Discussion
The present study reflects collectivism in the VMGs of cooperatives. The VMGs represent the members’ ex-post facto behaviors and expressions of the members’ willingness to participate in a collective action and to attain together their aspirations. Cooperatives are realistic avenues where the members could demonstrate their willingness to embrace collectivism as a way of life and express their aspirations to become better off in terms of economic, social, and political conditions. Realistically, they codify their aspirations in their VMGs in order to set their cultural norms and to direct the activities and various aspects of the cooperatives. The codified VMGs serve as the cooperatives fundamental datum and raison d’etre for their existence. These VMGs have gone through a series of deliberation, debate, and discussions before being voted on as governing principles and philosophies that guide all cooperative actors (e.g. individual members, elected officers, management).
An examination of the cooperatives’ VMGs reflects that collectivism is expressed in three dimensions: economic, social, and political. The present findings affirm the theoretical frameworks of collectivism. Collectivism has become a cultural norm for cooperatives wherein economic, social and political challenges and issues within the society can be resolved through organized and meaningful collective action. Through the organization of cooperatives, the people can realistically express their collectivist thoughts and they can work together to improve themselves. It manifested from the results that through collective action, the members can improve their economic conditions. It showed that cooperatives can pool together their funds and they can pursue enterprising activities that could cater to the needs of the members in terms of goods and services. If they succeed in their enterprising activities, they can support most of their economic aspirations. Results also manifest the social aspirations of the members whereas they participate in cooperatives in order for them to interact with a larger group who would care for them and fulfill their social needs. Through their cooperatives, they can attain feelings of happiness, peace and quality life. Finally, cooperatives became an avenue where the members could express their aspirations for better political state and governance. Yet they are communal in nature, they can actually set their expectations from their elected officers and through this, they can realize better leadership and governance settings.
Yet the study treated separately the dimensions of collectivism into economic, social, and political, the study does not intend to segregate them. Rather, the study intended to empirically establish the presence of these three dimensions among cooperatives and that they are reflected in their VMGs. The social and political thoughts are in fact representing the non-commercial character of cooperatives that differentiates them from other cooperatives. While the cooperatives focus on economic dimensions, they must also meet the social and political dimensions in order all of their collective aspirations. The three dimensions must be well coordinated in the cooperatives’ activities in order to balance the three aspirations and avoid trade-offs of these dimensions. The chi-square tests reveal that the cooperatives emphasize their economic aspirations in their vision and goal statements and that the dimensions of collectivism are dependent on the size of the cooperatives (e.g. micro, small, medium. Large). This would show that the aspirations and cooperative activities are more focused on economic thoughts. However, the mission statements would show equal importance of the three dimensions. This means that the cooperatives’ approach towards attaining the members’ aspirations is by equally attaining the three dimensions of collectivism.