Multi-stakeholder Cooperatives Research Articles

Learning from Cooperatives to Strengthen Economic Bicameralism

Bicameral firms can generate societal benefits both directly, by granting representatives of labor investors voice in shaping firm decision-making, and more indirectly, by serving as a transition phase from capital investor–owned firms to worker cooperatives. However, there is room to augment these benefits by leveraging insights from research on cooperatives. This article draws lessons from three types of cooperatives—traditional worker cooperatives, multistakeholder cooperatives, and union cooperatives—to help refine Ferreras's proposal for bicameral firms. First, bicameral firms should offer labor investors more opportunities to participate in firm governance and hold their representatives to account. Second, they should create robust channels for other stakeholders to influence firm decision-making. Third, they should carefully delineate the role of labor unions vis-à-vis the Chamber of Representatives of the Labour Investors. These refinements will better position bicameral firms to achieve their direct benefits and facilitate subsequent transitions to worker cooperatives.

Reducing the Risk of Co-Optation in Alternative Food Networks: Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives, Social Capital, and Third Spaces of Cooperation

Farming cooperatives are organisations fundamentally based on social capital. However, the neoliberal and globalisation turn in the food system have led to the economisation of agricultural cooperatives as their main objective and criteria for evaluating their performance, and to a retreat from their participation in the wider cooperative movement. Nevertheless, new models of cooperation may provide a method to divert from this neoliberalisation trend by promoting social capital and mutual learning amongst different actors committed to a transition to sustainable food systems. This paper applies the anthropological concept of third spaces to examine the case of multistakeholder cooperatives. This type of food and farming cooperatives are composed of a diverse membership groups (e.g., producers, consumers, coordinators, buyers, etc). A nuanced analysis of these cooperatives’ capacity to generate social capital, and more specifically to blur the boundaries between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital, is presented. Evidence from five case studies suggests that multistakeholder cooperatives that remain at the border of their game, operating in both real and symbolic third spaces, are more likely to be based on and reproduce different types of social capital as well as social and environmental sustainability, while in turn reducing the risk of co-optation of their transformative practices.

Inside out, outside in: “supporting members” in multi-stakeholder cooperatives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine multi-stakeholder cooperatives (MSCs), a relatively new and understudied type of cooperative, by focusing on the impact of a new member status: the “supporting member.” Supporting members are included in the ownership structure, participate in the decision-making process and contribute to the share capital without being formally defined as users of the cooperative’s services, an important disruption to the traditional cooperative venture. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 30 members (i.e. founders, managers, board members and employees) of 14 MSCs located in the Canadian province of Québec. Findings This study suggests that including supporting members in the cooperative venture impacts the three core features of cooperatives, which are traditionally user-owned, user-controlled and user-benefiting. Despite supporting members’ positive contributions to an MSC’s development and success, the inclusion of such members generates management challenges and organizational paradoxes. Social implications The inclusion of supporting members allows MSCs to become an experiment in “stakeholder democracy” and a space of negotiation between organizations, citizens and institutions, as MSCs represent and embody some of the community’s needs and desires. Originality/value This study constitutes an original contribution to paradox literature, as it describes the specific upward and downward spirals related to the inclusion of supporting members, highlights innovative responses to these paradoxes and extends understandings of cooperatives as hybrid organizations entangled in bundles of paradoxes.

The Comparative Advantages of Single and Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives: Reflections for a Research Agenda

Multi-stakeholding is a way to share, or democratise, decision-making power among stakeholders within organisations. Analysis, however, has not fully considered the role of this form of private governance. This paper builds on the observation of past and recent governance experiences in cooperative firms, where sharing decision-making power was associated with single stakeholdership. Though single stakeholdership seemed to be the preferred solution so far, recently multi-stakeholder governance has become more prominent also in cooperatives. In light of this evidence, this paper has three aims. The first is to set out some of the theoretical arguments for and against multi-stakeholder governance, to look at examples of multi-stakeholder models in practice, and to generate from this a set of research questions. A useful distinction to assess how multi-stakeholdership can be applied in practice is between ownership and strategic control. We then use this distinction to present examples taken from the experiences of Eroski (the big Iberian retailer), iCoop (the Korean cooperative that brings together farmers and consumers), and Italian social cooperatives, which place the desirability of multi-stakeholding as one of their constitutional features. Our conclusions emphasise the necessity of improving this field of enquiry by outlining a research agenda on multi-stakeholder cooperatives.

