Abstract:

Corruption is a problem that affects many industries and causes unfair competition and distorts markets. The cooperative sector, although guided by principles of solidarity, democratic control, member economic participation, mutualism and transparency, may not be free from corruption. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the perception of corrupt and similar practices in agricultural cooperatives in Northern Portugal by its members, their perception of corruption in the agricultural sector, and if this perception is different according to their socio-demographic profile, business characteristics and relationships with the cooperative. Additionally, it is intended to group cooperators according to their level of perceived corruption and investigate the characteristics of these clusters. Through the results of a survey, descriptive and inferential statistical analyses followed by a cluster analysis were performed. The results suggest that cooperators have dissatisfaction with the quality of management and alerts for the existence of corruption. Differences in the level of perceived corruption may be more due to differences in the dimension of their farms, family involvement, the dependency of the cooperative and seniority as a member than to their socio-demographic characteristics. It was possible to find three significant distinct clusters of members according to their opinion about corruption. Although the importance of agricultural cooperatives and the nobility of the principles of the cooperative movement, this article warns of ethical failures that can have the consequent reputational loss.