Methodology
The research employed a qualitative method of research. It made use of document analysis as a technique to give meaning around an assessment topic (Bowen, 2009). Based on Bowen’s procedures in document analysis, the following steps were conducted:
  1. Define the environment: the study requirements, external requirement, the document universe, and the set of document types;
  2. Define the textual features needed in the study;
  3. Identify the relationships among the features; and
  4. Enrich the collection of the text features.
By following the document analysis, the research utilized submitted social audit reports of cooperatives in the Cooperative Development Authority-Cordillera Administrative Region (CDA-CAR), Philippines. The available documents were from 2008 to 2018 and the VMGs of each cooperative were extracted. The VMGs were monitored in terms of their consistency and changes. In case changes were made, the most recent VMGs were used as units of analysis. By following the processes of document analysis, the social audit reports were used in order to define the environment of the study and the textual features were utilized in order to uncover underlying reasons, opinions and motivations that exist in cooperatives. Mainly, the VMGs were extracted from the documents and these were used as units of analysis in order to reflect whether collectivism is present in the VMGs. The VMGs are useful data that can be interpreted to reflect the collectivist behavior of the cooperative actors.
Data Sample. The study utilized 483 complete social audit reports that were extracted from the submissions of cooperatives in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines starting from the year 2008 until 2018. The VMGs were gathered from each of the cooperatives and the VMGs were monitored in terms of consistency and changes. In case there are changes, the most recent data was used. The study classified the reports based on the asset size of the cooperatives such as micro, small, medium and large. There were 299 submitted reports from micro cooperatives, 106 from small cooperatives, 50 from medium cooperatives and 28 from large cooperatives. There were 796 registered cooperative in the region, however there were cooperatives that failed to submit reports. Based on an interview with a CDA officer, there were cooperatives who failed to submit due to reasons such as lack funds to hire internal bookkeepers, to pay for external audit fees, and there were some that encountered operational failure hence their business operation had ceased.
Data Analysis. After extracting the VMGs of the cooperatives, the VMGs were subjected to semantic analysis in order to reflect whether collectivism is embodied in the VMGs of cooperatives. Semantic analysis uses content analysis to create themes (categories) that identify the main subjects and dimensions in the material under study, and the specific sub-fields under these subjects and dimensions (Őzdem, 2011). Following the process of semantic analysis, the following procedures were conducted:
Phase 1: The researcher collected the VMGs from the submitted performance audit and social audit reports of the cooperatives;
Phase 2: The researcher independently coded the VMGs within the framework of analysis using major themes such as economic, social and political. The major themes were economic, social and political basing them from literature reviews. Following the identification of themes, sentences in the VMGs were identified and grouped under these themes;
Phase 3: Sub-themes were created under the major themes and they were grouped whether they are economic, social or political themes. For instance, words that were classified as economic thoughts were grouped. The most commonly used such as dependable and developed cooperative were treated as one sub-theme. Commonly used grouped as single sub-theme were social thoughts that included: achievehappiness, peace and quality life ; and equality, equity and mutual self-help . Further, synonymous words were also grouped such as:unity, oneness, harmony, and mutual respect were created as a single sub-theme.
Phase 4: The themes were presented in tabular form and observations were treated using frequency and percentage. Afterwards, the themes were ranked based on the frequency and the themes were arranged based on their respective ranks; and
Phase 5: A comparison was conducted to compare the whether the perception of the cooperatives in relation to their asset size vary in terms of reflecting collectivism in their VMGs. The study used the Pearson chi-square test in order to test for independence or difference in the distribution of observations on the collectivist themes. To perform the test, it is important to find the degree of freedom which is computed as:
DF = (r – 1) * (c – 1)
In this study, the r pertains to the level number of variable A (e.g. size of the cooperatives), while c is the level number of Variable B (e.g. collectivist thoughts such as economic, social and political).
The expected frequency counts, Er,c , are computed for each categorical level of the other categorical variable. This provides the expected frequency number for level r of variable A and level c of variable B. It is computed as:
Er,c = (nr * nc) / n
As a test statistic, the Pearson’s chi-square test that can be calculated as:
X2 = ∑ [(Or,c–Er,c) 2 / Er,c]
Where, Or,c represents the observed frequencies, Er,c is the expected frequency count. The null hypothesis states that “the observation is independent on the group or there are no significant differences in the distribution of observations among the different groups,” whereas the alternative hypothesis states that “the observation is dependent on the group or there are significant differences in the distribution of observations among the different groups”. The observations refer to the observed collectivist themes, which were classified into three categories: economic, social, and political. The group refers to the size of the cooperatives’ assets.
Permission and Informed Consent. As part of the requirement of the document analysis, necessary requirements were accomplished. Permission was obtained from the CDA to interpret the submitted social audit and performance audit reports. This research was supported by a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the CDA-CAR and Saint Louis University, Baguio City, Philippines. This was a signed agreement which allows employees and students to work collaboratively with the CDA in order to generate meaningful research that can be used as a source of information to further improve the management of cooperatives in CAR. To further enhance the result of the study and to validate the results, the paper was presented among cooperatives in La Trinidad, Benguet, Philippines on October 24, 2018 during the cooperative month that was participated by cooperative members and officers from various provinces in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines.