In this paper, we intend to analyze some scientific questions of current importance in the Social Economy field and Non-profit sector. In the first place, we show the growing economical importance of this field in Europe, based on the results obtained in the last transnational study. Secondly,...

Economic literature first turned its attention to the co-operative movement in the period of the flowering of classical political economics. From then on and to the present day, co-operatives have aroused the interest of the different currents of economic thought. In this article we review the...

We examine the proposition that, in co-operatives, the need for democracy must clash with efficiency demands. To shed light on diverse issues surrounding this claim we distinguish different forms of co-operatives and identify different meanings of democratic governance and forms of economies of...

Literature on the Spanish agricultural co-operative movement of the first third of the XX century has experienced a substantial change in direction over recent years. Where the first papers published up to the mid 1980s argued that its dominant features were precariousness and a discontinuous...

This article examines the structure of governance in co-operative business groups in the framework of the growing process of globalisation. Starting with a brief introduction to globalisation and the theories of co-operative degeneration, a specific case is analysed referring to Mondragón...

The aim of the present paper is to analyse to what extent the specific juridical and economic nature of the credit sections within the co-operatives conditions their banking activity. Even if they are not considered as credit entities, these sections keep, pay and give credit to their members....

The survival of the economic organizations in the present environment demands a very fast power of reaction to operate in a market increasingly big and competitive. The famous globalisation is leading to a modification in the internal structures of enterprises, having a tendency to increase its...

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...

Latin American cooperativism is heterogeneous, like its roots and paths of development. During the XX century this situation has arisen starting from two basic co-operative types: financial co-operatives and agricultural ones. The article describes these processes, their endogenous and exogenous...

The article is a case study on the association between the Parana co-operatives COCAMAR and COPAGRA and the US company Albertson Group Brazil Inc. This alliance resulted in constitution of a joint venture between the co-operatives to produce and export concentrated orange juice and derived...