COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN THE PERCEPTION OF MEMBERS

Cooperativism is a model of organization that has as its main objective the economic and social development, having in its principles the guidelines through which the cooperatives take their values to practice. The seven cooperative principles are: voluntary and free adhesion; democratic management by the cooperative members; economic participation of the cooperative members; autonomy and independence: education, training and information; cooperation between cooperatives and interest for the community. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the degree of adherence of the members of a free admission credit cooperative in Minas Gerais regarding the cooperative principles, according to the question that guided the work: what is the degree of adherence of the members regarding the cooperative principles? This work was carried out through the quantitative descriptive approach by means of a survey. The total population was 11,789 members. The subjects of the survey were the members, as it concerns the opinion of people who relate to the cooperative. The sample size was 373 members.