Cooperative Entities Research Articles

Cooperative Enterprise as an Antimonopoly Strategy

After decades of neglect, antitrust is once again a topic of public debate. Proponents of reviving antitrust have called for abandoning the narrow consumer welfare model and embracing a broader set of objectives. One essential element that has been overlooked thus far is the ownership structure of the firm itself. The dominant model of investor-owned business and associated philosophy of shareholder wealth maximization exacerbate the pernicious effects of market power. In contrast, cooperative ownership models can mitigate the effects of monopoly and oligopoly and advance the interests of consumers, workers, small business owners, and citizens. The promotion of competition among large firms should be paired with support for democratic cooperation within firms. Antitrust law has had a complicated history and relationship with cooperative enterprise. Corporations threatened by cooperatives have used the antitrust laws to frustrate the growth of these alternative businesses. To insulate cooperatives from the antitrust threat, Congress has enacted exemptions to protect cooperative entities, notably a general immunity for farm cooperatives in the 1922 Capper-Volstead Act. As part of an agenda to tame corporate monopoly, all three branches of the federal government and the states should revisit these ideas and seek to protect and enable the cooperative model across the economy. While protections that farmers fought for a century ago may seem obsolete in an era of big-box retail and online platforms, matters of ownership design have at least as much relevance today and should be a part of the antimonopoly arsenal.

La Evolución Del Movimiento Cooperativo Desde Su Origen Hasta La Actualidad A Través De Su Máximo Exponente: La Sociedad Cooperativa

Cooperativism refers to the union of fellows for the benefit of the community. Cooperatives as social entities refer to those that form a group to reverse both employment and economic situation. Their focus is on the generation of jobs and the satisfaction of its members. In Europe, cooperativism has its appearance in the S. XIX as a result of the wave of dismissals that resulted to the industrial revolution. Majorly, the first cooperatives were made by professionals of the agrarian sector, until this present time where there are practically cooperatives in each economic sector. Due to its expansion, its values and ideology, there has been a broad legislative development. This began from its inception to this present day, and it involves the creation of the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) as an organization representative of this movement. This paper focuses on understanding the evolution of cooperativism which stems from its appearance as a term and mass social movement to this present day. For this present study, we used a research model framed in the qualitative paradigm and that was focused on descriptive aspects. This is in regards to both content analysis and comparative methodology. We extracted very enriching results as a result of an extensive and deep bibliographic search in different repositories and sources of information. It has allowed us to compile the main theoretical concepts that encompass cooperativism from its conceptual delimitation, history, and most outstanding milestones to the typology of cooperative entities, exporting values, legislative development, and recent business-level data.

Formation of the Civil-Military Cooperation During the Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the South-East of Ukraine

This article considers the condition of ensuring national security of Ukraine in situations of the armed conflict in some areas of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. It proves the relevance of implementation of civil-military cooperation. The paper provides the analysis of the theoretical basis, tasks and functions of civil-military cooperation. The article explores activities of civil-military cooperation entities in Ukraine. It defines that the current situation in the South-East of Ukraine shows that tasks of monitoring and forecasting civil environment, forming recommendations regarding mutual influence of civil and military’s acts have not been fully accomplished. The paper suggests using programmatic means of supporting decision making that were created on the basis of geoformation systems as a possible way of solving the problems.

PERLAKUAN AKUNTANSI PENDAPATAN DAN BEBAN BERBASIS SAK ETAP DAN IMPLIKASINYA PADA LAPORAN KEUANGAN KOPERASI KARYAWAN KARYA SAMPURNA PT. BANK MANDIRI

Cooperative is an association established by persons or legal entities of cooperatives that have limited economic ability, with the aim to improve the welfare of its members. Revenues and expenses are an important component of financial statements because different treatment of income and expenses will result in changes in the resulting financial statements. Financial Accounting Standards intended for cooperative entities are SAK ETAP. This study aims to determine the accounting treatment of income and expenses on Cooperative Employees Karya Sampurna PT. Bank Mandiri in accordance with SAK ETAP. The research method used in this thesis research is descriptive method whose purpose each data collected in the analysis and then drawn a conclusion and the type of research used is qualitative descriptive. The results obtained that the accounting treatment of income and expenses on Cooperative Employees Karya Sampurna PT. Bank Mandiri is in compliance with SAK ETAP.Keywords: Accounting treatment, income, expenses.

