Estrutura de governança, conduta e desempenho das cooperativas agropecuárias

Abstract

The overall objective was to analyze the relationship between governance structures, conduct and socioeconomic performance of agricultural cooperatives in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná. For this, the following theoretical bases were used: Transaction Cost Economy (ECT); Industrial Organization (IO); R-A Theory and concepts about cooperative and corporate conduct. This is a quantitative survey applied to 40 agricultural cooperatives (20 in RS and 20 in PR), carried out through the application of a questionnaire. As for the methodological categorization, variables related to incentives, administrative control and the type of contract were analyzed to identify the form of governance structure used by each cooperative. In addition, the level of opportunism, bounded rationality and transaction attributes (frequency, uncertainty and asset specificity) in transactions with cooperative members was analyzed. From this perspective, the predominance of hybrid governance structures with traces of hierarchy and hybrids with traces of the market was identified for cooperatives in RS. For PR cooperatives, the predominance was due to hybrid and hybrid governance structures with traces of hierarchy. In a second moment, the relationship between the governance structures (market, hybrid and hierarchical) and the forms of conduct (cooperative and corporate) were verified. Data treatment was carried out through bivariate correlation (Spearman (ρ) and Kendall (τ) and qualitative analysis. As for the results, there was a strong positive correlation, for cooperatives in RS, between hybrid governance structure and forms of cooperative conduct. As for PR cooperatives, all hypotheses were refuted. The next step was to identify the factors that influence the economic performance of cooperatives. For data processing, the canonical correlation was used, in which a positive association with economic performance was found of cooperatives in RS with the following variables: internal factors (governance structure adopted by cooperatives); external factors (technological factors); competitive forces (bargaining power of rural producer suppliers) and; social performance (income/earnings generation). For cooperatives in PR, the positive association with economic performance occurred with external factors (technological factors; customer characteristics and characteristics of the region). Finally, a governance structure and conduct framework was proposed and implemented that could contribute to the socioeconomic performance of cooperatives. Data treatment consisted of the Qualitative Comparative method (QCA). The results pointed out that the governance structures that are most associated with superior economic performance are the less hierarchical structures, combined with a more cooperative conduct. As for social performance, it was not possible to identify which governance structures and forms of conduct are producing better performances, in which it was possible to perceive an alignment of the predominance of more cooperative conduct in superior economic performance and superior social performance, in terms of participation of cooperatives in social actions, with regard to cooperatives in PR.