Challenging the Degeneration Thesis: the Role of Democracy in Worker Cooperatives?

Kiri Langmead ()
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Kiri Langmead: School of Geography, University of Nottingham

Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, 2016, vol. 5, issue 1, 79-98

Abstract: This paper uses data collected through written narratives, focus groups and participant observation in three small UK worker cooperatives to investigate the role of democracy in maintaining cooperatives’ dual social-economic characteristic and resisting degeneration. More specifically, it adds to limited empirical literature countering the degeneration thesis by arguing that ongoing processes of individual-collective alignment, understood as central to the practice of democracy, help cooperatives to: balance varying and conflicting needs and aims; challenge the assumption underpinning the degeneration thesis; and transform degenerative “risks” into creative and productive spaces where new meanings and practices can be formed.

Keywords: Worker cooperative; Degeneration thesis, Democracy; Alternative economy; Social-economic chrateristic; Dual charateristic; Workplace democracy; Cooperative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J54 P13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trn:csnjrn:v:5:i:1:p:79-98

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