Educação e eficiência nas sociedades cooperativas: duas faces da performance dos conselheiros fiscais

Abstract

The object of this research and the researcher's study is cooperative societies, mainly because they are a kind of social subsystem formed by interactions and communications with their members and other systems in which they are inserted. It is a legal, social, economic, and developmental entity, constitutionally supported, particularly focused on the governance of principles and values related to resource management and people's fulfillment of their purposes. The research problem was defined through participant observation methodology, revolves around addressing the gaps in the preparation of fiscal councilors for the roles to which they were elected. The specific question is: How can SESCOOP (an integral part of the cooperative system, of which the researcher is also a part) contribute to the performance of fiscal councilors beyond the currently offered courses? As an initial hypothesis, the provision of high-performance corporate education through advanced communication training for fiscal councilors was established. The competencies and skills developed during this course would enhance the governance system and improve cooperative performance results. The main objective of the study was to effectively contribute to the maturation of Cooperative Governance and ensure the autonomy of each cooperative in relation to the economic system, which relies on the adequate and autonomous performance of its fiscal councilors. Specific objectives included systematizing the legal framework of cooperatives, understanding their structure and functioning, mapping the challenges faced by fiscal councilors in their activities, demonstrating how corporate education focused on communication enhancement can impact governance performance, and presenting a proposal for advanced training in systemic communication skills for fiscal councilors. The research methodology involved inductive knowledge production, exploratory and qualitative investigation. Research techniques included literature review, national and foreign, direct data collection through questionnaires in focus groups, and interdisciplinary approaches combining legal, administrative, and organizational communication sciences. Additionally, participant observation allowed the researcher's experiential insights to contribute to a comprehensive diagnosis and prognosis. Furthermore, to construct the applied deliverable, the "Advanced Communication for Fiscal Councilors" course followed the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. The theoretical framework drew from Niklas Luhmann's and Maturana and Varela's Systems Theory, providing insights into the object, context, problem, and hypothesis construction. The evaluation by the focus group confirms the opportunity for offering advanced training to address performance deficits among fiscal councilors in cooperatives, facilitated by SESCOOP and its affiliated entities.