Governance Structure Of Farmer Specialized Cooperatives:Theoretic And Empirical Study

This is a competition-oriented era, but also an era increasing emphasis on the cooperation. Certainly, competition and cooperation are the two most basic human social interactions. However, cooperation is the norm, cooperation available at anytime and from anywhere. Agricultural cooperatives-as the oldest and currently most common forms of cooperation-in all societies play an extremely important economic and social role in both developed and developing countries. As the most populous country in the world, especially has the largest agricultural population, China naturally no exception. Approximately corresponds to the concept of "agricultural cooperatives" which accepted by international cooperation economy circles,"Farmer Specialized Cooperatives (FSC)" is a unique concept in China. Since the rise in the late1990s, especially since2007when the "Law of Farmer Specialized Cooperatives" was promulgated, FSC has entered a new stage of rapid development.However, on the whole, the level of development of the FSC is still low. We currently are in a critical period of the construction and development. There are still a lot of common problems, such as small-scale, generally loose structure, governance is not standardized, and competition is weak, driving force not strong, etc.. Without a doubt, there are many causes of these problems, but the deeper reason is that:we have not yet found a FSC development pattern not only comply with internationally recognized basic principles of cooperatives, but also comform to a great difference in our social and cultural conditions of the rural economy. The core of FSC Development (pattern) is its governance structure. However, in China, the rural economic and social and cultural conditions vary widely. So, in the reality environment with significantly differentiated development level of economic and social environment, on the reasonable choice of cooperatives’governance structure has become a very difficult thing.In view of this, based on the backtracking for the history of cooperative thinking and the observation of the historical evolution of international cooperative principles, this dissertation trying to reconstruct the "ideal type" of cooperatives and build a new analytical framework of cooperative governance structure. Meantime, the research trying to ascertain the real situation and innovation of FSC governance structure based on the reality of the development of FSC and the selected provinces typical survey data. By applying a workable FSC performance evaluation system, the research attempt to reveal the impact and action mode of FSC governance structure on performance. The ultimate aim of this study is to contribute to a comprehensive theory of the FSC to deepen understanding and proper guidance and help to effectively promote the healthy development of the FSC in practice.The specific content of the study is broadly divided into four parts as follows:The first part of the study may be referred to as pre-start or pre-understanding, namely the content of Chapter1.Chapter1is "Introduction". Mainly on the research background, purpose and significance of the topic, defines key concepts and study affirms the research ideas and gives a choice of research methods, finally gives a detailed structural arrangements, and possible innovations and shortcomings.The second part is the theoretical study which focuses on the qualitative requirements of cooperatives and their theoretical spectrum, including the Chapter2, Chapter3and Chapter4.Chapter2is "The Research Situation and Commentary". A brief review of the relevant basic theories of corporation governance which including Transaction Cost Theory, Principal-Agent Theory, and Stakeholder Theory. On this basis, the chapter clarified the cooperative governance issues relating of domestic and international the literature, and finally concluding comments to clarify the Western study of cooperative governance issues and differences of the key points raised cooperative research governance issues.Chapter3is "The Evolution of Cooperatives Principles and Cooperatives’’Ideal Type’". Based on the backtracking of ideological origins of cooperatives in the history and detailed comparison of the evolution of basic cooperatives principles, this chapter presents the symmetric "Trinity ideal type" of cooperatives which reflected in the homogeneity of membership, the identity of roles, and the symmetry of governance structure.All the social sciences the first are as typology, therefore, based on the analysis on cooperatives’qualitative requirements, Chapter4attempts to analyze the "Cooperatives’mainstream types and the Evolution of Cooperatives Type". Taking into account the domestic and foreign research which is mostly focuses on the internal governance structure of cooperatives, or takes the governance structure of cooperatives regarded as a generalized property rights, lack the analytical framework of considered cooperatives as a special integrated governance structure. Therefore, based on the perspective of control rights, this chapter builds a new analytical framework of governance structure which focuses on the matching degree of membership from investor role, controller role, and patron role.The main purpose of this part is space clearance, as before the building construction the site needs to be cleared. Some scholars have contributed over a solid "ground", so, this second part will attempt to reconstruct the awareness of cooperatives.The third part is the empirical research which focuses on the practical logic and reality contemplation of cooperatives governance structure, is mainly the empirical analysis of the main part, including Chapters5, Chapters6and Chapters7.Chapter5is "Investigation Implement and Sample Situation of Cooperatives". Mainly described the field research design of this study, and introduced three sample provinces-the status quo is Zhejiang, Sichuan and Heilongjiang provinces and the FSC sample basic statistical