A study of consumer cooperation in the United States relating to education, labor, business, religion, and government.

No description available.

This Thesis documents an exploratory investigation into the effect of poor information management on successful job and organisation design in workers' co-operatives. It was hypothesised that lack of availability and poor distribution of information militate against successful job and organisation design. Since sound information management is imperative for decision making and successful job and organisation design ensures workers satisfaction this study is fully justified. It is important that workers' co-operatives are economically successful and that people enjoy working in them. The topic is particularly important for the workers' co-operative movement because little research has been conducted on the links between information management and job and organisation design. The Thesis summarises the main issues and concepts relevant to the research topic and describes the implications of information management for job and organisation design in workers' co-operatives. The purchasing processes in four workers' co-operatives in Scotland were chosen as the information systems to be studied. Research field work, in the form of a Job Diagnosis Survey was also carried out to establish the links between information management and job and organisation design. Research results have been examined in relation to the participative arrangements one associates with workers' co-operatives. It was found that in addition to information management, other issues have an effect on successful job and organisation design. These include: objectives of each business; Argyris's Theory in Action; Lack of management skills; and poor systems design. This led to a comparison of the four co-operatives studied with the very successful Mondragon Group. Finally the implications of the research results have been discussed in relation to the workers' co-operative movement and to future research by those interested or involved in the movement.

There is growing consumer interest in locally produced food and farmers and retailers play an important part in this growing niche market. Up-to-date and reliable data are necessary to create efficient distribution lines, but there is currently a dearth of aggregate data available to assess the distribution channels of local foods. The research questions for this thesis are motivated by the potential for growth in the local food market, and a need to investigate the role of consumer co-ops in achieving that potential. In Article 1, results from 67 surveys by consumer co-op managers and memberworkers from the American Northeast are reported. A conservative estimate for the Northeast co-ops’ contribution to the local food market is $21,253,750 annually, an average of 17.2% of co-ops’ expenditure being spent on local food. Article 1 identifies the consistency with which various food categories are sourced locally by co-op, and identifies the reasons for and barriers to sourcing locally. An ordinary least squares model reveals that the average percent locally sourced by co-ops whose mission includes sourcing locally is 12.7-percent higher than those whose mission does not include sourcing locally. No difference in percent locally sourced is found between co-ops from different settings (urban, suburban, rural), or Cooperative Grocer ranking (large, medium, small). Article 2 reports on the follow-up unstructured interviews with 58 co-op managers and member-workers. The five principal barriers to sourcing locally – locating local producers, co-op cooperation, organic certification, competition, and distribution – are discussed and various solutions that co-op managers have implemented are described. It is argued that co-ops act as local food hubs in the local food market, providing local producers with a year-round outlet for their products. Alleviating the specific barriers to sourcing locally will allow co-ops to achieve their potential in that role. Overall, improved communication among co-ops and between co-ops and farmers can begin to address some barriers to sourcing locally. Further, other groups such as NOFA, regional localvore groups, state agricultural extension agencies, and others can continue to facilitate communication and share pertinent information. It further suggests that filling some of the gaps can contribute to alleviating barriers identified by co-op managers and member workers. If co-ops are interested in sourcing more of what they sell from local producers, using percent of expenditure locally sourced as a marker can be useful for setting specific goals, while addressing the barriers to sourcing locally can help co-ops and producers meet these goals.

The advent of structural adjustment reforms in the early 1990s in the coffee sector saw the decline of government involvement in Kenya’s Coffee Cooperatives. The withdrawal of the state in the agricultural cooperative sector witnessed major coffee cooperatives struggle with the production of premium coffee. The production of coffee by cooperatives has greatly declined over the years, which has negatively affected the lives of thousands of small-scale farmers that belong to coffee cooperatives. A decline in cooperative coffee production has led to a decline in the number of coffee farmers witnessed attending cooperative meetings. This situation has further weakened the organizational capacity of the coffee cooperative as a key institution for small-scale coffee production. This thesis attempts to unearth those barriers that restrict cooperative members from attending meetings. A mixed methods approach is used to investigate participation levels at New Gatanga Coffee Farmers Cooperative Society. Understanding the fundamental issues behind the boycott by small-scale coffee producers in rural Kenya will provide a platform for constructing positive policies that will be used to improve the livelihoods of coffee cooperative members. / An investigation of the New Gatanga Coffee Farmers Cooperative Society to understand the fundamental issues behind the boycott by small-scale coffee producers in rural Kenya in order to provide a platform for constructing positive policies that will be used to improve the livelihoods of coffee cooperative members.

