The relationship between self-efficacy and organizational reputation in cooperative organizations

Abstract

This article aimed to identify the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational reputation based on the contribution of members of cooperatives who graduated from a professional master’s program. Theoretical support was based on the assumption that individuals with high self-efficacy (individual dimension of training effectiveness) accept professional training challenges with a high level of demand, believing that the development of new skills can increase their degree of contribution to organizational performance and, consequently, improve the cooperative’s reputation as they deliver results with strategic impacts. The research consisted of a case study, using interviews with the graduates and their leaders and followers in the cooperatives, ensuring the qualitative analysis’ internal validity. Also, the study adopted a survey to identify reputation from the perspective of different groups that maintain a relationship with cooperatives. The findings showed that self-efficacy influenced graduates in developing new competencies, especially through learning conceptual foundations and methodologies that allowed the systematization of analytical and critical reasoning in work situations. Consequently, as graduates share the knowledge acquired through social interactions in the organizational environment, they also contribute to organizational performance and reputation.

Keywords:
Self-efficacy; Organizational reputation; Cooperative organizations; Stricto Sensu

Resumo

Este estudo teve como objetivo identificar a relação entre autoeficácia e reputação organizacional, tendo por base a contribuição dos egressos de um mestrado profissional em suas respectivas cooperativas. O respaldo teórico apoia-se no pressuposto de que indivíduos com alta autoeficácia (dimensão individual da eficácia de treinamento) aceitam desafios de formação profissional com elevado nível de exigência, por acreditar que o desenvolvimento de novas competências pode aumentar seu grau de contribuição nos resultados organizacionais e, consequentemente, melhorar a reputação da cooperativa (dimensão macro da eficácia de treinamento), na medida em que entregam resultados com impactos estratégicos. A estratégia de pesquisa é do tipo estudo de caso. A técnica de análise de dados utilizada foi a análise de conteúdo das entrevistas realizadas com os egressos do programa de mestrado, dos seus líderes e liderados, com vistas a garantir a validade interna da análise qualitativa. Foi feito também um levantamento para identificar a reputação sob a ótica de diferentes grupos que mantêm relação com as cooperativas. Após a análise dos dados, foi possível concluir que a autoeficácia teve influência no desenvolvimento de novas competências dos egressos, especialmente pela aprendizagem de fundamentos conceituais e de metodologias que permitiram a estruturação de um raciocínio analítico e crítico em situações de trabalho. Consequentemente, à medida que os egressos compartilham o conhecimento adquirido por meio das interações sociais no ambiente organizacional, também contribuem para os resultados e fomentam a reputação organizacional.

Palavras-chave:
Autoeficácia; Reputação organizacional; Organizações cooperativas; Stricto Sensu

Resumen

El objetivo de este estudio fue identificar la relación entre la autoeficacia y la reputación organizacional, a partir del aporte de los egresados de una maestría profesional en sus respectivas cooperativas. El sustento teórico se basa en el supuesto de que las personas con alta autoeficacia (dimensión individual de la eficacia formativa) aceptan retos de formación profesional con un alto nivel de exigencia, creyendo que el desarrollo de nuevas competencias puede aumentar su grado de contribución a los resultados organizacionales y, en consecuencia, mejorar la reputación de la cooperativa ya que entregan resultados con impactos estratégicos. La estrategia de investigación es del tipo estudio de caso. La técnica de análisis de datos utilizada fue el análisis de contenido de las entrevistas realizadas a los egresados de la maestría, sus líderes y seguidores, para garantizar la validez interna del análisis cualitativo, además de una encuesta para identificar la reputación desde la perspectiva de los diferentes colectivos que mantienen una relación con las cooperativas. Luego del análisis de los datos, fue posible concluir que la autoeficacia influyó en el desarrollo de nuevas competencias de los egresados, especialmente a través del aprendizaje de fundamentos conceptuales y metodologías que permitieron sistematizar el razonamiento analítico y crítico en situaciones de trabajo. En consecuencia, en la medida en que los egresados comparten los conocimientos adquiridos a través de las interacciones sociales en el entorno organizacional, también contribuyen a los resultados y fomentan la reputación organizacional.

Palabras clave:
Autoeficacia; Reputación organizacional; Organizaciones cooperativas; Stricto sensu

INTRODUCTION

One of the biggest challenges in the area of people management is to evidence the return on investment in training (Garavan et al., 2019), especially when the goal is to develop individual competencies with a high level of abstraction in professionals who need to honor organizational expectations in return for the resources invested by presenting results with long-term perspectives.

