Expanding the scope of paradox scholarship on social enterprise: the case for (re)introducing worker cooperatives

Abstract

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Resisting Colonization: Worker Cooperatives’ Conceptualization and Behaviour in a Habermasian Perspective

“…Workers in these cooperatives own their organization as they invest both capital and labour. Formally, they control the organization democratically, usually by voting the major strategic orientations and electing the managers at general assemblies, following the principle of one worker, one vote (Audebrand, 2017). Variations exist in the way and the extent to which workers participate in decision-making, from direct participation by majority voting or by consensus, to election of representatives, to very little involvement in daily decision-making (Batstone, 1983; Dow, 2003).…”

“…However, on a global level, worker cooperatives remain fairly marginal players even though their number is rising (Cheney et al, 2014): 2366 in France, more than 17,000 in Spain (including the famous Mondragon group (Agirre et al, 2014)) and 357 in the United States. 1 Beyond the legitimacy deficit associated with worker cooperatives (Rothschild, 2009), the implementation and practice of economic democracy brings tensions and paradoxes (Audebrand, 2017) that stem from both the distinctive characteristics of cooperatives and from external market and competition pressures. The need to perform on the market creates pressures on democratic practices, which may be curtailed in favour of control and monitoring functions to ensure efficiency of worker-members (Varman and Chakrabarti, 2004).…”

“…Economic performance of worker cooperatives may also suffer from the high transaction costs generated by coordination problems relating to collective decision-making and ownership (Hansmann, 1996) or from difficulties in attracting managers due to the egalitarian values tied to economic democracy, for instance with regard to pay (Johnson, 2006). Audebrand (2017) also lists organizing tensions between the need for hierarchical control and democratic decision-making: ‘belonging tensions’ between the desire for individuality and communality by the worker-members and ‘learning tensions’ – for example, the drive to become mainstream versus remaining an alternative organization.…”

“…These authors, however, do concur that such organizations operate under constant threat of degeneration. As democracy is ‘placed within a bundle of contradictions’ (Varman and Chakrabarti, 2004: 184), its implementation in organizations and its institutionalization against the dominant hierarchical model is a permanent challenge (Audebrand, 2017). The section ‘On a spectrum of resistance to colonization’ below extends on this theme.…”

“…Worker cooperatives operate in economic, social and legal realities that put their democratically driven values and the full implementation of cooperative principles under constant pressure (Audebrand, 2017). Their inherent fragile nature makes them ideal candidates for degeneration (Cornforth, 1995; Somerville, 2007).…”