Identifying the Most Appropriate Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Strategy for Collaboration of Agricultural Cooperatives

Nowadays, one of the solutions for companies to achieve collaboration functions, such as knowledge exchange and information sharing, is to take advantage of Mergers and Acquisitions (M & A) strategies.  Agricultural Cooperatives are no exception to this, and in order to achieve such functions, they should use M & A strategies. In this regard, the current study aimed to identify the most appropriate Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) strategy for collaboration of Agricultural Cooperatives from the viewpoint of experts. A multi-criteria decision-making approach based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to prioritize M & A strategies. 16 executive and collegiate experts in the field of cooperation were purposefully selected and their opinions were gathered through questionnaire. The results revealed that among the six considered criteria for the selection of M & A strategies, the criterion of "identifying market needs" was the first priority. Also, the horizontal and conglomerate M & A strategies were in the first and last priority, respectively, based on the overall criterion.