Study On Governance Of Chinese Fisheries Specialized Cooperatives From The Perspective Of Membership Heterogeneities

Under the traditional cooperative framework, cooperative is a union of those whohave the same or similar features, in which all commune members participate aspatrons and owners. The governance structure and mechanism is relative simple dueto its relative homogeneity and the same identity of owners and patrons,which offersconditions for profit distributed among patrons principle and democratic managementof traditional cooperative and guarantees the consistency between principals andagents’ benefits from the perspective of the objective agency relationship.However, member heterogeneity has become normal from the perspective ofcurrent development practice of fisheries specialized cooperative in China. Except forits own significant differences in age, education, production scale, production cost,technical level, income, social relationship and so on, the members’ heterogeneity offisheries specialized cooperative also featured in its factor contribution, motives,purpose as well as role of participation, in which the heterogenization of factorendowments and factor contribution are the essential manifestation. Memberheterogeneity have made a profound impact on the property arrangements of Chinesefisheries specialized cooperative, which contributes to the diversification ofjointly-owned property right system on the forms of realization.As for the specificproperty right arrangement, member heterogeneity has enriched the content of equalinvestment and democratic control instead of sticking to the principle of eveninvestment and one person one vote, which makes the joint stock cooperative systemthe most general form of property.Property right is the basis of cooperativeadministration, and the transformed property arrangement of the member heterogeneity in cooperative has put forward new requirements for cooperativegovernance.According to the research of sample cooperative and the further analysis onspecific case, members’ stratification has occurred and a remarkable feature ofdifferentiation has presented in the distribution pattern of responsibility, authority andprofit among different factor providers due to the differences of factor endowmentsand factor contribution in the membership heterogeneous fisheries specializedcooperative. Besides, scarce factor owners usually get the actual control overcooperative and the principal-agent relationship of cooperative has been evolved intothe agency relationship among factor providers of different levels. The consistencybetween principals and agents’ benefits is being challenged while the governance ofcooperative has been evolved into “big-household governance”“capital control”and“scarce factor owners’ governance” that focuses on scarce factor owners, whichdeviates from the general requirements of“one person one vote”,“profits distributedamong patrons” and “capital restriction” for cooperative’s democratic management.Inthe author’s opinion, the scientificity of the governance of membership heterogeneouscooperative cannot be judged simply according to the classical cooperative principleor the specific items of cooperative law. Actually, the governance structure towardsscarce factor owners in membership heterogeneous fisheries specialized cooperativeis an efficient system design, which respect the differences of factor endowments andfactor contribution. It not only mobilizes the enthusiasm of scarce factor owners,improves the decision-making efficiency as well as business performance ofcooperative but also meets general fishermen’s requirements for price improvementand technical guidance, which in favor of realizing the Pareto improvement of allmembers. However, once out of certain limits, the policy support will inevitable causethe problems such as “the strong bullying the weak”,“the marginalization of generalmembers”and increase the opportunistic behaviors including moral risk andfree-riding and so on. Therefore, the governance structure and mechanism of fisheries specializedcooperative based on member heterogeneity ought to be a system design that keepsthe general members’ benefits from being expropriated by core members. Meanwhile,the key issues of cooperative governance is not absolutely cutting the rights of thescarce factor owners but relatively restricting the rights of core members byimproving the cooperative involvement and supervision capability of generalmembers. Based on above analysis, the governance of heterogeneous fisheriesspecialized cooperative ought to be guided by the principle of effective motivation,improving efficiency, balancing by division of agency and combining institutionalconstraint with cultural cohesion. Moreover, the author puts forward somesuggestions on realizing the scientization of cooperative governance, including theregulation of the property right foundation, optimization of corporate governancestructure, establishment and improvement of effective decision-making, restrictionand supervision as well as incentive mechanism.