Despite the crucial role of agricultural cooperatives in improving food security, reducing poverty, and generating employment opportunities, these cooperatives have not successfully played a role in agricultural and rural development. The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance of agricultural cooperatives and the determinants of farmer's collective action in Mehriz county, Yazd province, through Ostrom's social-ecological system framework and crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Approach (QCA). Data collection was via direct observation, desk-based analysis of related law and regulation, and secondary literature and interview. The selected cases are three formal agricultural and rural cooperatives and one informal community-based water management association. The crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis implies that a condition for collective action can be considered sufficient if, whenever it is present across cases, the outcome is also present in these cases. Also, the specific condition is necessary if, whenever the outcome like proper collective action is present, the condition is also present. This method seeks to explain a multiple-causation pattern by the theoretical and empirical understanding of which factors are essential for producing a successful formal or informal collective action as an outcome. The results showed that the proper leadership, predictability of system dynamics, the productivity of the system, and the importance of the resource to users can explain the performance of collective action in the cooperatives. Lack of value creation and no difference between the expected benefit of membership and non-membership in cooperatives has led to inefficient formation and deployment of collective action in cooperatives. Besides, the cooperatives would be more self-organized with a better performance which is formed on the members' needs and wills and the livelihood dependence of members on the cooperative's activities by aligning individual and collective interests. Organizational leadership can also help cooperatives' collective action by motivating members, creating new relationships and ideas, making new opportunities in different situations, risk management, and setting strategic goals. In Mehriz county, these variables, including diverse value creation, the significant benefits resulting from cooperative membership, the livelihood dependence of members to cooperatives along with proper leadership, have formed collective actions and have led to positive economic, social, and environmental impacts. Whereas, members' autonomy at the collective-choice level to craft and enforce some of their own rules and use of the different kinds of knowledge is necessary and not sufficient for successful collective action. Therefore, we recommend the formation of new cooperatives need to be on a business model with a focus on members segmentation and the values and benefits attributed to cooperative membership. It facilitates members' motivation and their efforts to organize, deploy, and improve cooperatives' capability. Keywords: Collective action, Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis, Self-organization, Leadership, Predictability of system dynamics, Productivity of system, Performance.