The management of centralized cooperative enterprises in the agricultural sector has been marked by great complexity. This theoretical study aimed to discuss, in the light of the three epistemological currents of the Economic Sociology - Networks, Institutionalism in its economic aspect and Field Theory - the way to understand the search for competitiveness in agricultural centralized cooperatives. The analysis remained in the extrapolation of each one of the constituents of the epistemological foundations of Economic Sociology. While the Networks perspective ensure business economic viability by consolidation of the social capital, the Institutionalism focuses in contractual formalization to reduce transactional costs, and the Fields perspective look in the symbolic power, reached an maintained by the strategic skill of the agent on the structure. We conclude that the perspective by which economic results will be obtained as a result of social actions in centralized agricultural cooperatives context is likely to be analyzed under three theoretical approaches, in which each will have different factors involved, in relation to the understanding of the results.