Board Structure Variety in Cooperatives

Abstract

This paper investigates why agricultural cooperatives exhibit different principles for the allocation of decision rights between the Board of Directors and the Management. A mass-action interpretation of the Nash equilibrium in an investment proposal game shows that, on the one hand, board structure variety is an equilibrium outcome while, on the other, the Traditional model (the board has full control) and the Management model (the professional management makes up the Board of the cooperative society) perform better than the Corporation model (the Management is in full control of the cooperative firm).