Laguna State Polytechnic University

Integrity-Professionalism-Innovation
Cosico Ave, San Pablo City, 4000 Laguna

FUNDAMENTALS
OF
COOPERATIVE

Submitted By: Ain Cris B. Aquilo

Submitted To: Garry Delos Reyes
1. What is the goal of business cooperative?
a. Satisfaction of needs
b. Working together
c. Competition
d. Excellence
2. What is the cooperative weakness?
a. Mass volume
b. Benefit of patron
c. Democratic Organizations
d. Profit
3. How many person can join in a mastermind group?
a. 4
b. 6
c. 8
d. 12
4. What Bayan means?
a. Community
b. Bahayan
c. Palengke
d. Pamilihan
5. What is Bayanihan means?
a. Helping
b. Downing
c. Gossip
d. Growing
6. What powerful guild was not considered a crafts guild, but managed to control much of the
economy during the Medieval Ages?
a. Mason Guild
b. Bookbinder guild
c. Candlemaker guild
d. Merchant Guild
7. Gilden means?
a. To borrow
b. To bargain
c. To pay
d. To sell
8. What is the association that formed in Greek in 300 B.C
a. Socrates
b. Ottoman empire
c. NAGC
d. Eranio
9. Which is not belong on Crafts Guild?
a. Mason
b. Candle Maker
c. Artist
d. Baker
10. What advantages did consumers get from the existence of guilds?
a. Quality products
b. Fair pricing
c. Low prices due to competition
d. All of the above
Cooperation as a Business Force

"Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and

strengthen the cooperative movement by working together
through local, national, regional, and international structures."
To the mainstream business-person this principle could seem
confusing or even downright anti-business! After all, business
dogma views competition for profit as the driving force for
excellence. But in cooperative business profit is a means, not an
end. The goal of cooperative business is the satisfaction of the
needs and desires of the member-owners, who are also the
main customers of the co-op. Since the business is a cycle,
cooperatives don't aim to take customers from each other. Just
as member-owners form cooperatives to achieve common
goals, cooperatives themselves join forces.

Cooperation Creates Mastermind

A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring concept used

to help members solve their problems with input and advice
from the other group members.
There are two types of mastermind groups: one is focused on
an individual's success, and the other is focused on the success
of everyone in the group. Research suggests that optimal
groups limit their size to 8 to 10 participants that meet regularly
with rotating leadership.
Effects of Cooperation
In comparison with regular commercial business, cooperation
has certain advantages or strengths and certain disadvantages
or weaknesses.
Its main advantage is that it exists and operates for the benefit
of its patron members. At the same time, since the members
are also the owners, they have a financial interest in the
success of the cooperative which sways them toward giving it
their full support and patronage. Cooperative members also
have a voice in the control of the organization, and, within the
limits of majority rule, it therefore supplies the kind of service
they want.
These advantages, which tend to tie the patrons to the
organization by making them full partners, help build an
assured volume of business. This in turn is favorable to efficient
operation of the cooperative. A commercial business, on the
other hand, has no claim on its patrons except the good will
built up through past service.
Cooperatives have the weaknesses of democratic organizations.
The manager must always remember that he is responsible to a
membership group, and this may put a brake on the initiative
and flexibility he can use in operating the co-op. He may be at a
real disadvantage in competition with a commercial business
whose manager is concerned primarily with making a profit and
who has a relatively free hand or can consult the owner quickly
and frequently.
Sometimes cooperative businesses show an unwillingness to
pay the kind of salary needed to attract and hold competent
managers and other employees. In consequence managers and
good workers are often drawn to higher-paid jobs in
commercial businesses,
Another weakness of cooperation is that the mass of members
may lose interest in running the organization and let a small
group take it over and manage it for their own benefit.

The Filipino Bayanihan

is a Filipino custom derived from a Filipino word “bayan”, which
means nation, town or community. The term bayanihan itself
literally means “being in a bayan”, which refers to the spirit of
communal unity, work and cooperation to achieve a particular
goal.

The concept of Bayanihan is traced back to in a country’s

tradition which can be observed in rural areas, wherein the
town’s people were asked especially the men to lend a hand to
a family who will move into a new place. The relocation does not
only involves moving the family’s personal belongings but most
importantly it concerns the transfer of the family’s entire house
to a new location.

The Bayanihan spirit shows Filipinos’ concept of helping one

another most especially in times of need without expecting
anything in return. Filipinos strongly believe in helping their
“kababayans (fellow countrymen)” in any possible way they can
do to extend a helping hand. It is a beautiful Filipino mentality of
helping one another.

Cooperation during Medieval Times

Agricultural production stimulated the creation of markets.

Surplus products and raw materials had to be sold. At this
economic stage, people no longer produced only what they
could consume. They had to produce more in order to acquire
more money their own needs and comforts. Thus, trade and
commerce developed and proposed. And so with
manufacturing. These increasing activities and problems of the
trade forced them to organize formal associations for the
protection of their interest welfare.

Medieval Guilds
Probably, the guilds represented the first great conscious efforts for the
establishment of formal organizations to promote the welfare of
selected groups in society. As early as 300 B.C, the Greeks had formed
associations known as ERANIO which had the features of the guilds
which were organized in Teutonic Europe between the seventh and
fifteenth centuries. Members of the guild gave an annual contribution
to a general fund. Each type of guild performed specific functions, such
as protecting the members from illness, arranging funerals, providing
feasts and helping those distress. The first guild of Europe were formed
for defense against invasion and for maintaining peace and order within
the communities. Some of the irrigation systems of medieval Europe
were constructed and manage cooperatively.

Merchant Guilds
He performed all the operations involved in merchandizing his
goods. He bought them, transported them, and retailed them.
He realized that traveling alone was dangerous in an area
where there was little protection. So he joined other merchants
and they travelled from town to town, armed with swords and
bows. In most cases, the elected their leaders, they could and
sell collectively and prorated the profits. Such cooperation
enabled them to acquire more capital. These guilds, arising
from the needs of protecting their social and economic gains,
conducted business over long distance by the early twelfth
century. The business grew and operations became
complicated, the merchant stopped performing all the works.
He delegated buying and selling to his employees and transport
of his goods to organizations.
The objective of merchant guilds was to preserve a trade
monopoly in the town market. The ideal guild was to maintain
stables prices under normal conditions.

Craft Guilds
The guilds in the Middle Ages were an important part of
Medieval life. A higher social status could be achieved through
membership to Craft guilds. There were two main kinds of
Medieval guilds - Merchant Guilds and Craft Guilds. The word
“guild” is from the Saxon “gilden” meaning "to pay" and refers
to the subscription paid to the Guilds by their members.

The Craft Guilds were formed in a similar way to the Merchant

Guilds. A group of tradesmen or craftsmen engaged in the same
occupation joined together. There were Craft Guilds for every
trade or craft performed within a Medieval city or town. These
trades or crafts included:

 Masons
 Carpenters
 Painters
 Cloth Makers
 Tanners
 Bakers
 Shoemakers, or cobblers
 Apothecaries
 Candle makers