Measures of Prevention and Solution of Fraud Problems in Thailand’s Agricultural Cooperatives

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to propose the measures in preventing and solving fraud problems of agricultural cooperatives in Thailand by using mixed methodology. The study started with the qualitative research conducted by using in-depth interviews with key informants to find the causes of problem conditions and ways of preventing and solving fraud problems of agricultural cooperatives in Thailand. Data analysis was performed by using the content analysis. Subsequently, the results of the content analysis were used as a guideline for creating questionnaires for the quantitative research. Data were collected from 416 samples of cooperative inspectors, public cooperative auditors and the president of cooperative member group, by using the Yamane formula (Yamane, 1973). The errors were determined to be of 5 percent. The stratified random sampling was performed by using the provinces and the samples group as the criteria in the classification for the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) It was found from the results of the study that there were 4 key preventive measures against problems that were found in Thailand’s agricultural cooperatives, which included 1) the measure in building and developing an effective promoting, supporting and supervising system for the cooperatives, 2) the measure in creating efficient system for the supervision and internal audit of cooperatives, 3) the measure in specifying the policies, laws, regulations, and ethics for transparent operations; and 4) the measure in boosting cooperation among the cooperative movements to prevent fraud from happening. Aside from these, there were 2 main measures in solving the problem of fraud in the agricultural cooperatives in Thailand as follows: 1) the measure in dealing with offenders under the strict legal procedures; and 2) the measure in remedying the victims and relieving the severity of fraud problems. However, the concerned parties could also apply this for the policy making and could establish a system or develop an effective supervising system for agricultural cooperatives further.