Despite the evidence on the contributions of training effectiveness on competitiveness (Riley, 2011) and generation of economic value (Ng & Dastmalchian, 2011), there is distrust on the part of organizations regarding the return on investment in training. Such distrust seems to reside in methodological gaps whose origin lies in the traditional support in evaluations only of reactions or quantitative instruments that consider the self-perception of the graduates about the impact of training on work.

In addition, evaluating training effectiveness is complex and involves moderating variables that suggest using qualitative indicators to increase the explanatory power of the affective and performance variables. This way, qualitative analysis can work as a link, connecting training utilization and organizational outcome indicators, according to the multilevel model for measuring training effectiveness proposed by Sitzmann and Weinhardt (2019).

It is precisely on the forementioned authors’ line of thought that this study is based since it contemplates the individual, interpersonal and macro levels of analysis, allowing a more complete look at the effectiveness of training by relating an individual affective category of analysis (self-efficacy) with a macro category (organizational reputation). A methodological aspect that deserves to be highlighted is that the interpersonal dimension had its analysis based on the perception of leaders and followers of the graduates from the Graduate Program in Cooperative Management at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PPGCOOP).

Therefore, the training effectiveness at the institutional level depends on an articulated process that involves the design of instructional training objectives aligned with the organization’s strategic goals and the methodological rigor of the training program. In addition, an aspect that deserves to be highlighted for the general objective of this study concerns training-focused self-efficacy (Festa, 2018), which, in general, is based on individual beliefs that learning based on training will be useful for personal and professional life since this conviction will impact the predisposition to learn. Thus, self-efficacy was chosen due to its predictive characteristic (Howardson & Behrend, 2015; Sitzmann & Weinhardt, 2019) concerning goal setting and individual training results.

Concerning the macro analysis of this study, we chose to analyze reputation at the organizational level (Clardy, 2005) since it is considered an important element for attracting new investors and clients and retaining employees. Furthermore, in the case of the cooperative system, in the analysis context of this study, reputation is essential to maintain the link of credibility and trust in the relationships between cooperative members and cooperatives, as well as in the construction of identification parameters that can be perceived by employees, customers, and suppliers.

As the recognition of the stakeholders about the levels of high performance in their experience with the cooperative and with the graduates from the master’s program occurs, the evidence of the influence from the high degree of abstraction acquired with the graduation level training becomes evident. These elements are established as requirements for the construction of the organizational reputation since the training impacts the formation of individuals and the sectorial and institutional results of the cooperatives.

For this study, the analysis context included the graduate students from PPGCOOP (Cooperative Postgraduate Program) who had the support of the National Cooperativism Learning Service of Paraná (SESCOOP/PR). The choice of training with Graduation is justified by the focus of the Program on solving problems with a high level of complexity since its main objective is to meet, through scientific research, the growing demands of cooperatives.

The article has the following structure: (1) brief introduction to the research context; (2) theoretical background with emphasis on the specialized literature on self-efficacy and organizational reputation; (3) methodological procedures; (4) data analysis; (5) discussion of results and (6) final considerations.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

The theoretical support is based primarily on self-efficacy (individual), focusing on training and organizational reputation (macro). It is important to emphasize that interpersonal relationships were considered a methodological aspect for the triangulation of data from different perspectives (leaders and subordinates) and not as a theoretical framework.

Initially, we must emphasize the importance of people in cooperatives, to the extent that Law No. 5.764 of December 16, 1971, defines: “Art. 4 Cooperatives are partnerships, with their legal form and nature, civil in nature, not subject to bankruptcy, established to provide services to members”. In this context in which people are highlighted, understanding their performance after investing in their development instigates the need to deepen the understanding of competitive organizational advantages associated with people who are responsible for the efficient mobilization of internal resources, mainly due to the peculiar characteristic of cooperatives: creating corporate bonds (Pellin, Weymer, Dissenha, & Bauer, 2021) with lasting perspectives.

In this sense, there is an expectation of individual performances as a consequence of an investment in training and that they can be visualized through developments that contribute to the reputation of the cooperative (Ghosh, 2017). The main concepts that support this study are presented next: self-efficacy and organizational reputation.

