Abstract:

In a cooperative, the directors act as the agent of its members.  A cooperative is controlled by the members of the cooperatives. The directors are to serve the interests of these members.. Agency theory argues that in order to protect the shareholders’ interests, the board of directors plays a vital role.  The success of a cooperative depends on the degree of participation of its members.  The objective of this paper is to examine the association between cooperative governance in terms of members’ participation and gender (male composition of the board),  and performance.  This study examined the annual reprots from 2008 to 2012 of 34 cooperatives in Malaysia.  It was found that male directors dominate the board of cooperatives in Malaysia.  Insignificant relationship was found between the male composition in the board with performance.  The  mean of members’ participation (attendance of directors at board meetings) was found to be high but it did have any significant association with cooperative performance.  This results contradicted with those of past studies.  The limitation of the data set available has restricted the scope of analysis.  Further research on the influence of governance on cooperative performance can be explored in the future by looking at other governance characteristics via interviews or/and questionnaire survey.