The Comparative Advantages of Single and Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives

When co-operatives were first invented, it was assumed their membership would be limited to one type of user. The Rochdale Pioneers favoured consumers, and employee representation was deliberately limited to a set percentage of board members. Similarly, Schulze Delitsch and Raiffeisen privileged farmers, Buchez workers, insurance mutuals those who are insured, and so on. Recently, Italian social co-operatives have developed a different model in which all the relevant stakeholders become members: those who are cared for, the carers, the workers, and volunteers. Also, occasionally dual stakeholder co-operatives have been designed. Eroski, the big retailer located in the Iberian peninsula, has both consumers and workers in membership, and iCoop in Korea has both consumers and farmers. This paper has two aims, to set out some of the theoretical arguments for and against multi-stakeholder governance, to look at examples of multi-stakeholder models in practice, and to generate from this a set of research questions.

Sustaining Library Publishing Through Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives

Sustaining Library Publishing Through Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives

Going back to go forwards? From multi-stakeholder cooperatives to Open Cooperatives in food and farming

Many authors have proposed cooperatives as one of the preferred governance structures for realising alternative food systems, being recommended both in farming and also downstream at consumer level. However, recommendations for the cooperative model still draw dividing line between producer and consumer cooperatives. As opposed to conventional agricultural cooperatives (ACs) made up of farmer members only, the multi-stakeholder model brings together producers, consumers and/or restaurateurs under one single enterprise. This paper analyses multi-stakeholder cooperatives’ (MSCs) potential to recreate more sustainable food flows between rural and urban areas and to overcome the limitations of conventional farmer cooperatives focused more on economic than social and environmental benefits. As part of this research, historical data from cooperative archives is used to look at the history and early attempts of multi-stakeholder cooperation in food and farming. Additionally, current supporting evidence from Spain and UK, in the context of European food policy frameworks, is also presented. A four-fold proposal for open cooperatives is discussed and applied to the analysis of the case studies in the framework of global transformative networks and alliances. The introduction of different types of members seems to both complicate and enrich the cooperative mission, both theoretically and in practice. Their networks with other social movements reveal how the MSCs presented are trying to change, rather than adapt to the market economies they struggle to survive in. The findings suggest MSCs in food and farming are striving to achieve more-than-economic benefits and are moving into the arena of the open and pro-commons economy and other global social movements.

Cooperatives and alternative food networks in Italy. The long road towards a social economy in agriculture

In the context of a special issue of the Journal of Rural Studies on more-than-economic motivations for farmers’ cooperation, this article aims to analyse the tensions and contending views of the cooperative movement in Italy with special attention to the agricultural sector and to the emergence of the new model of social cooperatives in the last decades of the 20th century. We interpret this emergence and its codification in law as the decoupling of more-than-economic motivations of cooperation from the mainstream Italian cooperative sector and their reinstatement in a new, but separate model of social cooperation more closely linked to community- and solidarity-oriented initiatives.The presence of institutional tensions and frictions hints at the fact that cooperatives have a multi-faced nature expressed in the not always easy co-existence of a cooperative economy and a cooperative movement. After the II World War, as Italian cooperatives in general and particularly agricultural cooperatives moved towards a productivist model and a ‘competitive market’ paradigm, the more-than-economic aspects have continued to inspire movements for social and community economies. In the 1990s the social economy project was appropriated but somehow ‘sanitized’ by the cooperative movement through the legally sanctioned establishment of social cooperatives and their confinement to specific sections within national cooperative federations. Later on, while the emergence of social cooperatives has had little influence on the functioning and orientation of traditional agricultural cooperatives and federations, the reinstatement of a social function for agriculture has taken place at the much more fluid interface between social cooperation, on the one hand, and civic agriculture movements rooted in alternative food networks and community-oriented initiatives, on the other. It is only recently that the cooperative movement has tried catch up with the new paradigms of alternative agriculture and rural development through the experimentation at regional level of the cooperative di comunità (community cooperatives), that operate to re-affirm the role of multifunctional and multi-stakeholder cooperatives in rural/territorial development.

