IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eureri/10886.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Nature of a Cooperative: A System of Attributes Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Feng, L.
  • Hendrikse, G.W.J.

Abstract

In the 1950s and 1960s there was a debate about the nature of an agricultural cooperative: the cooperative as extension of the farm, the cooperative as vertical integration or the cooperative as a firm. We revisit this debate with various concepts from the theory of the firm that have been formulated since 1990. Two concepts shed light on this debate: the enterprise as a system of attributes and the delineation of a governance structure in terms of ownership rights, control rights and income rights. We argue that viewing the cooperative as a system of attributes integrates these three views. It emphasizes that a cooperative is a firm in itself, with many input suppliers as owners. The feature of many input suppliers as owners implies that the behavioral differences between a cooperative and an investor owned firm have to be addressed by highlighting the unique aspects of the stakeholder owning the enterprise.

Suggested Citation

  • Feng, L. & Hendrikse, G.W.J., 2007. "On the Nature of a Cooperative: A System of Attributes Perspective," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-093-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:10886
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/10886/ERS-2007-093-ORG.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hendrikse, George W. J. & Veerman, Cees P., 2001. "Marketing cooperatives and financial structure: a transaction costs economics analysis," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 205-216, December.
    2. Galdeano-Gomez, Emilio & Cespedes-Lorente, Jose & Rodriguez, Manuel Rodriguez, 2005. "Productivity and Quality-Environmental Changes in Marketing Co-operatives: An Analysis on the Horticultural Sector," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24698, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Hendrikse, G.W.J. & Smit, R., 2007. "On the Evolution of Product Portfolio Coherence of Cooperatives versus Corporations: An Agent-Based Analysis of the Single Origin Constraint," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-055-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    4. Brickley, James A, 1999. "Incentive Conflicts and Contractual Restraints: Evidence from Franchising," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 745-774, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Borgen, Svein Ole, 2011. "Product differentiation and cooperative governance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 327-333, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feng, Li & Hendrikse, George W.J., 2008. "On the Nature of a Cooperative: A System of Attributes Perspective," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44398, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    3. Dildar Hussain & Marijana Sreckovic & Josef Windsperger, 2018. "An organizational capability perspective on multi-unit franchising," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 717-727, April.
    4. Fadairo, Muriel & Yu, Jianyu & Lanchimba, Cintya, 2017. "The Choice of Exclusive Dealing: Economic Rationales and Evidence from French Retail Chains," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 317-335.
    5. Arturs Kalnins, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Territorial Encroachment Within Franchised and Company-Owned Branded Chains," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 476-489, September.
    6. Muriel Fadairo & Cyntia Lanchimba & Miguel Yangari, 2016. "Optimal Monetary Provisions and Risk Aversion in Plural Form Franchise Network. A Model of Incentives with Heterogeneous Agents," Working Papers 1602, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. Giorgio Zanarone, 2009. "Vertical Restraints and the Law: Evidence from Automobile Franchising," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 691-700, November.
    8. Dunning, John H. & Pak, Yong Suhk & Beldona, Sam, 2007. "Foreign ownership strategies of UK and US international franchisors: An exploratory application of Dunning's envelope paradigm," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 531-548, October.
    9. Lyne, Michael C. & Collins, Ray, 2008. "South Africa’s new Cooperatives Act: A missed opportunity for small farmers and land reform beneficiaries," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 47(2), pages 1-18, June.
    10. Muriel Fadairo & Cintya Lanchimba Lopez, 2012. "Performance in distribution systems : What is the influence of the upstream firm’s organizational choices ?," Working Papers 1224, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    11. Freiwald, Nisa E. & Juranek, Steffen & Walz, Uwe, 2020. "On the economic geography of dual distribution — The case of McDonald’s in Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    12. Buckley, Peter J. & Craig, Thomas D. & Mudambi, Ram, 2019. "Time to learn? Assignment duration in global value chain organization," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 508-518.
    13. H. S. R. Rosairo & M. Esham, 2021. "Pitfalls of External Institutional Facilitation of Farmer Organizations: Insights from Farmer Companies in Sri Lanka," Millennial Asia, , vol. 12(3), pages 367-389, December.
    14. Agata Malak-Rawlikowska & Monika Gębska & Robert Hoste & Christine Leeb & Claudio Montanari & Michael Wallace & Kees de Roest, 2021. "Developing a Methodology for Aggregated Assessment of the Economic Sustainability of Pig Farms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-25, March.
    15. Chlebicka, Aleksandra & Fałkowski, Jan & Łopaciuk-Gonczaryk, Beata, 2014. "Grupy Producentów Rolnych A Kapitał Społeczny – Potencjalne Zależności," Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo), Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development, vol. 3(164).
    16. Luis Vázquez, 2008. "Complementarities between franchise contract duration and multi-unit propensity in franchise systems," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(8), pages 1093-1105, October.
    17. Brickley, James A. & Linck, James S. & Smith, Clifford Jr., 2003. "Boundaries of the firm: evidence from the banking industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 351-383, December.
    18. Dnes, Antony & Garoupa, Nuno, 2005. "Externality and organizational choice in franchising," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 139-149.
    19. Guerra, Alexandre & Moita, Rodrigo, 2011. "Entradas e Bandeiras: A Estratégia de Interiorização das Cadeias de Fast Food no Brasil," Insper Working Papers wpe_247, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    20. Shen, Mingrui & Shen, Jianfa, 2018. "Evaluating the cooperative and family farm programs in China: A rural governance perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 240-250.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cooperative; extension of the farm; governance; vertical integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:10886. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.