As virtudes necessárias ao cooperativismo: uma percepção dos associados da cooperativa de crédito rural ASCOOB Paraguassu/Ba

Abstract

This work aimed to identify which are the virtues proper to cooperativism, initially among members of the Cooperativa de Crédito Rural ASCOOB Paraguassu, with the objective of exploring the possibility of inherent virtues/essential to cooperativism. The importance of this research is that this knowledge about virtues and their implications for organizational behavior may be useful for the elaboration of cooperative education policies as well as other formative actions and for a better understanding of the dynamics of work and culture in cooperative organizations. Therefore, the method adopted was apply 100 (one hundred) questionnaires to members of the Cooperativa de Crédito Rural ASCOOB Paraguassu, which were analyzed with the aid of two computer softwares, Iramuteq, which performs statistical analyzes of textual corpus and Excel. In general, responsibility was the virtue that by far was the most reported in the open-ended questions, and its relevance was confirmed by the results of the closed-ended questions. Responsibility was followed by commitment, honesty, patience, openness, empathy, cooperation, solidarity. The results suggest that for the cooperative members there is a great variety of moral characteristics that influence organizational behavior. Since the companies in general require their employees the same virtues mentioned by the cooperative members, I understand that it was not possible to find the cooperative's own virtues perceived by them. However, it’s possible to understand the essential virtues of the work process within these institutions.