment

As shown in Table 3, the sufficiency analysis of non-high commitment (~OC) identified two failure modes (NH1, NH2), with a solution coverage of 0.519 and consistency of 0.921, collectively explaining approximately 52% of the cases. These modes reflect the risks associated with resource misalignment between the individual and the organization.

Mode NH1: Elite opportunism under low organizational capacity.

Configuration NH1 illustrates a scenario where individual resource intensity exceeds organizational structural capacity. When elite members with high human and social capital operate within a cooperative characterized by small scale (~SCALE) and a lack of internalized functions (~VI), the organization cannot effectively absorb or channel their contributions. Consequently, the members’ social capital mutates into a tool for seeking external opportunities, leading to a systemic collapse of organizational commitment.

Mode NH2: Equity burden under insufficient returns.

Configuration NH2 reflects an economic mismatch characterized by high input but insufficient returns. Although core members are financially bound by high equity (SHARE), the small operating scale (~SCALE) limits the cooperative’s ability to generate sufficient economic benefits. In this context, high social capital (SOCAP) increases members’ awareness of external alternatives, thereby amplifying their perception of opportunity costs. This leads to a state of being economically trapped but psychologically detached, resulting in the erosion of affective and normative commitment from within.

(4)  Robustness checks

To verify the stability and reliability of the configurational findings, we conducted a series of robustness tests focusing on parameter sensitivity and model validity. First, we raised both the raw consistency and PRI consistency thresholds from 0.80 to 0.85, which yielded configurations identical to the original models. Second, a sensitivity analysis was performed by adjusting the calibration anchors for continuous variables to the 10th and 90th percentiles. While minor fluctuations in solution coverage and consistency were observed, the core causal conditions and substantive interpretation of each identified pathway remained consistent. Taken together, these checks confirm the robustness of the present findings.

(5)  Discussion

This study provides a configurational explanation of organizational commitment, showing that commitment cannot be attributed to any single factor but emerges from specific combinations of individual and organizational conditions.

A key insight of this study is that human capital functions as a threshold condition for high commitment. While prior research often assumes a direct net effect of human capital on commitment (Fulton and Adamowicz, 1993; Wassie et al., 2020), the present findings suggest that it operates as a necessary condition rather than a sufficient driver. Without sufficient human capital, organizational structures such as vertical integration or operating scale lack the individual foundation necessary to generate deep member identification. This implies that human capital should be understood as a foundational prerequisite, shifting the analytical focus from how much it contributes to commitment to whether it enables other conditions to take effect.

Building on this foundation, the results highlight the importance of organizational-individual alignment in determining how commitment is formed. Contrary to the assumption that individual resources such as social capital are universally beneficial to cooperative cohesion (Awoke, 2021), their impact depends on whether the organizational structures can productively channel them. When alignment is achieved, these resources become embedded within organizational structures, raising exit costs and reinforcing members’ commitment. In contrast, when misalignment occurs, the same resources may instead encourage members to redirect their capabilities or resources toward external opportunities. This finding suggests that sustaining core member commitment depends not only on the presence of individual resources, but on the organization’s capacity to channel them productively.

4.  Conclusion

This study employed fsQCA to investigate how organizational and individual conditions jointly shape the commitment of core members in Chinese specialized farmers’ cooperatives. The findings point to a two-level logic underlying member commitment in these cooperatives. The first level concerns eligibility, where human capital functions as a necessary threshold that must be in place before organizational conditions can take effect. The second level concerns fit, as whether individual resources reinforce or weaken commitment depends on their alignment with organizational structural capacity. This perspective moves beyond variable-centered explanations and provides a configurational account that better captures the complexity of member behavior in smallholder-based cooperative systems.

These findings also carry important implications for agricultural organizational management. They highlight the importance of human capital as a foundational condition, suggesting that member selection and capability development are critical for sustaining commitment. At the same time, they underscore the need to calibrate decisions on operational scale and vertical integration to the existing human and social capital base of core members, so that structural expansion enhances rather than undermines the organization’s capacity to channel core members’ resources toward collective goals. Although grounded in shiitake cooperatives in rural China, the mechanisms identified in this study are likely to be relevant in other collective agricultural organizations facing similar structural constraints, particularly in contexts where declining agricultural populations and organizational contraction make the cultivation and retention of core members an increasingly urgent concern.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP24K09103.

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