Co-operative Governance: A Systematic Review of Member Participation

Abstract

Members' participation in co-operative governance is often seen as crucial to the organisation's operation and survival. However, there is still a dearth of a thorough knowledge of member participation and its aspects. Thus, this paper aims to synthesise the available research from the last ten years to enhance our knowledge of the patterns of the involvement of members in the governance of co-operative. Subsequently, the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses" approach was used to perform a systematic review of the Scopus and Web of Science databases. We discovered 12 relevant peer-reviewed publications that match the objectives of this study with four themes of members' participation identified. In general, the findings revealed that the majority of the study has mainly focused on members' participation at annual general meetings, while participation via holding positions as board members remain limited. This paper makes a significant contribution by providing a review of the study on member participation in cooperative governance, as well as the patterns of member participation that have been studied using the systematic review method. Some recommendations for future research are given to explore other elements of member participation in strategic decision-making, particularly as the co-operative board.

Cooperative Governance and Cooperative Performance: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The number of observations in an SLR varies. For instance, Buang and Abu Samah (2021) analyzed 12 papers, Camargo Benavides and Ehrenhard (2021) analyzed 101 papers, Grashuis and Su (2019) evaluated 56 papers, and Luo et al (2020) analyzed 257 papers. Before the full paper analysis in the current review, the abstracts of the selected papers were examined.…”

“…Recently, Camargo Benavides and Ehrenhard (2021) investigated future research avenues that can be derived from current cooperative enterprise research topics in the organizational literature. Buang and Abu Samah (2020) explored the factors that have affected the effectiveness of the cooperative board, while Luo et al (2020) conducted an SLR and bibliometric analysis on agricultural cooperatives in the West. Their findings revealed six major themes of discussion on Western cooperatives, namely, the CG structures, comparisons between cooperatives and investor-owned firms, cooperative social and environmental performance, women's cooperatives, trust and commitment in cooperatives, and cooperative financing problems.…”

“…Due to the lack of existing SLR on the CG–cooperative performance relationship (Buang & Abu Samah, 2020, 2021; Camargo Benavides & Ehrenhard, 2021; Luo et al, 2020; Soeiro & Dias, 2019; Talonen, 2016), the present study is motivated to fill the aforementioned literature gap by providing a comprehensive and systematic review on this issue. The current study advances to the next level by examining the CG themes used and analyzing the relationship between CG and cooperative performance found in the literature.…”

The State of Women's Co-operatives in Malaysia: Challenges and Opportunities

“…• Traditional Gender Roles: Deep-rooted cultural norms and traditional gender roles may restrict women's active participation in economic activities (Buang & Samah, 2021;Dohmwirth, & Hanisch, 2019). Overcoming these societal expectations requires not only policy changes but also a shift in cultural perceptions of women's roles in the workforce (Kiptum, & Ayuo, 2023;Foley, 2013).…”