Self-efficacy

According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is related to an individual’s belief in feeling able to succeed or have an excellent performance in specific tasks. This belief can influence individuals’ motivation to take on and accomplish challenges, optimizing their abilities and cognitive and behavioral aspects in a given context. Bandura states that those with higher self-efficacy have a more remarkable ability to pursue and persist in a task than those with lower self-efficacy.

In this line of thought, Condon and Holleque (2013) argue that self-efficacy is a psychological aspect of each person related to their ability to perform well on the tasks assigned to them. Schwarzer and Schmitz (2004) suggest that self-efficacy should be considered in each specific situation, as it can vary in different contexts.

Although the main objective of this study lies in the macro perspective of analysis (organizational reputation), the importance of behavioral elements (Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005) in the transfer of training (Brion, 2022; Grossman & Salas, 2011) and their role in organizational goals is recognized (Smith, Jayasuriya, Caputi, & Hammer, 2008).

In the study by Sitzmann and Ely (2011), it was found that individuals with high self-efficacy tend to set high goals, committing to finding the best strategies to achieve them. From this perspective, individuals respond positively to training because they believe it can contribute to building their strategies.

Although not a consensus, self-efficacy is considered a predictor variable related to individual training outcomes (Goulart, Weymer, & Moreira, 2022). Along this same line of reasoning, Tannenbaum, Mathieu, Salas, and Cannon-Bowers (1991) argue that individual characteristics such as self-efficacy, motivation, and locus of control are determinants of individual student achievement concerning training and development initiatives.

According to Locke and Latham (2006), high goals have an energizing function, as people with such goals produce more since they are not satisfied with less. In addition, high goals lead to more significant effort than moderate goals and affect action with the excitement of discovering relevant knowledge to accomplish tasks and strategies. Also, according to the authors, the importance of the expected results and the belief that one can achieve them are factors that facilitate commitment to the goal.

Ballout (2009) explains that when they are involved with career or development opportunities, tasks that present themselves as challenging goals are attractive and work as a stimulus to employees with high self-efficacy. Conversely, in the case of employees with low self-efficacy, there are difficulties in pursuing career opportunities and accomplishing tasks. Given the previous contacts, it was possible to define the first proposition.

Proposition 1: High self-efficacy contributes to challenging goal setting.

Self-efficacy can function as a motivator to create and sustain professional development. Such a finding can be evidenced in the study of Melchert, Hays, Wiljanen, and Kolocek (1996), who, from a self-efficacy perspective, investigated the behavioral change of counselors at different career stages in the face of a wide range of training. In addition, other studies have already proven the positive relationship between self-efficacy, learning, and job performance (Song, 2018) and considered, in this case, intrinsic motivation as a mediator of this relationship (Çetin & Aşkun, 2018).

When professional development is focused on raising the level of abstraction, as is the case with courses at the graduation level (Christofoli, 2020), the chances of contributing to the training of star performers (Joo, Aguinis, Lee, Kremer, & Villamor, 2021; Morris, Alvarez, & Barney, 2021) increase significantly.

Star performers are employees who produce superior performance compared to their peers (Asgari et al., 2021; Taylor & Bendickson, 2021) and can add value directly through exceptional output or, indirectly, by providing their companies with access to external resources and exerting significant influence over colleagues (Grigoriou & Rothaermel, 2014).

Thus, performance is not just about achieving the prescribed work requirements to perform tasks (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). On the contrary, in certain situations, employees may choose behaviors beyond those proposed in their work routines through actions and behaviors that contribute to the achievement of organizational goals. Moreover, such behaviors may reconfigure a new organizational context (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997).

Arising from the evidence on the predictive role of self-efficacy and its influence on cognitive processes of learning and skill development, proposition 2 was defined as follows:

Proposition 2: High self-efficacy is related to developing competencies that influence organizational outcomes.

Organizational reputation

Since the Corporate Reputation Review issue (Barnett, Jermier, & Lafferty, 2006), exclusively about the theme “reputation,” many findings about its importance were verified. Hence, it was concluded that it is one of the main factors of corporate success (Vance & Angelo, 2007). However, few organizations manage to provide well-founded arguments to the questions about the structure that makes up their organizational reputation and its dynamics.

In part, this is a problem of definition because, due to the level of generalization or the intentions of the research, there are several possibilities for conceptualizing the term reputation. Besides the concepts of image and identity proposed by Fombrun and Van Riel (1997), the dimensions can contemplate the economic, strategic, sociological, marketing, organizational, and accounting view, as well as they can be conceptualized as an interdisciplinary construct with conventional meaning (Ponzi, Fombrun, & Gardberg, 2011).

