Aufgrund der nach wie vor äußerst unbefriedigenden Lage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt wird intensiv nach Lösungen gesucht, diese Situation zu verbessern. Dabei sind, nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer geschichtlichen Entstehung als "Kinder der Not" (Marburger Bank o. J.), auch die Genossenschaften in den...

This paper aims to analyse the several possible commercial strategies that can be developed bay cooperative oil mills, looking mainly at quality strategies. The agro-food sector is experiencing a very important globalization process which can made it difficult for small and medium-size companies...

In this study we endeavour to expose the falseness of a certain sense of underlying inferiority in the company model advocated by the social economy. We will do so by describing and analysing certain “recent” management trends whose origins run from the end of the Second World War to the...

The paper reveals a relevant dimension of social economy in Europe: cooperatives. Like many other types of enterprise, cooperatives face the challenge of finding the most efficient means to distribute insufficient resources. But contrasting most other enterprises, cooperatives also need to seek...

Who counts in co-operatives, and how? In this paper empirical results are presented from recent quantitative and qualitative studies on Belgian co-operatives in which questions about who counts in co-operatives and how were treated (Develtere, Meireman & Raymaekers, 2005; Dujardin, Mertens & Van...

This paper investigates the motivation behind economic behaviour in the cooperative credit movement, and some of the inherent problems. In particular, the following hypotheses are analysed: the possibility of maintaining the principles of reciprocity and participation in the case of rapid growth...

Gewerkschaften werden oft von Liberalen und Libertären kritisiert. Dabei sind sie Ausdruck grundlegender Freiheitsrechte, insbesondere der Vereinigungsfreiheit. Auch das Streikrecht ist innerhalb gewisser Grenzen ein legitimes Freiheitsrecht. Eine freie Gesellschaft ist mehr als Marktwirtschaft...

The paper argues that the limited company can be looked upon as a transitional corporate form in-between the capitalistic mode of production and a new mode of production, as a springboard for the creation of a – fully socialist – system of cooperative firms. An additional aim of this paper...

In this paper, we examine major trends and potential for cooperatives in the context of four prominent socio-economic issues: the lack of jobs, economic and social inequality, educational mobility, and the priority need for innovations. We present recent data on the amount and types of job...

A frequent characteristic of worker cooperatives is the tendency to reinvest a large share of profits into asset locks: a common fund, indivisible and not appropriable by members, neither upon quitting, nor at the end of the firms life. To explain this behaviour, I introduce the hypothesis that...