Farmers’ cooperatives play an important role in enabling small farmers to integrate into modern agriculture. Based on the survey data of 7200 farmers in four provinces of China, this paper uses the multi-dimensional poverty measurement method and the instrumental variable method to reveal the transmission mechanism and multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect of farmers’ cooperatives in deep poverty-stricken areas in China to realize joint agricultural empowerment through the supply chain. The results show that farmers’ cooperatives play an important role in enhancing small farmers’ financing, technology application, market sales, and rights decision-making. Every increase in the degree of interest connection between the two will help farmers reduce the multi-dimensional poverty level by 12.3%, and the mitigation effects on material poverty, ability poverty, and rights poverty are between 10% and 13%. Compared with agricultural cooperatives with weak organizational service capacity, cooperatives with high organizational service capacity have a more significant multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect on farmers, which leads to farmers obtaining financing and improving their ability and income. In addition, the difference in benefit coupling between agricultural cooperatives and farmers of different leading bodies also results in the heterogeneity of multi-dimensional poverty alleviation effects of farmers. To a certain extent, the supply chain is affected by the risk endowment of members, the supply chain’s poverty alleviation performance is affected by members’ supply chain’s poverty alleviation performance, and there is a certain risk transfer and “distribution failure”. Therefore, optimizing the benefit coupling structure and risk sharing mechanism between farmers’ cooperatives and farmers has become an important way to break the pattern of “the strong are always strong” and “distribution failure” for supply chain members and farmers.

The linkage between land tenure security and land quality improvement investment is crucial given that the land tenure security system is a widely applied policy tool for the protection of cultivation land in developing countries. Drawing on the triple land tenure security framework, this paper examines the impact of the de jure and the de facto land tenure security on farming households’ decisions about using organic fertilizer on their plots in China, based on a national survey dataset covering 2308 plots matched with 962 farming households across 8 provinces in China (Shangdong, Shangxi, Jilin, Zhejiang, Henan, Gansu, Hunan, and Sichuan) from January to July 2013. The empirical results show that the de facto land tenure security affected the use of organic fertilizer by the farming households positively. In comparison, the impact of the de jure land tenure security on the use of organic fertilizer by farming households was modest. It is suggested that the government should implement the policies effectively to promote de jure land tenure security and encourage farming households to make sustainable land investment.

This study provides new insights into the role of subsidiary managers in the practice of global business models of multinational enterprises in transforming economies. Drawing on the global business model literature and through semi-structured interviews with a leading Norwegian maritime multinational enterprise in China, we have developed and critically explored a theoretical framework for uncovering how subsidiary managers understand and manage the tensions between the headquarters based in a western country and the subsidiaries based in a transforming economy. More specifically, when implementing the global business model in the transforming economy, subsidiary managers need to undertake effective management of structural, behavioural, and cultural tensions along with the global integration-local responsiveness dilemma. Subsidiary managers can contribute to solving structural tensions between the headquarters and subsidiary by undertaking effective market sensing and knowledge transfer activities to integrate the transforming economies into the MNE's global production networks. Meanwhile, they need to make effective relationship management to solve behavioural and cultural tensions.