Medlemmarnas syn på lantbrukskooperativa företag
en jämförelse mellan föreningar av olika storlek
During the last decade several cooperatives have struggled against many problems. Especiallyin North America several cooperatives have been forced to reconstruct, merge or have beenpurchased by other firms. There are many reasons behind these problems, but one observationmade on these cooperatives implies that they have one thing in common. The cooperatives areall very large and have a complex business structure.Lantmännen is one of the largest cooperatives in the Nordic Countries with its main office inSweden. In Nilsson et al. (2009) there are observations made that the issues Lantmännen arestruggling against occur from the fact that it has a large and complex organization structure.Due to the large and complex organization Lantmännen´s members have a low amount oftrust in the board of directors.This study aims to compare member trust between three Swedish cooperatives in the grainbusiness. The three cooperatives are Lantmännen, Varaslättens Lagerhus Ek. Förening fromVästergötland and Södra Åby Lokalförening from Skåne. Västergötland is a province in thesouth west of Sweden, and Skåne is a province in the southern of Sweden. These cooperativeshave the same core business with grain handling and sales of farm inputs. They are, however,very different in terms of the number of members, the amount of vertical and horizontalintegration and size of the collective capital. Lantmännen has 36 000 members and hasoperations in 18 counties. Varaslättens Lagerhusförening has around 1 500 members and ithas its business in Västergötland. Södra Åby is the smallest cooperative with around 165members and its operations are in the south of Skåne.In order to realize this study a survey had to take place. Questionnaires have been sent to themembers of Varaslättens Lagerhusförening and Södra Åby Lokalförening. Data had alreadybeen collected from the members of Lantmännen in another study (Kihlén 2007). Theresponse rate was over 70 percent from both cooperatives. This must be considered as verygood.The data indicates that the members of Lantmännen have lower trust to their board ofdirectors and the members are not satisfied with the cooperative?s business. The members ofthe smaller cooperatives are much more satisfied with their cooperative, and have more trustto their board of directors. The members of the smaller cooperatives think it is very easy toget contact with the board of directors, and they are also very committed to their cooperative.In general the members of the smaller cooperatives have a larger ownership feeling towardstheir cooperative.