This essay analyzes the member participation in general assembly and educational committees in agricultural cooperatives in function of economic objective function, members' number, and economic performance. There are analyses of two regression models that show the participation is an inverse function of economic performance in cooperatives and the educational committee participation occurs in functions to intensify the member relations in cooperative with problems with member economic activity. At the end it is possible also indicate that member participation is important to corporate governance transparency in agricultural cooperative but there is a dichotomy because the best economic performance in cooperatives could not incentive member participation and in consequence the governance transparency that needs additional costs to correct this deficiency.
cooperatives; participation; corporate governance
