Directors’ Gender Role Identity and Performance : Gender and governance of a Korean consumer co-0perative, iCOOP

Ah- young Kim

Woosuk Choi

Seungkwon Jang

(Sungkonghoe University, Korea)

7th ICA ASIA-PACIFIC CO-OPERATIVE RESEARCH CONFERENCEKobe, Japan

26th November 2012

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical Background

3. Method

4. Result

5. Discussion

Contents

Introduction

Growth Rate of Co-operatives in Korea

3 / 14

•NACF : National Agricultural Cooperative Federation•NFFC : National Federation of Fisheries Co-operatives

2006 2007 2008 2009

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50 NACF NFFC Consumer Co-op

(year)

(%)

Introduction

Major Challenges

4 / 14

• How can the co-operative enterprises be kept sustainable?• How can board members be motivated to take part actively in governance processes of co-operative?

Introduction

Female-dominated Boards of Consumer Co-operatives in Korea

5 / 14

Source : The Journal of the iCOOP Korea Cooperative Institute vol.8 (2012)

98.5%

1.5%

Chairperson

FemaleMale

99%

1%

Director

Introduction

Korean women’s participation in economical activities

6 / 14

25-29 30-34 35-39 40-440

1020304050607080

05

27

46

69.8

54.6 55.965.9

iCOOP Directors Korea Women(%)

(age)

Source : Economically Active Population Survey(2011), Statistics Korea(http://kostat.go.kr)

Introduction

Research Question

7 / 14

• Does female dominance of the boards have

characteristics of femininity?

☞ Do only women have characteristics of femininity?

☞ Do only men have characteristics of masculinity?

Introduction

Research Purposes

8 / 14

1) To identify the structural relationship of gender role

identity, their own governance and financial perfor-

mance among the primary co-operatives’ boards

2) To identify the structural relationship of gender role

identity, their own governance and value centered per-

formance among the primary co-operatives’ boards

Theoretical Background

Gender role identity

9 / 14

•Gender role identity (Weiten, 1997):

expectations about what is appropriate behavior for

each sex

-Masculinity : characteristics considered appropriate

to a man

-Femininity : characteristics considered appropriate

to a woman

- Androgyny : high levels of both masculinity and

femininity

Theoretical Background

Gender role identity

10 / 14

• BSRI (Bem Sex-Role Inventory ): measurement tool de-

veloped

by Bem (1974) to measure gender role identity

( masculine / feminine / androgynous /undifferenti-

ated)

→ KSRI (Korean Sex-role Inventory): by Chung

(1990)

•Androgyny : Individuals increase flexibility and

adaptability

(Bem, 1974; Chung, 1990)

Theoretical Background

Co-operative Governance

11 / 14

•Co-operative Governance : the rules, the tools

and the concrete procedures through which co-operative

societies are managed (Shaw, 2006)

Values

MissionPrinci-ples

Co-operative Governance

Theoretical Background

Co-operative Governance

12 / 14

• The fundamental principles of governance:

democracy, representation, transparency

•Spear, Cornforth and Aiken (2009): “Co-operatives often find it difficult to maintain membership

involvement and commitment, particularly as organizations grow

and become more professionally led. As a result, there is a dan-ger

that organizations can become dominated by their professional

staffs and lose their members.”

Theoretical Background

Co-operatives’ Performance

13 / 14

•Co-operative Performance (Davis, 2012)

Business Per-formance

Value/Princi-ple

Performance

Research Model

14 / 14

Theoretical Background

Hypotheses

15 / 14

Gender Role Iden-

tity

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Financial Per-formance

•Hypothesis 1

•Hypothesis 2

Gender Role Iden-

tity

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Value cen-tered

Performance

Theoretical Background

Hypothesis 1

16 / 14

Gender Role Identity Of Board

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Financial Performance

Theoretical Background

Hypothesis 2

17 / 14

Gender Role IdentityOf Board

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Value cen-tered

Performance

Theoretical Background

Method

Samples

18 / 14

• 44 primary co-operatives in iCOOP• 328 directors (323 women and 5 men) • Survey questionnaire • Analysis: using SPSS 12.0 & Smart PLS 2.0.

Method

Variables

19 / 14

•Feminin-ity (friendly, af-fec-tionate, tender)

•Masculinity (confi-dent, power-ful, forceful)

Gender Role Iden-tity

•Demo-cratic De-ci-sion Making

•Disclo-sure of In-forma-tion

•Di-rec-tor’s Re-sponsi-bil-ity

Implicit Gover-nance

•Board Size/ meetings

•At-tendance

•Pro-fes-sional-ism

Explicit Governance

Method

Variables

20 / 14

•ROA(Return On Assets)

Financial Performance

•Gen-eral Meet-ing At-ten-dance

•House Meet-ing At-ten-dance

•Commit-tees At-ten-dance

•Train-ing & De-vel-op-ment pro-gram At-ten-dance

Value centered Performance

----------------------* The House Meeting is grassroots units for member participation in new iCOOP product

development, food safety tests and campaigns.

Result

Result of Hypothesis 1

21 / 14

Hypotheses Verification

H1-1 The gender role identity of boards can influence Financial performance

Accept

H1-2 The gender role identity of boards can influence explicit governance

Reject

H1-3 The gender role identity of boards can influence implicit governance

Accept

H1-4 The explicit governance can influence financial performance.

Reject

H1-5 The implicit governance can influence financial performance.

Accept

The structural relationship among gender role identity of boards, co-operative governance and financial performance

Hypothesis 1.

22 / 14

Gender Role Identity of

boards

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Financial Per-formance

Theoretical Background

H1-1 (-)

H1-3 (+) H1-5 (-)

Result

Result of Hypothesis 223 / 14

Hypotheses Verification

H2-1 The gender role identity of boards can influence value centered performance.

Reject

H2-2 The gender role identity of boards can influence explicit governance

Reject

H2-3 The gender role identity of boards can influence implicit governance.

Accept

H2-4 The explicit governance can influence value centered performance

Reject

H2-5 The implicit governance can influence value centered performance

Accept

The structural relationship among gender role identity of boards, co-op-erative governance and value centered performance

Hypothesis 2

24 / 14

Gender Role Identity of

Boards

Explicit Governance

Implicit Governance

Value cen-tered

Performance

Theoretical Background

H2-3 (+) H2-5 (+)

Conclusion25 / 14

1) The gender role identity of boards affected

their governance and performance significantly.

☞ Androgyny made their activities energetically and

increased member’s participation.

2) The growth of female-dominated consumer co-operative

can promote the woman’s participation in economic and

social activities.

3) The research can promote further studies of co-operatives

because the present research might be the first empirical

research to analyze gender-conscious boards .

Thank you