Fombrun (2012) shows some conceptual frameworks that include constructivist epistemological approaches: social construction and functionalist theories and resource-based view (RBV) theory. Although the multiparadigmatic approach is not the main objective of this study, it is necessary to recognize that there are theoretical interstices that make it challenging to find a direct relationship between variables of the micro and macro organizational dimensions, suggesting that social interactions and adequate mobilization of resources can connect these levels of analysis.

Along this line of thought, Boyd, Bergh, and Ketchen (2010) argue that an excellent organizational reputation depends on the ability of its managers to cultivate interdependencies and complex relationships carefully. The authors propose a RBV-based approach, according to which reputation is an intangible asset composed of complementary and reinforcing relationships whose synergies create causal ambiguities that positively impact performance.

Still, regarding the gap between the levels mentioned above regarding analysis, more specifically in terms of professional development, Ployhart and Hale (2014) expressed concern when identifying that much of the specialized human resources literature neglects organizational variables, notably concerning the gaps between training and return on investment at the organizational level (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009).

While the difficulty of measuring training benefits through a precise value is recognized, some indirect indicators can be considered. For example, training programs can improve an organization’s reputation for training by increasing profitability, attracting higher quality employees, and improving employees’ current perception of the organization (Sitzmann & Weinhardt, 2019).

Also, according to Sitzmann and Weinhardt (2019), employees’ positive perception of the company’s reputation may be related to recognition (by the company) expressed in reward for effort. In other words, personal and organizational ROI (return on investments) indicators will only be related when the most qualified employees are selected for training opportunities (to maximize organizational ROI) and, consequently, promoted (to maximize personal ROI) for using such opportunities to enhance their skill sets.

At this point, self-efficacy assumes significant importance since individuals who believe in their capabilities take on challenges intending to develop new competencies, which can contribute to organizational results. Furthermore, according to Men and Stacks (2013), employees who feel more empowered in perceived competence have a more favorable evaluation of organizational reputation. In this case, the determinants of this evaluation are their perspective on how the company treats them and openness to decision-making.

In addition, the social construction perspective identified by Fombrun (2012) suggests that individuals with high self-efficacy can influence their work environment by efficiently mobilizing their internal resources and setting new levels of performance through relationships with other employees, either as peers or as leaders. In this way, organizational reputation is not only limited to the internal perspective but also all stakeholders as broader organizational outcomes are achieved.

Proposition 3:Self-efficacy stimulates the development of individual and collective competencies, enhancing resource mobilization and improving organizational reputation.

METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES

As a research strategy for this paper, a case study was chosen because it presents the singularity of a specific phenomenon, which is the relationship between self-efficacy and the reputation of cooperatives, based on the contribution of graduates from a professional Master’s program focused on cooperatives.

The epistemological positioning of this research follows the interpretivism line, which is based on the assumption that individuals interpret objective reality and give meaning to it; that is, the reality is made objective by people’s subjective experience (Burrell & Morgan, 1994; Monteiro & Fontoura, 2012).

The use of data triangulation under different perceptions allowed the construction of analytical categories supported by theoretical development and an analysis of the relationship between the constituent elements of categories identified as a posteriori. The analysis of the organizational reputation of the cooperatives was carried out through a survey based on the work of Fombrun, Gardberg, and Sever (2000). The data were collected in two stages, as explained below.

Data collection and processing - individual and interpersonal levels

For the content analysis in the first stage, the data analysis technique was used with Atlas.ti 8.0 software. The interviews were conducted with a semi-structured interview script directed to the public of graduates of the master’s program under study, aiming to identify the perception of self-efficacy and organizational results with the training at the graduate level.

An essential aspect of this step was to obtain data not only based on the self-perception of the master’s degree graduates but also from their leaders and subordinates, who maintain a direct relationship with them in their respective cooperatives. Thus, the individual beliefs about self-efficacy were triangulated with the perceptions of at least two interviewees for each graduate, totalizing 26 (twenty-six) interviews (9 graduates, 8 leaders, and 9 followers). The number of 8 leaders is justified by the fact that one of the leaders is the immediate superior of 2 master’s degree graduates.

