In the field survey, it was found that many better developed cooperatives were not active in participating in rural governance. Based on the in-depth interview data of 21 typical cooperatives, this paper systematically reveals the main influencing factors and deep logic that affect cooperatives' participation in rural governance behavior by using grounded theory method. The research finds that the internal factors such as the economic and political motivation, participation ability, and hometown feelings of the cooperative leaders are the pre-factors and important power sources that trigger the cooperative's participation in rural governance; External factors such as government support, township support, villagers support, and governance platform are the catalysts and important external forces for cooperatives to participate in rural governance; External factors affect the conversion process of "internal factors → participation behavior" in multiple dimensions. In order to solve the problem of inactive participation, we need to focus on stimulating the economic and political motivation of cooperatives to participate in rural governance, cultivating the hometown feelings of cooperative leaders, building a scientific evaluation system conducive to cooperatives' participation in rural governance, and promoting the government's responsibility of coordination and supervision.