Problems of Coordination of International Cooperation in Fighting Organized Crime

The article analyzes the definition of ʽcoordination,ʽ identifies an organizational framework for coordination of international cooperation of entities intended to fight organized crime and specifies their role, as well as suggests the author’s own definition of coordination of international cooperation in fighting organized crime.

The Practice of Entrepreneurial Competence Development among Students of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin

Purpose – the purpose of the article is to diagnose determinants of the effective development of entrepreneurial competence in members of the MCSU academic community and to develop a concept of a tool used for that purpose. Design/Methodology/Approach – Polish and foreign literature was researched to find answers to the following questions: 1) What requirements are imposed on universities with regard to the development of entrepreneurial competence among students? 2) How should the effective education of adults be guaranteed? 3) What are the methodological bases for the realization of focus group interviews? After that, focus research was carried out among 43 students from 11 faculties of the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin to learn their opinions about: • The way the essence of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour are perceived, • conditions created by the University for entrepreneurial education and for the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, • factors that stimulate or block their entrepreneurship, • preferred methods of development of entrepreneurial competences. The obtained results of literature studies and focus interviews were used in order to develop the concept of an Entrepreneurship Academy or a complex program for the development of entrepreneurship in the academic community at the University. Findings – entrepreneurial competences are among the ones of key importance for the successful functioning of people in the society as well as in their personal and professional lives. There is an urgent need to develop them and universities play an important role in satisfying it. To guarantee the best effectiveness of didactic processes focusing on the development of the knowledge of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour to members of the academic community, education curriculums should be developed considering the needs and preferences of the interested parties. Education methods based on learning in action and through experience should also be used. Practical implications – the developed concept of the MCSU Entrepreneurship Academy is comprehensive and flexible. It is possible to be implemented in any school of higher education in full or in the form of its selected modules depending on the identified needs of the interested parties and financial resources available. Original value – schools of higher education have varied curriculums related to entrepreneurship, however, the MCSU Entrepreneurship Academy is an end-to-end tool based on the holistic approach and involving the cooperation of entities representing all components of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the socioeconomic vicinity. Article type – research paper, case study.

Las estrategias financieras y el patrimonio de las cooperativas de ahorro y crédito en un contexto de economia popular y solidaria

In the present research the financial strategies and the patrimonial increases of the savings and credit cooperatives of segment two of the Canton Ambato are analyzed, for which it was decided to study the financial strategies that obtained the greatest impact in the increase of the patrimony, financial indicators were applied to determine if the equity increased during the year 2015. This problem is affected in the profitability of cooperatives, thus reducing their competitiveness and ability to stay in the cooperative market. One of the most important indicators is the patrimonial sufficiency that relates the technical patrimony constituted and the assets and contingents weighted by risk, in which the law requires a minimum of 9% of this indicator to be maintained to support the institution's current and future operations. It was also analyzed whether the cooperatives comply with the regulations established by the Monetary and Financial Organic Code and the Law of Popular and Solidarity Economy for the strengthening of patrimony, utilities and irreparable legal reserve fund. We conclude that financial strategies have a significant impact on the assets of cooperatives, and propose an operational model for the financial strategies and the increment of the patrimony that will allow to fulfill all the objectives established by each cooperative entity.In the present research the financial strategies and the patrimonial increases of the savings and credit cooperatives of segment two of the Canton Ambato are analyzed, for which it was decided to study the financial strategies that obtained the greatest impact in the increase of the patrimony, financial indicators were applied to determine if the equity increased during the year 2015. This problem is affected in the profitability of cooperatives, thus reducing their competitiveness and ability to stay in the cooperative market. One of the most important indicators is the patrimonial sufficiency that relates the technical patrimony constituted and the assets and contingents weighted by risk, in which the law requires a minimum of 9% of this indicator to be maintained to support the institution's current and future operations. It was also analyzed whether the cooperatives comply with the regulations established by the Monetary and Financial Organic Code and the Law of Popular and Solidarity Economy for the strengthening of patrimony, utilities and irreparable legal reserve fund. We conclude that financial strategies have a significant impact on the assets of cooperatives, and propose an operational model for the financial strategies and the increment of the patrimony that will allow to fulfill all the objectives established by each cooperative entity.

