The Underdevelopment of Cooperative: Background, Processes and Consequences

Cooperative is presented as one of the three main economic an according to the general policies of Article 44 of the constitution, Contribution of the cooperative sector in the national economy should reach 25% by the end of the Fifth Development Plan, While it is 7 percent now. In this paper, we have tried to understand more about the causes and context of the underdevelopment of cooperatives in the country, as well as the consequences of under development. Therefore, at first step the documents in the Ministry of Cooperatives were analyzed using purposive sampling. Also, using the in-depth and free interview techniques, interviews with administrators as well as researchers, data were collected and set up. The findings show, the challenges and public problems of the country, poor cultural infrastructure, state cooperative challenges as "contextual conditions", Intersectorial cooperative problems, lack of clear planning in the cooperative and weaknesses of human capital in cooperatives as "causal conditions", Authorities’ weakness of cooperatives in the country, cooperative challenges on the international stage and legal challenges of cooperatives as "mediator conditions", short-term view to cooperatives, abnormal interactions and damage to the structure of cooperation as "processes", Failure of cooperatives and mistrust due to the failure of cooperatives as "consequences" are considered as the cooperatives’ underdevelopment. Finally, the concept of "socio-structural obstacles" was selected as "core category".