The benefits of entrepreneurial cooperatives

Based on a study of 69 entrepreneurial cooperatives, these cooperatives place particular value on benefits that directly affect their members, economically, socially, and in terms of employment. Below is an overview of the main benefits they emphasize: (1)  

Economic benefits

• Sharing fixed costs and risks

• Guaranteed sales or purchase opportunities

• Income security and returns through dividends and invested capital

• Strengthened bargaining power in the market

• Improved product quality through jointly established standards

• Access to new markets and information

• Benefits of scale and scope via vertical and horizontal cooperative networks

• Collective training and research capacity

• Mutual support and knowledge exchange

• Participation in decision-making on moral-economic issues and strategy

Social benefits

• Strengthening the local economy and community livability

• Reducing poverty at the individual, household, and community levels

• Maintaining and developing perspectives on work and income

• Strengthening social cohesion and empowering societal groups

• Generating and preserving social capital through participation and democracy

• Meeting needs not addressed by the market or government

• Offering an alternative to profit-maximizing business: collective and socially responsible entrepreneurship

Employment benefits

• Contributing to the Gross National Product and the growth of the cooperative sector

• Integrating people with limited access to the labor market through work and entrepreneurship

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Reference

1. N. Göler von Ravensburg, 2011. Economic and other benefits of the entrepreneurs’ cooperatives as a specific form of enterprise cluster. Appendix 1. Benefits in hermeneutic literature. ILO publicatie.