Social capital in Russian agricultural production co-operatives

Golovina, Svetlana; Heß, Sebastian; Nilsson, Jerker; Wolz, Axel

doi:10.1080/14631377.2014.964465

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Thus, cooperatives will prefer to use social capital for their activities and less financial capital, while the opposite is the case for investor-owned firms. Production cooperatives often rely on labour-intensive production rather than capital-intensive production because they have a large amount of social capital and a shortage of financial capital [32]. Members are willing to invest their own labour in the cooperative and may enjoy working together.…”

Section: Conversions Between Forms Of Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Capital and Financial Capital in Chinese Cooperatives

Li-yan

Nilsson

2019

Sustainability

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For the rural districts of China to get an economically and socially sustainable development, the strengthening of agricultural cooperatives is essential. This study aims at presenting a model about how social capital within the cooperatives can be converted into financial capital to the benefit of both the cooperative and the members. Case studies of four cooperatives serve as illustrations. There is a large amount of social capital in these cooperatives, with their operations simple enough to allow members to be involved. The supplying members (common members) are few and well acquainted with one another. They have close relationships with those individuals (core members) who have the dominating ownership and who run the cooperatives. These case cooperatives were chosen because they have innovative financial solutions. For example, members let their private assets and those of the cooperative constitute joint collateral when money is borrowed from financial institutions. In another case, the members trust each other sufficiently for there to be a mutual fund that lends money both to members and their cooperative. Yet another model involves members having low demands concerning capital returns when lending to their cooperative.

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Section: Conversions Between Forms Of Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Capital and Financial Capital in Chinese Cooperatives

Li-yan

Nilsson

2019

Sustainability

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“…Drawing on evidence from Kurgan oblast, Golovina and her colleagues found that cooperatives do not really behave like cooperatives at all. Instead of empowering producers, cooperatives behave as continuations of Soviet era farms that “take responsibility not only for the labour force but also for all inhabitants of a village,” which means that cooperatives have “responsibility for all social life in the village” (Golovina, Hess, Nilsson, & Wolz, , p. 533). In Belgorod oblast, cooperatives do not generate bargaining power on behalf of their members but instead act more as a broker.…”

Section: Collective Action As a Remedy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

Wegren

O’Brien

2018

Journal of Agrarian Change

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The primary contributions of smallholders during the communist and early postcommunist periods have been food production and labour for large farms. Those conditions are changing, however, as modern farms require less labour and food supply may be imported. For most smallholders in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, the postcommunist neoliberal environment has not brought significant improvement, and strong arguments can be made that land grabbing, social and economic exclusion, and rural poverty are worse than regime bias during the communist period. Cooperatives, which have empowered smallholders in other parts of the world, have not been as well developed in postcommunist nations.

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“…This is not to say that the leaders necessarily try to enrich themselves. They may also use their power position in the interests of the membership (Golovina et al, 2014). Hence there is room for some speculation.…”

Section: Members' Control Of Managersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…"… Russian rural territory tends to demonstrate strong communality, little spread of entrepreneurial activity and a preference for working in vertically integrated enterprises…" (Efendiev and Sorokin, 2013, p. 111). The decisionmaking structure is likely to have been inherited from the Soviet farms (Golovina et al, 2014).…”

Section: [A] Factor That Must Not Be Ignored Is the Traditional Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Governance of Production Co‐operatives in Russian Agriculture

Nilsson

Golovina

Heß

et al. 2016

Ann Public Coop Econ

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Many Soviet kolkhozy and sovkhozy were transformed into agricultural production co-operatives, because the farm workers would have had large transaction costs in any other type of organisation. These co-operatives still hold a strong market position. This study explores the hypothesis that this market strength could be due to low governance costs, obtained through strong manager power. As managers want the co-operative to survive, they make limited investments in the co-operative and pay low wages. The members do, however, not consider this to be problematic. They appreciate the community within the village, their private plots of land and the co-operative's services. Hence the existence of the co-operatives is not threatened.

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Social capital in Russian agricultural production co-operatives

Cited by 7 publications

References 25 publications

Social Capital and Financial Capital in Chinese Cooperatives

Social Capital and Financial Capital in Chinese Cooperatives

Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

Governance of Production Co‐operatives in Russian Agriculture

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