Internationalization and Firm Performance in Agribusiness: Empirical Evidence from European Cooperatives

Abstract

The ongoing internationalization of markets has become a major issue also for companies of the agribusiness. Nevertheless, neither the degree of internationalization of agribusiness firms nor the internationalization-performance relationship in the agribusiness sector have been analyzed thoroughly so far. To help fill this void, we use panel data compiled from annual reports and balance sheets to investigate the internationalization as well as the internationalization-performance relationship of 21 leading European cooperatives in the dairy and meat sectors. Our results indicate that internationalization has a significant positive impact on firm performance.