Cooperation and cheating as innovation: insights from cellular societies.

The capacity to innovate is often considered a defining feature of human societies, but it is not a capacity that is unique to human societies: innovation occurs in cellular societies as well. Cellular societies such as multicellular bodies and microbial communities, including the human microbiome, are capable of innovation in response to novel opportunities and threats. Multicellularity represents a suite of innovations for cellular cooperation, but multicellularity also opened up novel opportunities for cells to cheat, exploiting the infrastructure and resources of the body. Multicellular bodies evolve less quickly than the cells within them, leaving them vulnerable to cellular innovations that can lead to cancer and infections. In order to counter these threats, multicellular bodies deploy additional innovations including the adaptive immune system and the development of partnerships with preferred microbial partners. What can we learn from examining these innovations in cooperation and cheating in cellular societies? First, innovation in social systems involves a constant tension between novel mechanisms that enable greater size and complexity of cooperative entities and novel ways of cheating. Second, cultivating cooperation with partners who can rapidly and effectively innovate (such as microbes) is important for large entities including multicellular bodies. And third, multicellularity enabled cells to manage risk socially, allowing organisms to survive in challenging environments where life would otherwise be impossible. Throughout, we ask how insights from cellular societies might be translated into new innovations in human health and medicine, promoting and protecting the cellular cooperation that makes us viable multicellular organisms.This article is part of the themed issue 'Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies'.

COOPERATIVES AS ONE OF THE FORMS OF THE SOCIAL MARKET ECONOMY

The aim of the paper was to show the value of social activities in the age of globalization of markets and to demonstrate that businesses of this type are needed in the economy. The article is a theoretical speculation based on of the authors’ own observations as well as on the opinions of cooperatives and scientists. Despite a decrease in interest in the Polish cooperative sector, its affiliates represent a strong association represented by 8 million members and about 2 thousand of cooperative entities. The united nature of the cooperative and the dedication of its members place those enterprises in the social economy. These entities proved to be able to effectively meet the new and existing needs of society.

Markov Task Network: A Framework for Service Composition under Uncertainty in Cyber-Physical Systems

In novel collaborative systems, cooperative entities collaborate services to achieve local and global objectives. With the growing pervasiveness of cyber-physical systems, however, such collaboration is hampered by differences in the operations of the cyber and physical objects, and the need for the dynamic formation of collaborative functionality given high-level system goals has become practical. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer automation and management model for cyber-physical systems. This models the dynamic formation of collaborative services pursuing laid-down system goals as an ontology-oriented hierarchical task network. Ontological intelligence provides the semantic technology of this model, and through semantic reasoning, primitive tasks can be dynamically composed from high-level system goals. In dealing with uncertainty, we further propose a novel bridge between hierarchical task networks and Markov logic networks, called the Markov task network. This leverages the efficient inference algorithms of Markov logic networks to reduce both computational and inferential loads in task decomposition. From the results of our experiments, high-precision service composition under uncertainty can be achieved using this approach.

Left/right hand segmentation in egocentric videos

Wearable cameras allow people to record their daily activities from a user-centered (First Person Vision) perspective. Due to their favorable location, wearable cameras frequently capture the hands of the user, and may thus represent a promising user-machine interaction tool for different applications. Existent First Person Vision methods handle hand segmentation as a background-foreground problem, ignoring two important facts: i) hands are not a single “skin-like” moving element, but a pair of interacting cooperative entities, ii) close hand interactions may lead to hand-to-hand occlusions and, as a consequence, create a single hand-like segment. These facts complicate a proper understanding of hand movements and interactions. Our approach extends traditional background-foreground strategies, by including a hand-identification step (left-right) based on a Maxwell distribution of angle and position. Hand-to-hand occlusions are addressed by exploiting temporal superpixels. The experimental results show that, in addition to a reliable left/right hand-segmentation, our approach considerably improves the traditional background-foreground hand-segmentation.

