Members of cooperatives are patrons and owners simultaneously, which turns out to be a consequential feature ingrained in that sort of business associations. This paper puts forward some contributions to the subject. Firstly, it defines a primary cooperative, making hence a contrast with...

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...

The United States Congress recently passed a law that creates an alternative to individual transferable quota (ITQ) management. The American Fisheries Act promises the ability to rationalise one of the world's largest fisheries, the North Pacific pollock fishery, without the overt appearance of...

In the 1990s, a new ownership form called ‘joint-stock co-operative’ (gufen hezuozhi) became widely adopted in China’s township and village enterprise sector. The promising dynamics and high adaptive ability of the new ownership form is in contradiction with the conclusions suggested by...

This paper examines strategies developed by Mondragón Co-operative Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, and La Lega co-operative network in Italy, to mitigate disadvantages of the typical co-operative organizational structure and market position but without losing its critical advantages...

This paper argues that poverty originates in the structural injustices of a social order which incapacitates the poor from participating in the growth generating sectors of the economy and leaves them captives in the so called informal sector, characterized by low productivity and low earning...

The imbalances in bargaining power between the contracting parties in the food supply chain have drawn much attention, also from policy makers. The European Commission is committed to facilitate the restructuring of the sector by encouraging the creation of voluntary agricultural producer...