Agricultural cooperatives in netchains

Abstract This special issue of the Journal on Chain and Network Science on ‘Agricultural cooperatives in netchains’ includes new research on three research themes: (1) explanation of why are cooperatives particularly important in certain food netchains; (2) willingness of farmers to invest in their cooperative’s netchain; and (3) the role of ambidexterity in the emergence of multi-stakeholder cooperatives. The issue is organized into six papers; one editorial and five research papers. The findings reported in this issue inform scholarly work on agricultural cooperatives through multiple theoretical lenses and empirical approaches. They also have important managerial and public policy implications.

Stakeholder roles for fostering ambidexterity in Sub-Saharan African agricultural netchains for the emergence of multi-stakeholder cooperatives

Abstract The Sub-Saharan African smallholder agricultural sector faces multiple and usually complex challenges, which can potentially be overcome by collective action. Smallholder farmers and other value chain stakeholders can tackle temporal, structural and contextual challenges by joining multi-level innovation networks to benefit collectively from shared information, knowledge, improved capacities and economies of scale in a process of innovation. Ambidexterity is a capability of innovation networks to balance exploration and exploitation dynamics in an innovation process, and is applicable at multiple levels: individuals, leaders, champions, teams and clusters. In the paradigm of open innovation, these levels become intertwined in hybrid social structures of innovation netchains. The objective of this paper is to describe the roles and identify the stakeholders that play those roles in an innovation process. We present case studies on farmer groups who participate in collective action and we compare multi-stakeholder platforms with other configurations of actors that tackle challenges in potato netchains in three Sub-Saharan African countries. We track and analyse innovation trajectories for six cases adapting netchain analysis techniques linking roles with the challenges faced at particular stages of each innovation trajectory. We find three management designs for fostering exploration and exploitation: (1) exploratory or exploitative management designs for small innovation networks; (2) exploitative management designs for larger networks; and (3) ambidextrous management designs for multi-stakeholder networks. Traditional roles played by managers are identified to manage exploration and exploitation in an ambidextrous way, but also evidence of roles of civil society actors facilitating collective action for the emergence of multi-stakeholder cooperatives. Since ambidexterity is about dynamism, we identified three types of mobility to be fostered when tackling challenges in an innovation process: (1) mobility-dynamism of the innovation process over time; (2) structural-knowledge mobility in innovation networks; and (3) boundary mobility.

Cooperatives and Alternative Food Systems Initiatives — and More

Cooperatives and Alternative Food Systems Initiatives — and More

Historical Tensions, Institutionalization, and the Need for Multistakeholder Cooperatives

First paragraphs: In Democratizing a Rural Economy, Mooney (2004) suggests that for future generations, social scientists may need to give some greater emphasis to bequeathing not only a sustainable environment, but also institutions that can set a forum for democratic struggle and voice. As economic entities, agricultural cooperatives may be among the few institutions in rural areas retaining a semblance of economic democratic governance. However, institutionalization processes have left many of these co-ops in a challenged position to sustain their own democratic ethos. The nature of these losses is difficult to understand without historical texture and outside a tension frame of reference. This essay will define co-op structure in a manner that specifies some of these tensions and their historical context and pressures, and make suggestions for a more inclusive and possibly more resilient cooperative alternative in the form of multistakeholder cooperatives. This latter organizational form may be able to set a community development template for addressing various social, economic, and ecological needs, with a more inclusive and hopefully enduring democratic organization....

