BOARD OF DIRECTOR ASSIGNMENTS

ROLE PLAYING OVERVIEW AND INSTRUCTIONS

Econ 332

1. ACTIVITY

Welcome to the REAL world!! Your enrollment in this class means that you have been elected to serve on the board of directors of a cooperative to which you belong as a member. As such, you have the opportunity, the challenge, and the responsibility of participating in making decisions and recommendations regarding various issues or case study situations that pertain to your cooperative. Three groups are involved in making decisions that pertain to the operation of your cooperative including members, management, and the board of directors. You and your fellow board members will play an especially important role in making strategic decisions that ultimately determine the scope of your cooperatives activities and their degree of success.

2. PURPOSE

By participating in this exercise, you will hopefully learn various lessons about decision making by a cooperative board of directors. In addition to enhancing your awareness about some of the different types of problems and issues that directors have to deal with, you will likely discover, for example, that 1) group decision making often involves give and take, compromise, and leadership, 2) real-world problems don't always have right or wrong answers, black or white solutions, because they typically require weighing the tradeoffs as well as comparing the advantages/disadvantages of alternatives, and 3) representative decision making may involve making decisions on the basis of what is best for a group rather than what is best for one as an individual. In addition, while serving on your board of directors, you will hopefully learn that 1) you must participate in order to contribute yet you should not attempt to dominate discussions, 2) you must respect the rights and opinions of others, and 3) you must allow and even encourage your fellow board members to express their opinions.

3. PROCEDURE

Your instructor will notify you as to which board of directors you have been elected. Your instructor will also give you a list of your fellow board members. Most boards will have about eight members, a fairly typical size for many local agricultural cooperatives. In our class, we will have approximately ten boards of directors.

You and your fellow board members will be competing against other students and their boards in this exercise for points (and possibly prizes) that should increase your understanding of the role of directors in cooperatives. Throughout the semester, each board will have the same set of problems, issues or case study situations to discuss. These case studies will represent actual, real-world situations that have faced co-op boards of directors (or at least analogous situations that have real-world implications for directors). Your board is to play the role of an actual board in each situation. This means that you are to discuss the pros and cons of alternative solutions or courses of action and then select the one that you think is the best. The packet of case studies that you receive contains case studies listed in the order that they are due, but not necessarily the order in which your board may want to initiate action on them.

Your board must, on the due date, be prepared to present both a written report and an oral report of its choice for each situation or assignment and the reasoning behind that choice. Assume that the audience for your board’s reports is the membership of your cooperative who are in attendance at your cooperative’s annual meeting. Included in each written report should be a copy of the minutes of the board meeting(s) where the assignment was dealt with. The minutes should include a record of directors present, time and location of meetings, actions taken, as well as a summary of the arguments for and against alternatives considered. Attached is a grading sheet that identifies specific items that will be used to determine your board’s score out of 100 points possible on each assignment.

Good luck! Learn a lot! Have fun!

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