Holonic and multi-agent technologies for service and computing oriented manufacturing

This special feature aims at shedding light on new emerging holonic and multi-agent systems operating in a service-and computing oriented manufacturing environment, using the latest ICT technologies such as service-orientation, mobile agents, Web-and Cloud services, virtualization, big data and analytics to name a few. Industrials are seeking for models and solutions that are not only able to provide efficient overall production performance, but also to face reactively a growing set of unpredicted events. The demand for large scale industrial systems running in complex and even chaotic environments requires the consideration of new paradigms and technologies that provide flexibility, robustness, agility and responsiveness. Holonic systems are, actually by definition, targeting challenges that include coping with the heterogeneous nature of manufacturing systems and their on-line interactive nature in combination with competitive pressures. Multi-agent systems is a suitable implementing approach to address these challenge by offering an alternative way to design control systems, based on the decentralization of control functions over distributed autonomous and cooperative entities. Moreover, virtualization of manufacturing execution system workloads offers a set of design and operational advantages to enterprises, the most visible being improved resource utilization and flexibility of the overall solution. At the manufacturing execution system level, cloud computing adoption refers mainly to virtualization of MES workloads. While MES implementations are different and usually depend directly on the actual physical shop floor layout, the general MES functions are aligned with the set of functions defined by ISA-95.03 specification. To achieve high levels of productivity growth and agility to market changes, manufacturers will need to leverage Big Data sets to drive efficiency across the networked enterprise. There is need for a framework allowing the development of manufacturing cyber physical systems that include capabilities for complex event processing and Big Data analytics, which are expected to move the manufacturing domain closer to digital transformation and cloud services within the contextual enterprise. On the other hand, service orientation is emerging at multiple organizational levels in enterprise business, and leverages technology in response to the growing need for greater business integration, flexibility and agility of manufacturing enterprises. Close related to IT infrastructures of Web Services, the Service Oriented Enterprise Architecture represents a technical architecture, a business modelling concept, an integration source and a new way of viewing units of control within the enterprise. Business and process information systems integration and interoperability are feasible by considering the customized product as active controller of the enterprise resources – thus providing consistency between material and informational flows. The areas of Service Oriented Computing and Multi-agent Systems are getting closer, both trying to deal with the same kind of environments formed by loose-coupled, flexible, persistent and distributed tasks. An example is the new approach of Service Oriented Multi-agent Systems (SoMAS).

Typology and Effects of Co-opetition in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Evidence from the Chinese Home Appliance Industry. 供应链关系中竞合分类及其影响：来自中国家电业的实证研究

Building on the co-opetition perspective, this study takes a unified approach to examine relationship benefits and transaction costs in buyer–supplier relationships. We argue that buyer–supplier vertical dyads fall into one of four distinct co-opetition types based on their respective degrees of cooperation and competition. Each co-opetition situation then corresponds to unique levels of relationship benefits and transaction costs. A sample of 225 supplier–buyer dyads from the Chinese home appliance industry confirms that competition has a positive effect on transaction costs and a negative effect on relationship benefits, while cooperation stimulates greater relationship benefits but affects transaction costs mainly at low competition levels. The results advance prior research on buyer–supplier relationships and co-opetition and offer valuable avenues for future research. 摘要 基于竞合的观点，本文采用了一个整合的模型对供应链关系中的关系收益和交易成本进行了研究。本文认为，依据双方合作和竞争程度的不同，买卖双方间的交易关系可以划分为四种不同的竞合关系类型，且每种竞合类型分别对应不同的关系收益和交易成本水平。利用来自中国家电行业225对买卖双方的配对样本，本文发现，买卖双方间的竞争对交易成本有正向作用，对关系收益有负面影响；而双方间的合作会促进关系收益的提高，但只在竞争水平较低时，合作才会对交易成本产生影响。本文研究发展了以往关于买卖双方关系和竞合的相关文献，并指明了有价值的未来研究发展方向。

China's patterns of international technological collaboration 1976–2010: a patent analysis study

This study focuses on the trajectories and patterns of China's international collaborations over the period 1976–2010, using patent statistics and association analysis methods. The results identify those government policies that have significantly encouraged changes in the scale and scope of China's collaborations since 1997. The USA and Taiwan are major international collaborators with China, and the top cooperative entities are large-scale multi-national firms, which specialise in production, sales research and development of information or electronics technology; in contrast, universities and research institutions have a negligible presence in international collaborative patenting. This study finds that although China has developed significant international collaborative networks since the 1990s, it still needs to extend these ties to an even greater range of international partners and establish a broader scope of research interests.

