COOPERATIVE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT TRAINING NEEDS AMONG COOPERATIVE BOARD MEMBERS (CBM)

Abstract

Financial management is one of the difficult areas in the competence of cooperative board members (CBM) (Hamsan et al., 2023). The study suggests that CBM strengthens and improves the required competence by developing focused and appropriate training in specific fields. Therefore, the Co-operative Institute of Malaysia (CIM), previously known as the Co-operative College of Malaysia (CCM), is the only cooperative training centre in the country. Providing a focused training program for CBM to improve their performance and efficiency is essential. The objective of this study is to identify training needs in the field of cooperative financial management. The cooperative sampling method involves stratified random sampling techniques according to zones in Malaysia. This study used a mixed-method approach. For data collection, 221 respondents answered the questionnaire (quantitative method) as the primary data and 14 respondents were involved in focus group interviews (qualitative method) to support the findings of the quantitative method. This study used Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) software version 28.0.1.0 (142) to analyse the questionnaire data (quantitative), and the interview transcript data (qualitative) was analysed through the coding process. The study results listed 17 training needs requiring serious attention and immediate action to improve the performance and efficiency of CBM.