The number of interviewees is based on the intentional choice criterion (Maxwell, 2005), which was defined based on the main interest of the research to systematize categories related to self-efficacy and corporate reputation. The limit of interviewees was considered sufficient for reliability once speech saturation was detected during the content analysis. According to Bauer and Aarts (2002), the process of building a corpus as an alternative principle in qualitative data collection is equivalent to the statistical sampling advocated in quantitative methods.

The intentional choice criteria for defining the interviewees are the following: older training, to obtain a refined perception of the results of the master’s degree by the interviewees; availability and access to graduates’ managers and subordinates. Considering that cooperatives traditionally subsidize master’s degrees for professionals with at least one year of employment and that the master’s degree lasts two and a half years (approximately). Therefore, we understand that it made more sense to have the “length of the journey” as a criterion rather than age (for example). In addition, all graduates were interviewed after one year of course completion, a time considered adequate (Lyons, 2020; Martins, 2021) for reflection on the delivery of results in their respective cooperatives.

Due to pandemic restrictions (COVID-19), the interviews were conducted through Microsoft Teams, a platform for videoconferences, with the possibility of storing files. After literal transcription of the interviews, the analysis was performed by coding the data and creating categories of analysis (Box 1 and Box 2). The analytic-methodological orientation in this work, therefore, is predominantly qualitative.

Finally, the use of primary data triangulation (interviews) to ensure internal validity was made possible by including all documents within the Atlas.ti 8.0 software, which allowed a concomitant analysis of all interviews.

Data collection and processing - macro level

In order to identify the contribution of graduate training to organizational reputation, a structured questionnaire was formulated, without a statistical scope to obtain an accurate perception from several stakeholder groups regarding the reputation construct used for descriptive analysis and data triangulation purposes.

This public was obtained from the SESCOOP/PR database, as they have relationships with the cooperatives as suppliers, clients, cooperative members, and employees. To ensure recent perceptions, we registered the assets with a timeframe for insertion in the database system, exclusively in 2020. We forwarded 869 questionnaires to suppliers, 1786 questionnaires to employees, and 348 to cooperative members. A total of 278 valid answers were obtained.

Inspired by the work of Fombrun et al. (2000), authors who demonstrated the methodological path for identifying the reputation coefficient, the questionnaire used for data collection was adequate according to the specificities of this study. Its original structure has five synthetically approached dimensions: products and services, vision and leadership, work environment, social and environmental responsibility, and development and performance - dimensions that are the basis of the reputation coefficient structure. The instrument had a textual introduction and was divided into two sections, with open and closed questions and the use of a 5-point Likert-type agreement scale.

DATA ANALYSIS

Brief analysis context

Paraná cooperatives occupy a prominent place on the national scene. In all, 215 registered cooperatives represent 18% of the GDP of the State of Paraná (Sindicato e Organização das Cooperativas do Estado do Paraná [OCEPAR], 2020). The number of more than 100,000 direct jobs generated by the cooperative of Paraná shows the importance of cooperatives for the state’s economic and social development. The challenge is to ensure their competitiveness with long-term perspectives.

To ensure such competitiveness, there is a significant investment in training and development, evidenced by the R$ 33,689,479.31 allocated to training in the cooperatives of Paraná in 2019, divided into 4,349 classes and 171,148 participations, according to data from OCEPAR’s annual report (2019). The higher number of training participation compared to the number of employees occurs because some employees attended more than one course in the period.

We can see that this is an exclusive investment by SESCOOP/PR, a parastatal entity created to organize, manage and execute professional education, development, and social promotion of the cooperative worker, its leaders, and cooperative members.

Regarding the investment of cooperative employees at the graduate level, it is expected that participants in the master’s program will deliver practical results at the end of the course in return for the investment in their training. In this sense, if organizational gains are proven, it is assumed that investments in training are correctly directed.

For Sitzmann and Yeo (2013), indicators with established criteria for evaluating training are essential to demonstrate their role in advancing a company’s competitive advantage and ensuring its continued investment. However, although this concerns cooperative organizations, little research strengthens the need for metrics to evaluate training programs in cooperatives relating to the micro and macro levels, highlighting the existence of theoretical and practical gaps that justify this study.

The cooperative society is positioned in economic and social dimensions. The social dimension is related to the association of people in a democratic, participative, mutualistic, and equative way that promotes family development among cooperative members. On the other hand, the economic dimension refers to a company with professionalized management, seeking effectiveness, transparency, better service provision, and members’ economic development (Bialokorski, 2012).