Worldwide Regulation of Co-Operative Societies - An Overview

A short survey of such a vast subject matter cannot be complete. It remains a reasoned but arbitrary collection of ideas, data, facts and figures, biased by the personal experience of the author and his access to sources, inevitably leaving gaps. In the first part of the paper, the “co-operative society” as a legal pattern is defined and distinguished from other legal forms. In the second part, an overview is given of the different concepts of co-operatives, varying considerably from one country to another and even within countries. The main part of this paper deals with describing legal patterns of co-operative societies from different perspectives: (a) by origin, (b) by type of co-operative and (c) by continent. A special chapter is dedicated to innovations, e. g. appropriate legal technology, trends to develop supra-national ooperative law and in new fields: multi-stakeholder co-operatives and social cooperatives as part of Social Economy. Conclusions are drawn regarding international guidelines for good co-operative legislation around a common core – the Statement of Co-operative Identity of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) – as contained in the UN Guidelines of 2001 aimed at creating a supportive environment for the development of co-operatives and the International labour Organization (ILO) Recommendation 193 of 2002 for the promotion of co-operatives. A review of past experience highlights the critical points identified as benchmarks, obstacles and trends of the future work of law-makers dealing with co-operative legislation.

The generation and re-generation of social capital and enterprises in multi-stakeholders social cooperative enterprises: a system dynamic approach

Theories on social capital and on social entrepreneurship have mainly highlighted the attitude of social capital to generate enterprises and to foster good relations between third sector organizations and the public sector. This paper considers the social capital in a specific third sector enterprise; here, multi-stakeholder social cooperatives are seen, at the same time, as social capital results, creators and incubators. In the particular enterprises that identify themselves as community social enterprises, social capital, both as organizational and relational capital, is fundamental: SCEs arise from but also produce and disseminate social capital. This paper aims to improve the building of relational social capital and the refining of helpful relations drawn from other arenas, where they were created and from where they are sometimes transferred to other realities, where their role is carried on further (often in non-profit, horizontally and vertically arranged groups, where they share resources and relations). To represent this perspective, we use a qualitative system dynamic approach in which social capital is measured using proxies. Cooperation of volunteers, customers, community leaders and third sector local organizations is fundamental to establish trust relations between public local authorities and cooperatives. These relations help the latter to maintain long-term contracts with local authorities as providers of social services and enable them to add innovation to their services, by developing experiences and management models and maintaining an interchange with civil servants regarding these matters. The long-term relations and the organizational relations linking SCEs and public organizations help to create and to renovate social capital. Thus, multi-stakeholder cooperatives originated via social capital developed in third sector organizations produce new social capital within the cooperatives themselves and between different cooperatives (entrepreneurial components of the third sector) and the public sector. In their entrepreneurial life, cooperatives have to contrast the working drift, as a result of which only workers remain as members of the cooperative, while other stakeholders leave the organization. Those who are not workers in the cooperative are (stake)holders with weak ties, who are nevertheless fundamental in making a worker's cooperative an authentic social multi-stakeholders cooperative. To maintain multi-stakeholder governance and the relations with third sector and civil society, social cooperatives have to reinforce participation and dialogue with civil society through ongoing efforts to include people that provide social proposals. We try to represent these processes in a system dynamic model applied to local cooperatives, measuring the social capital created by the social cooperative through proxies, such as number of volunteers and strong cooperation with public institutions. Using a reverse-engineering approach, we can individuate the determinants of the creation of social capital and thereby give support to governance that creates social capital.

