Strategic Management of Cooperatives

This textbook aims to systematically identify the factors and mechanisms that influence the sustainability of cooperative enterprises, which have unique characteristics that distinguish them from investor-owned firms, by analyzing existing theoretical and empirical literature, as well as success and failure cases of cooperatives. In recent years, cooperatives have proliferated in many countries and across a wide range of sectors and types. The sustainability of cooperatives as an alternative enterprise is crucial for the creation and maintenance of decent work, the creation of socially integrated employment, the provision of participatory social services, and the restoration of local community. Since cooperatives are a form of enterprise, the knowledge of traditional business administration textbooks can be helpful in managing a cooperative. However, the problem is that most of the contents of business management textbooks, are mainly designed for profit-seeking enterprises, so they are often not appropriate for cooperative enterprises. For example, cooperatives have different business objectives, different ownership types, different capital financing methods, different business relationships, and different cultures than profit-seeking companies. These differences need to be reflected in business strategy, corporate strategy, internal organizational design, financial strategy, and corporate culture and leadership formation strategies. If the cooperative's purpose and values are not reflected in each area of the cooperative's management, the purpose and values will become taxidermy, and the cooperative will disappear from the capitalist market competition, or even if it survives, its original purpose and values will fade and it will be indistinguishable from profit-seeking enterprises. This book is designed and written to contribute to the understanding of co-operative management by analyzing existing research findings that may have implications for the success of co-operative management.