The Firm as a Common. The Case of the Accumulation and Use of Capital Resources in Co-operative Enterprises

Ermanno Tortia

No 1790, Euricse Working Papers from Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises)

Abstract: Contemporary literature dealing with the governance of the exploitation of common-pool natural resources was initiated by Elinor Ostrom in 1990, and has been growing fast ever since. On the contrary, within the same research stream, the study of the presence and economic role of common resources in entrepreneurial-organizational is, to date, under-researched. This work endeavours some attempt to fill this gap. Firstly, by spelling out a new-institutionalist framework for the analysis of the accumulation and governance of common capital resources within organizational boundaries. Secondly, by considering co-operative enterprises as the organizational form that, on the basis of historical record, and of behavioural and institutional characteristics, demonstrated to be most compatible with a substantial role for common and non-divided asset-ownership and with its governance thereof. The economic forces influencing the optimal level of self-financed common capital resources in co-operatives are enquired. Also their governance is brought under the spotlight, evidencing: (i) the constraints that need to be fulfilled, and the potential benefits arising out of their presence; (ii) the compatibility and mutual adaptability between democratic governance in co-operatives and the governance of non-divided assets.

Keywords: Co-operative enterprises; Indivisible reserves; Common resources; Rivalry; Non-excludability; Capital accumulation; Governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P13 P14 P48 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse and nep-hme
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.euricse.eu/publications/the-firm-as-a- ... erative-enterprises/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The firm as a common. The case of the accumulation and use of capital resources in co-operative enterprises (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trn:utwpeu:1790

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Euricse Working Papers from Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Barbara Franchini ().