Social audit as a tool of management and protection of cooperative democracy

The article is devoted to an urgent problem of conservation of the principle of cooperative democracy in the management of modern consumer societies. Since a cooperative society is a democratic organization, which is under the constant supervision of its members, the fundamental cooperative principle is a democratic shareholders' control. The authors present the main stages of development of the cooperative movement in Russia, which illustrate the importance of democratic shareholders' control to preserve the basic ideas of cooperation. The performance results of consumer cooperation in Russia point to the fact that there is a need to transform traditional methods of bureaucratic control, which are focused on a retrospective assessment of the financial and material condition of cooperative societies and assume that financial indicators dominate among the monitored parameters. The urgency of the problems of revival of democratic shareholders' control in modern conditions is proved by the analysis of statistical information on the activities of the regional unions of the Siberian Federal District. The decrease in the number of shareholders is observed in the system of consumer cooperation in Russia, in the Siberian Federal District. The authors believe that the main reasonof the decrease in the number ofshareholders is an economic unattractiveness of cooperativemembership, which in turn is formedas a result ofthe lack ofsys-tematic andtransparent policyof economic participationof shareholdersin the activities ofthe consumer society.The lack ofaccounting methodsof economic participationof shareholdersdoes not allowthem to receivecooperativepaymentsdue toirregularities in thekeeping of personal accounts. Therefore thedivi-dendsonshare capital are not paid. It is obvious that thelack of reliable informationon the use ofcooperative ownershipandfinancial performancecreates obstacles toeffectivedemocraticshareholders' control. The authors suggest social audit to be aninstrument for the protectionof cooperativedemocracy, since it is its usecontributes toa comprehensive assessment ofsocial responsibility of a cooperative societytothe shareholders, employees and society. Thus, it is important to consider social audit in consumer cooperation as a form of external control, implemented by the shareholders, as well as a form of internal control by the Unions of Consumer Societies. The methods of social audit applied to solve problems of the democratic shareholders' control, should contribute to a comprehensive assessment of compliance with the principles of mass, openness, voluntariness, equality of members and with the policy of training and retraining and the level of economic participation of shareholders in the management.

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