The role of public relations practices in the success of cooperative managements: Kastamonu Village Development and Other Agricultural Cooperatives Association

Today, it is impossible for organizations to survive independently from their environment. For this reason, all organizations have to interact with their environment. Organizations that cannot communicate and interact with their environment cannot ensure their continuity. Like every organization, cooperatives need to communicate effectively with their target audience. This need makes it inevitable for cooperatives to implement public relations activities. Through public relations activities, cooperatives can introduce themselves and their activities to their target audience, learn the needs and expectations of their target audience, and thus achieve their organizational goals. For this reason, public relations activities play an important role in the managerial success of cooperatives. This thesis examines the public relations activities of Kastamonu Village Development and Other Agricultural Cooperatives Union. Face-to-face survey technique was applied in the data collection process. A total of 475 valid questionnaires were administered to cooperative members of Kastamonu Village Development and Other Agricultural Cooperatives Union. Six dimensions were created to examine the role of public relations activities in the managerial success of cooperatives. These dimensions are named as activities for members, corporate communication, positive impact, managerial success, public relations activities application and image, respectively. Within the scope of the study, 3 main hypotheses were examined. Frequency analyses and hypothesis tests were conducted on the gender, age, education level and duration of cooperative membership. As a result of the hypothesis tests, 3 hypotheses were confirmed.