The generation and re-generation of social capital and enterprises in multi-stakeholders social cooperative enterprises: a system dynamic approach

Theories on social capital and on social entrepreneurship have mainly highlighted the attitude of social capital to generate enterprises and to foster good relations between third sector organizations and the public sector. This paper considers the social capital in a specific third sector enterprise; here, multi-stakeholder social cooperatives are seen, at the same time, as social capital results, creators and incubators. In the particular enterprises that identify themselves as community social enterprises, social capital, both as organizational and relational capital, is fundamental: SCEs arise from but also produce and disseminate social capital. This paper aims to improve the building of relational social capital and the refining of helpful relations drawn from other arenas, where they were created and from where they are sometimes transferred to other realities, where their role is carried on further (often in non-profit, horizontally and vertically arranged groups, where they share resources and relations). To represent this perspective, we use a qualitative system dynamic approach in which social capital is measured using proxies. Cooperation of volunteers, customers, community leaders and third sector local organizations is fundamental to establish trust relations between public local authorities and cooperatives. These relations help the latter to maintain long-term contracts with local authorities as providers of social services and enable them to add innovation to their services, by developing experiences and management models and maintaining an interchange with civil servants regarding these matters. The long-term relations and the organizational relations linking SCEs and public organizations help to create and to renovate social capital. Thus, multi-stakeholder cooperatives originated via social capital developed in third sector organizations produce new social capital within the cooperatives themselves and between different cooperatives (entrepreneurial components of the third sector) and the public sector. In their entrepreneurial life, cooperatives have to contrast the working drift, as a result of which only workers remain as members of the cooperative, while other stakeholders leave the organization. Those who are not workers in the cooperative are (stake)holders with weak ties, who are nevertheless fundamental in making a worker's cooperative an authentic social multi-stakeholders cooperative. To maintain multi-stakeholder governance and the relations with third sector and civil society, social cooperatives have to reinforce participation and dialogue with civil society through ongoing efforts to include people that provide social proposals. We try to represent these processes in a system dynamic model applied to local cooperatives, measuring the social capital created by the social cooperative through proxies, such as number of volunteers and strong cooperation with public institutions. Using a reverse-engineering approach, we can individuate the determinants of the creation of social capital and thereby give support to governance that creates social capital.

Capital Formation in New Cooperatives in China: Policy and Practice

This paper aims to fill one knowledge gap on understanding the issue of capital formation in new co-operatives in developing countries. By doing so, it presents the main findings of capital formation and investment in a small sample of horticulture shareholding co-operatives in rural China, because shareholding co-operatives, as one best example of new multi-stakeholder co-operatives in China, have become a vehicle to mobilize additional resources. To better understand shareholder co-operatives’ stakeholder heterogeneity, two main groups of stakeholders are identified, namely, member stakeholders (investor-members and patron-members) and non-member stakeholders (non-member investors and non-member donors/grant-givers). Following a brief theoretical overview concerning co-operative multi-stakeholdership and capital acquisition and constraints, I then analyze both the rules-in-form and rules-in-use with respect to the co-operative stakeholders’ capital involvement in China. Cases observed indicate a hybridization feature of the co-operative capital base, including member contributions, public subsidies, income from the market sale, institutional capital and social capital. There exist at least four ways to raise equity capital from co-operative members. External capital comes mostly from direct government support in the form of grants and project funding, and indirect financial support through preferential treatment and policies. Different from the situation in the West, debt capital does not appear to be a widely-used traditional financing source. New co-operatives in China have difficulty even in borrowing short-term debt, not to mention receiving long-term loans. Also specialized/non-traditional external capital sources such as those provided by co-operative banks do not suffice. Co-operative banks are not always ready to provide micro-credit to co-operatives. Only when the government plays an active role, this lending process is facilitated. Many innovative financial systems are also observed in the field, which facilitate the mobilization of more external capital for co-operatives.

