Trust, Social Capital and the Governance of Cooperatives
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2011-12-01
Author(s)
Abstract
Due to a regulatory change cooperatives in Germany and Austria are not restricted anymore to benefitting their members solely, but also are allowed to serve the needs of third parties. From an organizational theoretical point of view this seemingly small change led to the development of two different types of organizations, namely members-focused cooperatives (MFC) and third-parties-focused cooperatives (3PFC). Against this background the paper aims at analyzing the mechanisms coordinating the relation between actors forming these two types of cooperatives. On the one hand, there is a wide range of literature relating the cooperatives to coordination mechanisms with special emphasis on trust. On the other hand, cooperatives are described as organizations building on social capital. Therefore, the capacity of the diverse coordination mechanisms – market / hierarchy / maxim-based trust / norm-based trust – and their interaction and linkages with social capital will be analyzed.
Language
English
Event Title
5th International Conference on Economics and Management of Networks (EMNet)
Event Location
Limassol, Cyprus
Event Date
01.-03.12.2011
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
253682