Las NIIF y su impacto en las cooperativas en Colombia a diciembre 31 de 2011

Este artículo presenta una investigación en la que se evaluó el efecto de aplicar la Norma Internacional de Contabilidad (NIC 32) sobre instrumentos financieros (IAS por su sigla en inglés), a los aportes sociales reconocidos y revelados por las entidades cooperativas en Colombia a diciembre 31 de 2011. Para ello, se identifican los siguientes elementos del estado financiero de balance general: pasivos, patrimonio, capital social y capital mínimo irreductible. Con el análisis de lo anterior se pretendió contestar los siguientes interrogantes: ¿Cuál es el efecto de la aplicación de las NIC 32 en la estructura financiera de las cooperativas, sobre los aportes sociales, conforme a los lineamientos del estándar internacional (IAS 32) de instrumentos financieros? ¿Qué acciones deben realizar para minimizar el efecto de aplicar la norma de instrumentos financieros a los aportes sociales? Para la investigación se tomó una muestra de 187 entidades cooperativas del sector financiero y 173 del sector real que reportaron información a la Confederación Colombiana de Cooperativas (Confecoop) que corresponde al reporte obligatorio que estas deben hacer a la Superintendencia de la Economía Solidaria (Supersolidaria). Se logró determinar el impacto que sufriría la estructura financiera de las entidades cooperativas, en su componente capital social y pasivos, al aplicar NIIF sobre instrumentos financieros.

Nasal drug delivery.

The nasal cavity has for more than three decades been widely explored as a potential alternative route to oral or parenteral administration for systemically active drugs. The nasal route has shown remarkable advantages that include a rapid and high systemic availability, avoidance of first pass metabolism by the liver, and the possibility of targeting drugs directly from the nasal cavity to the brain [1, 2]. Considerable knowhow and data have been accumulated over the years from investigational work carried out by various excellent research groups in academia and industry. New nasal delivery carriers and emerging technologies have been used for product design and efficient clinical translation to nasal medicines. The nasal route for systemic administration is attractive in many therapeutic areas where a rapid onset of action is required, e.g., pain, erectile dysfunction, frigidity, migraine, seizures, insomnia, panic attacks, Parkinson rigidity, hot flushes, emesis, Alzheimer or MS attacks, and cardiovascular events. An increasing number of small molecules are being marketed as nasal products such as Zomig® (zolmitriptan), Imitrex® (sumatriptan), and Stadol NS (butorphanol tartrate) for migraine treatment, Aerodiol® (estradiol hemihydrate) for menopausal syndrome treatment, PecFent® and Instanyl® (fentanyl) for severe pain treatment, and Nicorette® (nicotine) for smoking cessation [3]. With this growing number of applications, the US market of intranasal drug products is expected to reach US$5.2 billion by 2017 [4]. It is noteworthy that most of the marketed products are based on molecules sufficiently lipophilic to enable therapeutic levels of the drug to reach the systemic circulation, thus requiring no nasal absorption enhancers. Despite the obvious advantages of intranasal drug delivery, the nasal cavity presents a number of limitations for drug absorption, including low intrinsic permeability for some drugs, such as hydrophilic molecules, peptides, proteins, and nucleotides, rapid mucociliary clearance, and enzymatic degradation [1, 2]. In order to achieve efficient and safe intranasal drug products, a number of strategies for overcoming nasal delivery barriers can be applied. In the design of a nasal product, three main cooperative entities should be taken in consideration: the drug, the delivery carrier, and the administration device. The factors to be considered in the design and development of an efficient nasal product, related to these three components, are schematically presented as a three-lobe fleur-de-lys in Fig. 1. Several important morphological and physiological constraints on nasal drug delivery including limited volume of administration requiring high drug potency or mucosal enzymatic drug degradation should be kept in mind when formulating new nasal products. Also, the key properties required from drug candidates for development of successful intranasal products would be potency, lipophilicity, and water solubility. The nasal delivery of hydrophilic or high molecular weight drugs would be in need of a nasal absorption promoter in order for the drug to be transported across the nasal membrane in sufficient quantity for therapeutic use. Innovative strategy approaches to design efficient nasal delivery systems for specific drugs are currently in various stages of research and development. These include new nasal enhanced delivery technologies, design of carriers that impede drug degradation by mucosal enzymes, modulation E. Touitou (*) Institute for Drug Research, School of Pharmacy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91120, Israel e-mail: touitou@cc.huji.ac.il

