Democracy and innovative governance in French agricultural cooperatives

Louis-Antoine Saïsset ()
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Louis-Antoine Saïsset: UMR MoISA - Montpellier Interdisciplinary center on Sustainable Agri-food systems (Social and nutritional sciences) - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement

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Abstract: In order to answer this question, the chapter is organized in four parts: first, we expose our theoretical framework; second, we detail the qualitative methodology based on four case studies; third, we analyse these cases; and fourth, we synthetize and conclude. Theoretical framework: democratic and innovative governanceWe based our theoretical framework on the concepts of democracy, governance, and innovation in corporate governance, applied to cooperatives, more particularly in the agricultural sector. In the following pages, we will define and develop these concepts, showing that a few studies deal with them and their interactions, proposing a conceptual framework to deal with drivers of governance innovation in terms of democracy. Democracy and governance: from capitalistic firms to cooperativesCompany is an organization with many faces that has been approached in different ways. From the neoclassical conception, according to which the company was considered as a "black box", to the company seen as a system, it is still difficult to grasp its complex reality (Tosi, 2009). Organization theory studies all types of organizations with very diverse points of view, as underlined by Tosi ( 2009): rational/natural models, closed/open system approaches, and considering single-or double-way relationships between environment and structure.According to Pfeffer (1991), this research field frequently took the individual and its behaviour as the unique unit of analysis and did not really consider social structure as relevant, denying the effects of social and mutual interactions among individuals on the firm's management. On the contrary, for Pfeffer (1991, p 801), "organizations are social settings". Social relations are therefore essential and can influence the firm's performance. Some authors went further and considered organization as an open system model where structure and environment are linked, sometimes following an interactive process, dealing with institutions and ecology, and leading to open system natural models (Tosi, 2009).In this perspective, the pervasive power of shareholders, stressed by Jensen and Meckling (1976), is counterbalanced or, at least, influenced by the open system of interactions between internal and external stakeholders, taking into account the commitment to society of the firm, analysed by the stakeholder theory (ST; Freeman, 1984). Democracy is also more concerned, directly or indirectly, considering the firm as an institution where democracy gains ground thanks to increasing openness, activist shareholders (Gomez, 2001) and citizen requirements (Grandori, 2017). This phenomenon led Andreani (1994, p 184) to state, "it is much more difficult to initiate democracy in a party than in a firm". In fact, behind stakeholder and democratic issues, governance is at the heart of operations.Democratic governance (Cornforth, 2004) concerns the essence of agricultural cooperatives as social economy organizations. Since their origin, they have been.

Date: 2026-02-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-hme
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Published in Jerome Nikolai Warren; Kemi Ogunyemi; Asia Guerreschi; Maciej Szulc. Global Cooperative Economics and Movements: A Research Companion, Routledge, pp.311 - 331, 2026, 9781003534006. ⟨10.4324/9781003534006-20⟩

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003534006-20

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