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AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE MANAGERS' CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ASSESSMENT

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2009, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Agricultural, Environmental Development Economics.
Identifying the educational needs of cooperative’s directors and managers will benefit the cooperatives and the cooperative way of doing business. This activity will also help educational institutions, such as Land-Grant universities, State Cooperative Councils, other support organizations and USDA to provide updated and meaningful education efforts that cooperatives need to handle the challenges under current economic climate.In the mid-1990’s a survey was done among agricultural, utility, and credit cooperatives in Ohio that had the purpose of better understanding the most vexing problems that managers of these cooperatives were facing. However, conditions have changed substantially since that time and there is need for understanding the challenges that senior managers and boards face given the current economic climate. In this study, a online survey has been carefully designed to elicit responses from senior managers (including managers with the responsibilities of the General Managers, Executive Director or Chief Executive Officer; the Chief Operation Officer; Chief Financial Officer, and Human Resource Officer) and Key members of the cooperatives’ Board of Directors (e.g. Chair). This survey is targeted only to agricultural cooperatives (marketing, supply, and mixed, not credit or utility cooperatives) operating in the Eastern Corn Belt states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio), which coincides with geographic service territory of the Mid America Cooperative Council (MACC). After analyzing the data collected from the survey by various statistical means, I found that, facing external challenges under current economic climate, participating managers expressed their strong concerns about effects of the commodity price fluctuation, soaring energy price and pressures from investor-owned firms, on their business success. To achieve the sustainability of their cooperatives, managers recognized both growth in sales and members as the very important long-term objectives, but at slightly different levels. Furthermore, MACC’s training and development service was viewed as important activity, which should aim to directors and specialized management staff (such as Chief Financial Officers) the most. All the services for cooperative’s directors provided by MACC were viewed as being important, but not very important, with the training on Board of Directors' responsibilities compared to those of managers as the most important one among them. Managers possessed similar views towards the services for managers provided by MACC, with training on effective leadership as the most important one among them. Managers generally hold positive views on issues about MACC, with the strongest agreement on encouraging their cooperatives to cooperate with other members within MACC, moderate agreement on their cooperatives’ benefiting from activities of MACC, and disagreement on MACC’s role in helping to form strategies to recruit new members. And they agreed on roles of Land-Grant universities more in supporting agricultural cooperatives than supporting MACC. As leaders of agricultural cooperatives, they recognized the gravity of creating member’s loyalty as well.
Thomas Sporleder, PhD (Advisor)
David Hahn, PhD (Committee Member)
263 p.

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Citations

  • Sun, X. E. (2009). AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE MANAGERS' CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ASSESSMENT [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259719057

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sun, Xi E. AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE MANAGERS' CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ASSESSMENT. 2009. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259719057.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sun, Xi E. "AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE MANAGERS' CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ASSESSMENT." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259719057

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)