Co-operative firms as perceived by external stakeholders: how do consumers perceive organizational tensions?

Axelle Faure-Ferlet (), Sonia Capelli () and William Sabadie ()
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Axelle Faure-Ferlet: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon
Sonia Capelli: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon
William Sabadie: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon

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Abstract: Tensions which occur in hybrid organizations as cooperative firms have not been investigated from an external point of view. In this communication we propose to consider the consumer perception of those tensions, as factor of organization survival. Two qualitative studies (a projective study conducted with 10 consumers, asked to distinguish between capitalist firms and cooperatives, and a study using 20 in-depth interviews) underlined that (1) consumers perceive the decision-making complexity, the limited innovation level, and the limited investments in the same way than the internal stake-holders; (2) they elaborate inverse associations in terms of internal collaboration and skills; (3) they consider a new dimension of tension: the production elaboration level. To conclude, we emphasize that, among those tensions, the decision-making complexity is the most critical from the consumer point of view because it limits the perceived size of the firm and thus, the range of credible products supplied by cooperatives.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Socially Responsible Consumption; governance; co-operative organizations; Responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise; consommation socialement responsable; organisations coopératives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse
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Published in 5th Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies, Apr 2014, La Havane, Cuba. pp.1-14

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