Accounting and Accountability of Eastern Highlands Indigenous Cooperative Reporting

Using historical, geographical and financial material, coupled with observation, narrative and textual analyses, this case-based paper considers the reporting milieu of three forms of Indigenous Eastern Highlands cooperative in Papua New Guinea: a business development cooperative, a financial cooperative and a women's cooperative. This paper seeks to identify ways in which Western and Traditional reporting are used in extant reporting practices of Eastern Highlands cooperatives. It appears that both the business development cooperative and the financial cooperative steered their reporting towards the Western reporting model with mixed success in its links with the localism of their membership base. The women's cooperative, which is registered but yet to start operations, has significant challenges ahead particularly in the areas of reporting, accountability and establishing itself as a going concern. A remarkable implication from this study is to discover the movement of Traditional ways of understanding to more Western ways by linking managerial accountability with socialising forms of accountability. Although the cooperative entity model has generally not fared well in the Eastern Highlands, it is still warmly supported by government officials and locals as an entity which will empower low-income workers in rural communities.

Behaviour-mediated group size effect constrains reproductive decisions in a social insect

The formation of cooperative entities between lower-level units is characterized by increasing complexity. Apart from the degree of cooperation, social complexity is determined by the number of cooperative individuals. Previous studies have considered the relationships between group size and traits affecting inclusive fitness, such as reproductive efficiency. In social insects, little is known about the conversion of resources into offspring relative to colony size. In the present study, we addressed the importance of worker numbers for the production of queens and workers, and investigated the mechanisms that could affect larval development in the ant Aphaenogaster senilis. In this species, if the current queen dies, replacement queens are reared from the totipotent diploid larvae. We found that the number of workers constrained reproductive decisions, since the production of queens was lower in small than in large groups. The number of larvae also limited the success of queen replacement when associated with a small group size. Rearing queens requires an overhead that small worker groups cannot afford. These effects derived from a limitation in the realization of tasks at the group level. The investment in foraging rather than nursing behaviour predicted the production of queens. We tested whether egg-laying workers in queenless nests increased queen production. Although oophagy was likely to occur, the eggs did not affect larval development. Our results suggest that the larval fate does not depend on direct interactions between larvae and workers, but rather relies on collective cooperative performance at the colony level.

Social Cooperatives in Greece. Introducing New Forms of Social Economy and Entrepreneurship

Abstract: In this article, we investigate on the historical and civic foundations, along with emerging potentials of social cooperatives in Greece. Constituting the most innovative actor of social economy in the country, currently introduced institutional forms of social cooperatives enhance an already plural and vibrant field of not-for-profit activity, which was regrettably left to stagnate under political patronage and structural deficiencies. The introduction of Social Entrepreneurial Cooperatives by Law 4019/2011 and the explicit recognition of social economy for the first time, provide for a decisive jumpstart toward a viable structuration of the field. Along with a concise theorization on the concepts of social economy and social enterprise, a (highly practical for non-Greek speaking readers) integrated register of cooperative entities, cooperative legislation and auditing authorities in Greece is annexed.

Research on Industry-University-Institute Cooperation Innovation in China from Perspective of Ambidexterity Theory

From view of ambidexterity theory, this paper studied the base, impetus and characteristics for industry-university-institute cooperation entity to achieve ambidexterity crossing boundaries, and discussed the causes and obstacles of ambidexterity ability construction in Industry-University-Institute Cooperation. We found that there should be distinct knowledge process and ambidextrous mode in China different cooperation forms and if industry-university-institute cooperation entities explored comparative advantages of each other, they should supply suitable factors according to different ambidextrous mode.