Social capital, structural capital, human capital, spiritual capital, and cooperative performance: A path model

Cooperatives were created to foster productivity, food security, and safety. However, the literature revealed a significant number of non-operating cooperatives. It can also be noted that cooperatives have weaknesses in terms of sustainability and are unable to account for the role of intangible resources in the organization. Thus, this study investigated the effect of social capital, human capital, structural capital, and spiritual capital on cooperative performance as the basis for the strategic priorities of the cooperatives. Survey questionnaires were distributed among 201 randomly selected officers and members of six farmers’ and producers’ cooperatives in District I, Davao Oriental. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to determine the most influencing factors that affect performance, while path analysis was employed to generate the best fit model. Based on the findings, this study proposed a best fit model for cooperative performance which is based on intangible assets. In the best fit model, structural capital (0.37), social capital (0.29), and spiritual capital (0.11) showed a direct effect on cooperative performance. The model also showed that structural capital and social capital have an indirect effect on cooperative performance through spiritual capital. The findings of this paper would guide the cooperative sector to improve its performance by taking into account the role of intangible assets like structural capital, social capital, human capital, and spiritual capital, which are found to have direct and indirect effects in improving cooperative performance, thus helping the government in realizing its national economic goals.