This dual-dimensional bias, in itself, is complex and challenging. Nevertheless, reputation is positioned as an element contributing to the cooperative organizational model by radiating the decisive sense of trust in an environment where decisions must be made collectively. Moreover, identifying training results as a positive element of reputation strengthens the cooperative’s relationship bonds among its employees, cooperative members, and society.

Self-efficacy content analysis

After the literal transcription of all interviews, a content analysis was performed, which resulted in the identification of codes and analytical categories based on questions inspired by the theoretical foundation.

In this sense, it was possible to highlight aspects attributed exclusively as gains from the graduate level. To identify the perceived gains, data exploration was carried out through coding with the help of Atlas.ti 8.0 software, in which, once the results were analyzed, coding units were constituted using excerpts from the quotes (quotations). The codes of the first cycle are presented in Box 1.

Box 1
Interview analysis codes

After identifying codes, a second reading (second cycle) was necessary to identify similarities among them, which gave way to a new family grouping and new nomenclature classification, as seen in Box 2.

Box 2
Levels and analysis categories

The regrouping of codes and their respective classifications was performed through triangulation of the theoretical foundation and content analysis results. It is worth mentioning that the category “organizational reputation” was not contemplated in the interviews with a semi-structured script but with a closed and open-question instrument, as shown in the sequence.

Level of organizational reputation

For the macro analysis dimension, we tried to understand the concept of “organizational reputation” through the perceptions of several groups that directly relate to the cooperatives. The high level of respondents’ education draws attention since, among the 278 respondents, 197 have a graduate degree, 68 have an undergraduate degree, 31 have a high school degree, and only 1 respondent had an elementary school education, which presupposes a significant degree of criticality for the evaluation. Based on the structure proposed by Fombrun et al. (2000), the following dimensions were used:

• Products and services: development of innovative products and services;

• Vision and leadership: excellent leadership with the exploitation of market opportunities;

• Work environment: good employees;

• Social and environmental responsibility: support of good causes;

• Performance and development: a company with solid prospects.

After the analysis, it was possible to identify a high level of agreement (87.9%), considering the sum of the “I agree” and “I totally agree” options, which shows a high organizational reputation, according to Graph 1.

Graph 1
Level of organizational reputation

With the respondents’ perception, it was possible to observe, in detailing the objective answers, that the dimension “high quality of its products and services” scored above average, especially when compared to the dimension “innovation,” which had the lowest score. Based on the open questions in the survey, to deepen the explanation capacity of the macro analysis category (organizational reputation), unanimity was identified concerning the excellent quality perceived of products and services by the interviewees. However, they also recognize the need to enhance innovation to seize market opportunities.

Seeking to understand better the reasons for the importance given by the interviewees in the objective answers, the question was asked about the feeling the cooperative gives them compared to other non-cooperative organizations. It was then possible to notice the preponderant presence of positive affective feelings since, in general, they perceive cooperativism as a differentiated business model, which provides pride for having a history and has “reference professionals” who identify themselves with the cooperative principles. This finding could also be evidenced by the recurrence of the words most mentioned by the interviewees when asked about the main feeling about the cooperative(s) with which they have a relationship: trust, security, gratitude, and satisfaction.

It is worth mentioning that the organizational reputation is intrinsically linked to the trust perception of those involved, especially regarding the predictability of behaviors and the organization’s future results (Lange, Lee, & Dai, 2011). Given this, it is appropriate to recall one of the statements of an interviewee (leader), who emphasizes that human resources are drivers of results and recognized as a competitive advantage factor in cooperative:

Where does the cooperative make a difference? It is not only in the product that I deliver; it is in the human service that I provide that is where we make a difference in the lives of our members and the community, using people to make a difference. I must have the technology and the products, but what makes the cooperative different [...] what adds immense value is the person behind the product.

The previous findings suggest that organizational reputation results from the organization’s ability to meet external expectations by drawing on relationships and experiences mediated by internal stakeholders. Interlocutors are professionals who mobilize internal resources efficiently to deliver quality products and services and attend to all the organizational and structural processes contemplated in the study by Fombrun et al. (2000).

For this to be possible, it is assumed that professionals must be trained, as can be seen in the statement of one of the interviewees: “[...] the added value that cooperative employees deliver is not free. It is earned through training and development interventions supported by the cooperative.” This positioning of one of the managers of the graduates contemplates and recognizes the importance of training at the operational levels, especially continuing education at the strategic level, so that cooperatives have an extremely dynamic capacity to constantly reinvent themselves in a highly demanding and competitive market, keeping the focus on their institutional image.