Possible Paths for Social Enterprise Development from Perspective of Multi-stakeholder Co-operatives

Possible Paths for Social Enterprise Development from Perspective of Multi-stakeholder Co-operatives

Creation, Maintenance and Dissipation of the Relational Social Capital within Social Cooperative Enterprises: The Systemic Thinking Perspective

Theories on social capital and their effects on social entrepreneurship has mainly underlined the power of social capital to generate enterprises and to foster good relations between third sector organizations and public sector. This paper proposes a different perspective to consider role in build social capital of a third sector enterprise: multistakeholder social cooperative are seen, at the same time, as social capital result, creators, and incubators. To represent this perspective we’ll use a qualitative system dynamic approach in which social capital is measured throw some proxy. Italian Social cooperatives has become during last twenty years main producers of social welfare service: some of them adopt a multistakeholder governance model and declare themselves as “community enterprise” choosing to represent “general interest of the community and integrating in an enterprise activity”. Sometimes they operate integrating disadvantaged people in work activities,these are work integration social enterprise, some of them, as effect of local authorities contracts. are involved in managing public services. Often these typology of social enterprises are engaged by people who come from third sector organizations and this is the way in which they continue their personal commitment in social enterprises. These people bring their relation and these “personal weak ties” are fundamental in developing cooperatives: so social capital developed in other third sector entities is transferred in multistakeholder cooperative. Cooperation of voluntary, customers, community leaders and third sector local organizations are fundamental to establish trust relations between cooperative and public local authorities. These relations help cooperatives to have long term contracts with local authorities contract as provider of social services and make them possible to innovate the services, developing experiences and management models and exchanging them with the public officers. The long-term relations and the organizational relations that linked social cooperatives and public organizations contribute to create and renovate social capital. In this way multistakeholder cooperatives originated by social capital developed in third sector organizations produce new social capital within the cooperatives and between cooperatives (entrepreneurial components of third sector) and public sector. In their entrepreneurial life cooperatives has to contrast the “working drift” in which only workers remain as members of the cooperative while others stakeholders (volunteers, customer, local social leaders) don’t continue their participation in cooperative. These people different from workers are (stake)holders of “weak ties” fundamental to make a worker’s cooperative an authentic social multistakeholders cooperative. To maintain the multistakeholders governance, and the relations with third sector and civil society, social cooperative has to reinforce participation and dialogue with civil society through continue effort of inclusion of people bringing social proposal. We try to represent these process in a system dynamic model, measuring social capital created by social cooperatives through some proxy as number of volunteers and deep cooperation with public institution. Using a reverse-engineering approach we can individuate the determinants of the creation of social capital and so give support to governance that create social capital. In this way, relations between third sector, public sector are at the same time in a social multistakeholder enterprise resulting and building social capital.

Beyond Traditional Models: Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives and their Differential Roles

The multi-stakeholder cooperative emerges as an innovative organization departing from the traditional single-stakeholder consumer and producer models. The multi-stakeholding approach aims at broadening the scope of those who have a strong stake in the cooperative's success. This, however, is not necessarily related to the notion of membership. This article develops this point drawing upon two distinct cases: on the one -hand the hybrid cooperative, characterized by the figure of the external investor and, on the other hand, the newly emerging multi-stakeholder cooperatives characterized by a strong community and social alternative orientation. It is argued that the two organizational types widely differ as to their short-term objectives and broader implications. Further to a theoretical introduction, practical examples illustrate the differential roles of both types at a time of growing market competition.

Recent Trends in the Worker-Ownership Movement in Canada: Four Alternative Models

Ontaro Institute for Studies in Educafton This paper analyzes four relatively recent models for the creation of worker-owned enterprises in Canada. The models are: (1) an integrated system of worker cooperatives; (2) integrating worker cooperatives within a system of other types of cooperatives; (3) a system of multi-stakeholder cooperatives; and (4) joint ventures involving a cooperative of the workers in partnership with privately owned corporations, private entrepreneurs and in some cases with established worker cooperatives. These four models are analyzed in terms of their potential to overcome problems that have traditionally plagued worker cooperative development.