The Effects of Managers’ Characteristics and Perspectives on the Financial Performance of Thai Agricultural Cooperatives

Over the last few decades, cooperatives in Thailand have become larger, more complicated and market oriented. As a result, demand for high-quality managers in cooperatives increases. A manager who understands his or her duties and functions and with good personality, responsibility, relationship with others is a great asset of a cooperative. This paper, empirically tests the hypothesis that the characteristics and perspectives of managers affect the performance of cooperative specifically, the financial performance. Two sets of data are used. The first data set is 2011 annual cooperative financial information from Cooperative Auditing Department. The second data set is from a survey of the managers of agricultural cooperatives using mailed questionnaire. A total of 421 self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the managers of all large agricultural cooperatives in Thailand (those with more than 1,000 members). Of the 421 managers, 258 responded, and 255 were usable. Regression analysis is applied to test the hypothesis. The study results show that overall, the managers’ characteristic and perception variables used in the model have limited explanatory strength on financial performance of the cooperatives, both in terms of return on assets and return on equity. Despite the limitation, the experiences as cooperative managers, his or her participation in financial training program and perception on cooperative principles could positively increase the return on assets of the society although the magnitude is quite small.