In this context, developing skills with a high level of abstraction and, in turn, strategic decisions can contribute significantly to the direction of the business, as the acquired knowledge is shared in the work environment. According to the assumptions of self-efficacy, the readiness for this level of development happens with individuals who perceive themselves as capable of honoring the commitments made to achieve goals.

All of these efforts are at the individual level and are transferred in value to team results and added to organizational results. The circularity that allows this process to be sustained happens through the counterpart of customers, cooperative members, partners, and employees, who attribute value to the relationship with the cooperatives since they identify with them.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

It was possible to identify several constituent elements of self-efficacy with content analysis from interviews with graduates, leaders, and followers; the descriptive analysis from the survey; and open-ended questions to increase the explanatory power of the macro analytical category (organizational reputation). Some of these self-efficacy elements were illustrated by the graduates with expressions such as: “I am not afraid to succeed,” “Once I accept the challenge, I will not give up,” or “I never thought I was not capable.” This perception is essential, as it is aligned with assumptions of self-efficacy.

These perceptions about individual attitudes and the moral commitment to honor the commitments assumed were validated by the other analysis groups (leaders and followers), which qualified the graduates as determined people with characteristics that enable them to face challenges without showing fear and who deliver the tasks delegated to them. In addition, the literature on self-efficacy has shown that high self-efficacy reinforces the perception of belief in achieving results, even in the face of challenging goals.

In view of the aforementioned, some reflections are presented below for the propositions defined in the theoretical foundation of this study.

Proposition 1: High self-efficacy contributes to establishing challenging goals.

Given the above, some reflections are presented for the propositions defined in the theoretical foundation of this study. In addition to establishing a direction, the goals have a propelling function. They generate excitement for knowledge and work as a thermometer of proximity to the objective, prolonging efforts related to executing tasks. Respondents referred to the master’s degree as a “very high goal,” “a step above,” or a “bigger step” due to the recognition that the master’s degree has a high level of cognitive and emotional requirements, with the need for a vast repertoire of skills.

The materialization of the high goal was admission to the master’s degree, an achievement of the employees who are most confident in their ability to succeed because they set the most challenging goals. In other words, those employees with high self-efficacy. The mediation of incentives or resource allocation for executing the plan and strategy design for the expected performance was evidenced in the educational trajectory of the graduates and is directly related to essential mechanisms of training effectiveness.

Given the above, it was possible to identify a positive influence of self-efficacy in establishing challenging goals.

Proposition 2: High self-efficacy provides competency development which influences organizational results.

Self-efficacy contributes to understanding individuals’ development process and can influence the performance of tasks, directing competencies, cognitive facilities, and behavior in a given context. For example, it is noticed that individuals with higher self-efficacy are more able to pursue a goal and persist in a task when compared to individuals with lower self-efficacy. The degree of self-efficacy, therefore, seems to be the result not only of personal characteristics and expectations but also a consequence of organizational support focused on professional development.

Data analysis revealed individual competency development through participation in the professional master’s program. However, according to the theoretical proposal of multilevel assessment by Sitzmann and Weinhardt (2019), the transfer of acquired individual competencies is considered an expected gain, directing individual performance and its interpersonal effects on organizational results.

The advancement of knowledge about cooperativism under the specific theoretical lens - one of the requirements of training at the graduate level - allowed a broader and more strategic view of the graduates, regardless of the time they had already worked in their respective cooperatives.

Considering that continuing education is one of the principles of cooperativism, the training of graduates through a professional master’s degree transformed the acquired competencies into strategic value. Furthermore, such competencies with a high level of abstraction suggest that self-efficacy influences organizational results, notably concerning the four competencies attributed to the master’s degree: overcoming challenges, self-confidence, learning how to learn, and methodology.

In this sense, there were significant signs that self-efficacy is a factor that contributes to the individual decision-making process related to the assumption of complex challenges, such as admission to the master’s degree. Thus, the belief that the master’s degree is a personal investment, concomitant with the moral commitment to meet cooperatives’ expectations, revealed a dynamic interaction between self-efficacy (individual level) and acquired competencies and organizational results (macro level).

Proposition 3: Self-efficacy stimulates individual and collective competency development, optimizing resource mobilization and improving organizational reputation.

