Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in Cooperatives

Jerker Nillson and George Hendrikse

ERIM Report Series Research in Management from 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

Abstract: A cooperative business consists of a cooperative society and a cooperative business firm. The society of members intends to control the business in such a way as to focus the business operations on its interests. The two organizational units tend, however, to follow different behavioral logics. Borrowing some core concepts from classical sociology, Gemeinschaft norms rule ruling within the membership, while Gesellschaft norms dominate the business firms. Thereby it may be difficult to accomplish alignment between the membership organization and the business organization in order to be competitive. This paper addresses the difficulties of following the different logics by exploring Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft within agricultural cooperatives with a focus on the membership logics.

Keywords: alignment; cooperative; gemeinschaft; gesellschaft; membership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L2 M M10 M12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-12-15
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