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Abstract
In this article we study the cases of two credit unions, members of the
Caisses Populaires Acadiennes, a cooperative movement operating in the
francophone communities of New Brunswick (Canada). The first, Néguac,
is located in a rural environment with important economic challenges. The
second, Moncton-Beauséjour, is located in a very prosperous economic environment.
These two credit unions have the additional characteristic of
having experienced a merger in the past few years. We find that the role of
management greatly differs from that of community’s expectations. In an
urban setting, competition is fiercer, management can focus more on its
credit union’s operations and is less scrutinized for its contribution to
community. In a rural setting, parochial considerations are important, as are
the credit union’s contributions to various community projects. In both
cases, the personal ties between employees and clients are very important
social assets for the credit unions. Our study shows that even with the economic
pressures justifying mergers and the re-engineering of activities,
governance practices solidly rooted in the community remain important and
tend to be preserved. Several facts reflect the influence of social cohesion
on governance in a context of rationalization (mergers and re-engineering).
This being said, we see signs that these social roots of governance evolve
according to a widening of the territory of the reference community, possibly
leading to a weakening of the links between governance and the
parochial community and a strengthening of the links between governance
and the province’s francophone community.