analysis. The first three chapters of this part laid the foundation and provided the source materials to the subsequent chapters of theoretical analysis and econometric analysis.Chapter6is "The Reality and Rational Choice of Cooperatives Governance Structure". First, based on specific practice in our country, and by application of the new analytical framework proposed in Chapter4, the chapter discusses the formation reasons of differentiated cooperatives governance structure and the evolutionary path of existing cooperatives governance structure in depth. Secondly, based on survey data of sample area, the chapter conducted a descriptive statistical analysis on the relevant status quo of FSC governance issue. Finally, from the "satuation-structure" perspective of institutional transition and organizational operation mechanism, the chapter through the construction and application of multi-classification logit probability model to analyze the impact of situation features on FSC governance structure types.Chapter7is "The Operational Performance and Governance Effects of Cooperatives". Firstly, based on survey data of sample area, the chapter conducted a descriptive statistical analysis on status of FSC operational performance. Secondly, applied an optimized FSC operational performance evaluation system and then through the application of factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM), this chapter discusses the specific path and relationship of FSC governance structure impact on its operational performance.The fourth part is the research summary and implications, namely the content of Chapter8. This chapter summarizes the main conclusions of this study, thereby presents the main policy implications designed to promote the standard, healthful and sustainable development of FSC.Overall, a basic proposition throughout this dissertation follows:"cooperative governance structure" actually has two meanings, the first refers to "cooperatives as a governance structure", and the second is "governance structure of cooperatives"(it can be subdivided into internal governance structure and internal governance mechanisms). In other words, it may be referred to as the "big governance structure" and the "small governance structure".Therefore, the "basic idea of this study is as follows:(1) Firstly, the property rights theory, transaction cost theory, Principal-Agent theory and stakeholder theory about the general theory of governance structure were reviewed, and domestic and international cooperative research literature on governance issues were commented; (2) Secondly, based on the existing studies, the study attempts to return to the historical origin of the cooperative, and through re-sort the evolution of cooperatives principles, and reflection of cooperatives’qualitative provisions, then trying to re-build the cooperatives "ideal types";(3) Based on the aforementioned studies, this dissertation focuses the match degree of member roles and builds a new theoretical framework for cooperative governance structure;(4) Then, using the new theoretical framework, and follow the logical order of "Situation-Structure-Performance"(SSP) analysis paradigm, based on the governance status quo of farmer cooperatives in China, followed by analysis of the impacts of initial situation features on the selection of cooperatives’governance structure types (S-S), and the impact of governance structure and mechanism of the cooperative on cooperatives’operational performance.(5) Finally, on the basis of the foregoing theoretical and empirical research, the study draw final conclusions and policy recommendations related to the responded occasion.Accordingly, the possible innovations in this dissertation as follows:(1) About the research content, on the one hand, given the lack of the existing research considered the status of cooperative research and analysis framework to integrate a special governance structure, the study start from the control rights and construct a new analytical framework for cooperative governance structure which focus on the matching degree of the patron role, the investor role, and controller role three basic membership roles; on the other hand, given the academic requirements for cooperatives qualitative issues scanty, but the status quo of lack of deeper level of inquiry, the study proposed a new cooperatives "trinity ideal type" which based on the historicalrreview of cooperatives and the ideological origins of the fundamental principles.(2) About the research perspective and the expressions of logical choice, the study draw the SSP paradigm which commonly used in industry economics, in order to analyze the logic of possible cooperative governance structure, and it is really provided a good research perspective;(3) About the research methods, on the one hand, this study used questionnaires to collect first-hand data of basic aspects of efforts to ensure the representativeness of the sample and the sample of scientific and strongly expand the sample size, in order to lay a solid foundation for further empirical research data; on the other hand, in the specific econometric model selection, firstly, in the analysis of the factors affecting choice of cooperative governance structure, this study applies the most reasonable choice of a specific model based on the modeling process has been improved to select multiple disorderly Logit probability model classification, but also increased the marginal effect is calculated for each significant independent variable in order to further understand the significant impact of the extent and impact of specific variables on the dependent variable direction; secondly, given the existing direct or indirect effect on the performance of empirical research cooperatives mostly limited to analysis of variance and regression analysis, is difficult to distinguish the impact of factors, accordingly, the study choose the structural equation model (SEM) to investigate how the internal governance structure of cooperatives and their mechanisms affecting its operational performance.