The cooperative firm: motivation and coordination. An analysis from the economic theory of the firm and the social economy

Abstract

This paper analyzes both the motivation and the coordination context in the cooperative firm, from the economic theory of the firm and the theory related to social economy, using two framework: 1) the cooperative principles raised by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA, 2005) and 2) the most relevant aspects proposed by the economic literature related to the subject. From this emerges an analysis model composed by four dimensions related to: Organizational Governance, Organizational Membership, Obtainment and Utilization of Resources and Internal and environmental relationship, the advantages and disadvantages identified on the cooperative firm coordination and motivation context. We conclude that the cooperative firm is an organizational model that locates the persons in the middle of the economic activity. Likewise, its disadvantages emerge from the consideration of evaluation criteria that don’t always fit to the nature of these organizations. On this way, many of the institutional disadvantages of the cooperative model response to theoretical basis of analysis. This causes the need to extend the perspectives of analysis, including different analysis criteria used to examine the capitalist Enterprise