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Abstract:
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The present study has the objectives to understand the organizational structure of Municipal Officer Savings Cooperative Ltd. and particularly to examine saving behavior and the factors influencing Saving Behavior of Municipal office Savings Cooperative Limited Member working at Municipal and Subdistrict Administrative Organization in Dok Kham Tai District, Phayao Province. The determinants of saving behavior in this study include the economic factor, the social factor, the marketing mix factor, and the benefits from cooperative organization. The information for the study is of both primary and secondary types. The primary information was collected by means of questionnaire from 204 samples of members of Municipal Officer Savings Cooperative who worked in various Tambon Municipality Offices and Tambon Administrative Organizations In Dok Khamtai District of Phayao Province. The analysis was performed based on the results of descriptive statistics including frequency and percentage, Likert scale rating of the importance of factors influencing saving behavior, and chi-square test (X2-test) of the relationship between personal factors and saving behavior. The personal factors for investigation are age, marital status, work position, year(s) of service, monthly income from primary occupation, number of household members, number of dependents, household expenditure, and the amount of savings.
On the organizational structure, the study found that the Municipal Officer Savings Cooperative, Limited, is operating with an Executive Committee, an internal auditor, advisors, a sub-committee on lending affairs, a sub-committee on rules, regulations, and procedural screening, a sub-committee on scholarship program for member’s offspring and welfare provision, a manager, an assistant manager, head of finance and accounting section, and head of implementation section. The cooperative provides its members saving service only in the form of special savings account and lending services in two forms namely emergency loan and general loan. Furthermore, it provides other welfare benefits for its members including accident /death benefits from both public disaster and from injury (by accident), and scholarship for member’s offspring for education from the first grade to bachelor’s degree level.
From the general background information, the cooperative members can be typically described as female, 35 – 45 years old, married, with bachelor’s degree education, working as officer at practitioner level, with more than 10 years of service, earning less than 20,000 baht monthly income from the main occupation and in most cases having no supplementary income nor debt burden, having 3 – 4 household members, mostly with one dependent, and spending 10,000 – 15,000 baht per month for household expenditure on such items as food, electricity, and public water supply. Most samples under study have been cooperative member for 11 -15 years and made their savings through the cooperative for 6 – 10 years for the purpose of securing finance for spending in time of emergency. Generally, they saved about 500 baht per month by direct deduction from payroll at the employing office and transfer the money for saving deposit at the cooperative, and each month they did not buy any cooperative’s share capital. Furthermore, they reported not using any lending services but having savings in other forms such as purchase of lotteries issued by the Government Savings Bank and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. In case of the need for borrowing, they mostly applied for loan in general loan category.
On the determinants of saving behavior of members of Municipal Officer Savings Cooperative, the findings revealed that the most important economic factor rated as highly important was the economic fluctuation. The most important social factor also rated as highly important was the welfare benefits that the members can get from the cooperative. The most influential marketing mix factor considered as highly important was the diversity of welfares given to the cooperative members. In terms of welfare benefits from the cooperative, the samples under study pointed out three elements that were equally important and rated as being at the highest important level, including public disaster benefit, death benefit, and scholarship for members’ offspring. On the relationship between personal background and savings, the study found that the amount of savings varies with the factors of age, marital status, work position, years of service, monthly income from primary occupation, number of household members, number of dependents, and household expenditure.
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