Corporate Governance and Cooperative Societies: A Survey of Tertiary Institutions in Oyo, Nigeria

Abstract

The cooperative movement,  in recent times, appear to have started addressing the issue of corporate governance. Sequel to this development, some resources to promote good governance can reasonably be expected within the movement itself.  This paper therefore was set out to examine whether lack of transparency is a feature of most cooperative societies, to ascertain whether the executives of cooperative societies show good commitment towards accountability and to assess the significance of members’ participation in the democratic process giving room for the emergence of incompetent individuals on the executive and board of cooperatives in Nigeria. It was also meant to evaluate the need for cooperative societies to engage in sound internal control and risk management and to investigate whether weak corporate governance is solely responsible for the maladministration of cooperative societies in Nigeria. The source of data was primary and the five hypotheses formulated were tested using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance. Essentially, the study found that the executives of cooperative societies are not committed to transparency and accountability. The principal recommendations of the study are that the executives should demonstrate high level commitment towards the sustainability of cooperative societies and that these societies should embrace the principles of good corporate governance that is capable of fostering total accountability, adequate transparency, sound internal control and full disclosure of their activities.

Keywords: Cooperative Societies, Corporate Governance, Accountability, Sustainability, Internal Control, Transparency and Disclosure