COOPERATION OF AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES OF UKRAINE AND THE USA IN THE CONTEXT OF PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The national agricultural potential is driven by its current state and agricultural structure development. To date, Ukraine is a leader among the major suppliers of agri-food products to the European Union. However, domestic agriculture sector is still facing a critical need for effective reforms, including its organizational structure, where the key element is the creation of transparent procurement and distribution infrastructure through implementation of the cooperatives paradigm and their further integration with trade as well as processing and food industry enterprises. So far globally, the idea of cooperation has long been translated in a clear economic and legal framework which effectively operates as association of small and medium-sized producers through the creation of individual affluent agricultural business entities – the cooperatives. The United States of America demonstrates best practices in their successful creation and functioning. Given the particularly strong large scale international partnership relations between Ukraine and the US in a number of  economic and social areas, including assistance in boosting cooperative movement, an emphasis is put towards the need to provide insights and suggest a rationale for further development of cooperatives in Ukraine along with enhancing the process management effectiveness based on successful good practice and advancements in the US agribusiness that underpinned the research agenda of this article.  The research findings have revealed that the cooperation of the Ukrainian agriculture enterprises leaves much room for improvement. The number of newly created cooperatives demonstrates slow dynamics; the legislative framework lacks consistency and is inadequate to address the burning issues. The study has identified the key barriers that hamper further development of domestic agricultural cooperation along with discussing the benefits, best practices of implementation, types and specific features of the cooperative form of doing business in the USA. Major challenges in the domestic agricultural cooperation development at macro- and microlevels have been observed and evaluated together with suggesting actions to tackle them. In particular, pathways to enhance the performance of agricultural cooperatives through the transition to more effective process management are proposed.