Cooperative Governance in Alternative Economic Models
Summary
Cooperative governance refers to the systems of membership-based decision-making, ownership and control that distinguish cooperatives from investor-owned firms. In alternative economic models, cooperatives serve as vehicles for economic democracy, social solidarity and sustainable development. By embedding principles such as one-member-one-vote, equitable redistribution of surplus and collective stewardship of resources, these organisations aim to balance social, environmental and economic objectives. Recent scholarship has explored how cooperatives navigate inherent tensions between market competition and solidarity, how they embed democratic practices in complex operational contexts and how they resist or reverse tendencies to drift away from founding values. Case studies range from large, diversified groups in the Basque Country to mutual social enterprises and platform-based worker cooperatives. Globally, cooperative governance has been shown to foster resilience in times of crisis, to generate social capital within communities and to contribute to fairer labour relations. The practical applications of these models span agricultural networks, social care providers, digital platforms and international trade, offering transferable lessons on participatory structures, collective learning and adaptive strategies in varied institutional environments.
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Cooperative Governance in Alternative Economic Models publication trend
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Technical terms
Cooperative governance: The institutional arrangements and decision-making processes by which members of a cooperative share control, ownership and benefits.
Organizational democracy: A system in which all members of an organisation participate equally in defining goals, strategies and policies.
Solidarity paradox: The inherent contradiction between fostering cooperative solidarity and competing in market environments governed by profit incentives.
Performativity: The enactment of practices that bring into being the organisational structures and principles they claim to represent.
Degeneration/regeneration: The processes by which cooperatives lose adherence to founding principles and either further drift into conventional practices or recover and revitalise their original values.
References
- Problematizing the Cooperative Firm: A Marxian View on Paradoxes, Dialectics, and Contradictions. Journal of Management Studies (2024).
- Collective Capabilities for Organizational Democracy: The Case of Mutual Social Enterprises. British Journal of Management (2024).
- Strategy Performation to Avoid Degeneration: How producer cooperatives can achieve social and economic goals. Organization Studies (2023).
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