Systematic Review of Member's Participation in the Co-operative Governance: What has been Studied

Abstract

Co-operatives are seen as an essential economic platform for supporting development programs, and its viability is depending on members' active participation in co-operative governance. Since member participation in co-operative governance is fundamental to the organization's survival, it is necessary to review and synthesize studies from the last ten years in order to enhance our understanding of the components of member participation in co-operative governance. Following the “PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses)” technique, a comprehensive search of the Scopus and Web of Science databases discovered 13 relevant papers that match to the study objectives. An examination of the articles revealed two major aspects: the "supporter" who attends general meetings and the "believer" who serves on a board or committee, with these two themes forming a total of seven sub-themes. This study contributes significantly by providing an overview of the research trend in terms of member participation in cooperative governance. Second, the elements of member participation that have been studied are highlighted in this systematic review. The findings revealed that the majority of the studies focused mainly on members' participation in annual general meetings ("supporter"), with ten studies indicating that research on the participation of members serving on the board is still inadequate. Some recommendations for future research are provided to examine other elements of member participation, particularly their participation as the board members.

From Theory to Practice: Social Capital in Agricultural Cooperatives in Flanders, Belgium

“…2018; Novkovic, 2008). While the main scholarly focus lies on cooperatives' performance, longevity, and governance (Camargo Benavides & Ehrenhard, 2021), the social logic endorsed by cooperatives is increasingly studied through topics such as member participation (Birchall & Simmons, 2004;Buang, 2021;Morfi et al, 2021), trust (Hatak et al, 2016), networks (Fonte & Cucco, 2017;Morfi et al, 2021), social values of cooperatives (Forney & Häberli, 2017;Nilsson, 1996), or their concern for the community (Ajates Gonzalez, 2017;Girard & Langlois, 2009).…”