Studying the performance of co-operative agro-industrial enterprises in a particular region requires an understanding of the socioeconomic environment within which they evolve as well as of their various survival strategies when under adverse conditions. This presentation focuses on the economic analysis of the diverse factors underpinning the role of the above-mentioned enterprises in a regional productive framework and the different processes of technological innovation that ensued during the latest part of the economic and social crisis of historical proportions that unleashed in Argentina in 2001. It also addresses the links with the regional economic development process. From this perspective, the paper dwells on the specificity of innovative activity by co-operative agro-industrial enterprises with a view to show that such activity yields results that transcend those to be expected from isolated enterprises, such as reducing transactions costs and generating externalities largely appropriable within the cooperative network. Finally, regarding such principles of co-operativism as those relating to inter-cooperative cooperation and commitment to the community, it is surmised that the technological benefits stemming from the diffusion of the innovations can be expected to be fairly evenly distributed among the associates, thus empowering their joint contribution to regional economic development. In addressing this issue, the paper attempts to broaden the analysis of the relation between technological innovation and sustainable economic development processes, which is customarily focused on individual enterprises.

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