Ah- young Kim Woosuk Choi Seungkwon Jang

1. Directors’ Gender Role Identity and Performance : Gender and governance of a Korean consumer co-0perative, iCOOP 7th ICA ASIA-PACIFIC CO-OPERATIVE RESEARCH CONFERENCE Kobe, Japan 26thNovember 2012 Ah- young Kim WoosukChoi Seungkwon Jang (Sungkonghoe University, Korea)

2. Contents Introduction Theoretical Background Method Result Discussion

3. Introduction 3 / 14 Growth Rate of Co-operatives in Korea • NACF : National Agricultural Cooperative Federation • NFFC : National Federation of Fisheries Co-operatives

4. Introduction 4 / 14 Major Challenges • 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?

5. Introduction 5 / 14 Female-dominated Boards of Consumer Co-operatives in Korea Source : The Journal of the iCOOP Korea Cooperative Institute vol.8(2012)

6. Introduction 6 / 14 Korean women’s participation in economical activities Source : Economically Active Population Survey(2011), Statistics Korea(http://kostat.go.kr)

7. Introduction 7 / 14 Research Question • Does female dominance of the boards have characteristics of femininity? ☞ Do only women have characteristics of femininity? ☞ Do only men have characteristics of masculinity?

8. Introduction 8 / 14 Research Purposes • To identify the structural relationship of gender role identity, their own governance and financial performance among the primary co-operatives’ boards • To identify the structural relationship of gender role identity, their own governance and value centered performance among the primary co-operatives’ boards

9. Theoretical Background 9 / 14 Gender role identity • 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

10. Theoretical Background 10 / 14 Gender role identity • BSRI (Bem Sex-Role Inventory ): measurement tool developed by Bem (1974) to measure gender role identity ( masculine / feminine / androgynous /undifferentiated) → KSRI (Korean Sex-role Inventory): by Chung (1990) • Androgyny : Individuals increase flexibility and adaptability (Bem, 1974; Chung, 1990)

11. Theoretical Background 11 / 14 Co-operative Governance • Co-operative Governance : the rules, the tools and the concrete procedures through which co-operative societies are managed (Shaw, 2006) Co-operative Governance

12. Theoretical Background 12 / 14 Co-operative Governance • 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 danger that organizations can become dominated by their professional staffs and lose their members.”

13. Theoretical Background 13 / 14 Co-operatives’ Performance • Co-operative Performance (Davis, 2012)

14. Theoretical Background 14 / 14 Research Model

15. Theoretical Background 15 / 14 Hypotheses • Hypothesis 1 Explicit Governance Explicit Governance Gender Role Identity Gender Role Identity Financial Performance Value centered Performance Implicit Governance Implicit Governance • Hypothesis 2

16. Theoretical Background 16 / 14 Hypothesis 1 Explicit Governance Gender Role Identity Of Board Financial Performance Implicit Governance

17. Theoretical Background 17 / 14 Hypothesis 2 Explicit Governance Gender Role Identity Of Board Value centered Performance Implicit Governance

18. Method 18 / 14 Samples • 44 primary co-operatives in iCOOP • 328 directors (323 women and 5 men) • Survey questionnaire • Analysis: using SPSS 12.0 & Smart PLS 2.0.

19. Method 19 / 14 Variables

20. Method 20 / 14 Variables ---------------------- * The House Meeting is grassroots units for member participation in new iCOOP product development, food safety tests and campaigns.

21. Result 21 / 14 Result of Hypothesis 1 The structural relationship among gender role identity of boards, co-operative governance and financial performance

22. Theoretical Background 22 / 14 Hypothesis 1. Explicit Governance Gender Role Identity of boards Financial Performance H1-1 (-) Implicit Governance H1-3 (+) H1-5 (-)

23. Result 23 / 14 Result of Hypothesis 2 The structural relationship among gender role identity of boards, co-operative governance and value centered performance

24. Theoretical Background 24 / 14 Hypothesis 2 Explicit Governance Gender Role Identity of Boards Value centered Performance Implicit Governance H2-3 (+) H2-5 (+)

25. Conclusion 25 / 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 .

26. Thank you