The result of the content analysis showed important constituent elements at the individual level with regard to self-efficacy, which is not limited to the individual impacts of the graduates. On the contrary, as their convictions about their learning potential generate behavior related to knowledge transfer in the work environment, their actions mobilize resources and encourage other individuals to reflect on their actions. In this context, as good practices are incorporated into specific work relationships, they contribute to organizational results and especially to the institutionalization of such practices and reputation.

Especially in this study, the organizational reputation showed a high level, which may have been influenced by the fact that the largest number of respondents correspond to employees (approximately 50%). This finding is interesting since the specialized literature argues that the sum of image (external perceptions) and identity (internal perceptions) is an important aspect of organizational reputation composition.

One of the feelings with the highest incidence in the questionnaire was trust, reaching 95.6% of agreement and corroborated by the complementary interviews carried out. Reliability is an important factor, as it is based on personal judgments about past experiences and is related to positive expectations of future experiences, an essential factor for a cooperative environment where relationships are complex, especially between cooperative members and cooperatives.

Given the above, it has been concluded that the three propositions defined based on the specialized literature were corroborated in the analysis carried out in this study. This finding is important since it considers organizational reputation not only as a consequence of self-efficacy but also as a starting point for defining professional qualification parameters that are part of the cooperatives’ staff.

The illustration of this recurring circularity among the individual, interpersonal and macro levels can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Organizational reputation analysis model

When relating the three levels of analysis, it is possible to perceive, at the individual level, the influence of self-efficacy on setting challenging goals - in this, the entry into training at the graduate level. With this high-level training, competency development was observed in the transfer of the acquired knowledge to the work context, which was tangentially expressed through deliveries at the interpersonal level, notably concerning the following constituent elements: products and services, vision and leadership, work environment, social responsibility, and performance. Consequently, such deliveries are perceived by the different groups that maintain a direct relationship with the cooperatives, developing and strengthening bonds sustained by the institutional image and identity.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational reputation based on the contribution of the graduates of a professional master’s program in their respective cooperatives. As a starting point, the theoretical support was based on a multilevel model for measuring the results of training programs (Sitzmann & Weinhardt, 2019), considering the individual, interpersonal, and macro levels of analysis. Once the research data analysis was performed, it was possible to structure the evidence and answer the propositions and questions that guided the research question.

In general, it was possible to observe that self-efficacy was present in all levels of analysis proposed by the study. Considered a highly complex goal, the master’s program is recognized as a highly demanding challenge, whether physical, emotional, financial, and/or cognitive, constituting an attractive challenge for individuals with high self-efficacy who believe in their ability to succeed in this educational action.

As a mediator of thought and action, individual perceptions of self-efficacy were motivating elements for overcoming each of the obstacles in different ways: difficulty in adapting to a differentiated educational methodology, lack of time, reconciliation between family, academic and professional activities, and the need for fluency in another language for research purposes. As they have high self-efficacy, the graduates showed motivation and resilience in facing the challenges, using the new forms of learning and methodologies to structure thinking and transfer knowledge.

In this sense, self-efficacy was strengthened when confronted by various effectiveness indicators, showing that graduates contributed to better organizational results, increasing teams’ level of demand and proposing new work routines through more solid arguments in justifying their decisions. In addition, they also contribute to specific work areas concerning broader organizational objectives.

Regarding the limitations of the study, some points can be noted. First, the state of public calamity sparked by COVID-19 was a restrictive factor to the field of application and choice of differentiated techniques for data collection. It was, however, overcome with necessary adaptations to respect strict health protocols without losing methodological rigor.

Another point to be considered would be expanding the database for studying reputation since the SESCOOP/PR database was used exclusively. In addition, broadening the audience to reach other sources of experience could be fruitful in studying reputation.

Finally, envisioning study continuity, taking into account the theoretical gaps still existing on this complex subject, it is suggested to expand the perspectives, including indicators of training utilization (hours and amounts invested) and return on investment indicators, as proposed by (Sitzmann & Weinhardt, 2019), to relate with organizational reputation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to SESCOOP/PR for the financial support for developing the master’s thesis, which originated the article.

Thanks to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the financial support. Project: CNPq/SESCOOP Nº 007/2018.

• [Translated version] Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 Mar 2023
• Date of issue
  Jan-Feb 2023

History

• Received
  19 Jan 2022
• Accepted
  11 May 2022