This thesis extends the literature on the dynamics of firm growth and failure by testing the robustness of past findings for capitalist firms to alternative ownership structures. While the theoretical results are altered by the internal organisation of the firm, the empirical findings are unchanged. This suggests that the theoretical models place excessive emphasis on the organisational structure and inadequate emphasis on more basic and fundamental factors affecting firm growth. The thesis applies the learning models of growth to the case of the Illyrian labour managed firm, where members maximise profits per worker. The critical efficiency-size relationship is indeterminate under labour management. Thus, the majority of the clear cut empirical predictions of the model for profit maximisation no longer hold. Three possible explanations for the breakdown of the results are examined. One explanation is that the Illyrian model is overly simplistic and does not accurately reflect the actual behaviour of cooperatives. This is rejected using an institutional structure model of the French producer cooperative which yields predictions which are remarkably similar to those of the Illyrian model. The second explanation considered is that the growth and survival of cooperatives in fact substantially differs from capitalist firms. This explanation is rejected in the empirical section which tests the actual growth and survival relationships using a dataset of French producer cooperatives. The estimated survival-size relation is convexly positive and the growth-size relation convexly negative, exactly as they have been found previously for conventional firms. The final remaining explanation is that the theoretical models are structured so as to overemphasize the internal structure of the firm to the neglect of more generic factors affecting growth and survival. This is accepted in a final section which proposes new directions for theoretical research on the growth and survival of all firms.

Worker co-operatives, meaning firms producing goods or services that are owned and managed by their workers, have been a marginal and problematic form of production in Britain since their first period of substantial growth in the 19th century. They have recurrent difficulties attracting capital, developing business expertise among their members, sustaining long-term commitment and growing to the size required to compete efficiently in many industries. Yet there has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in co-operatives during the past decade, and their many successes in diverse industries demonstrate that co-operatives can offer their members a powerful combination of strong business performance and a highly satisfying work life. This thesis asks whether the weaknesses apparent in co-operatives historically, and present in many still today, are inherent in the co-operative form. Is the co-operative sector bound to remain basically marginal, or could it, with the aid of some practical reforms, come to play a significant role in the British economy? Recognising that any answer to this question is speculative, the thesis concludes that co-operatives are not inherently flawed indeed they fail at about the same rate as traditionally organised small businesses but that they do place an unusual range of demands on members which, in a legal, financial and political climate not yet geared to co-operatives, mean that democratic firms are likely to remain a small portion of the economy. The plan of the thesis is as follows: After a brief introductory chapter, Chapter Two surveys the present state of British co-operatives and examines the external economic and legal environment in which co-operatives function. Chapter Three surveys recent research in organisational behaviour, especially about small group behaviour in traditional businesses, to assess whether the high productivity frequently asserted for co-operatives has theoretical foundation, whether co-operatives commonly violate any established principles of good organisational design and whether large co-operatives can be run efficiently and democratically. Chapter Four presents the economic status of women in the British workforce and looks at whether the attributes of co-operatives are congruent with women's needs. Two mini-case studies are presented, of a bookselling and a cleaning co-operative, each composed entirely of women. Chapters Five, Six and Seven present the results of the field research conducted for this thesis. Each is a case study of a functioning co-operative based on extensive interviews with its members, reviews of the co-operative's files, and a brief analysis of its financial performance. The goal was to understand as much as possible about the consequences of choosing the co-operative form: for the members' job satisfaction and for the firm's productivity, market sensitivity, ability to grow, ability to employ women, and internal dynamics. Chapter Eight sets out the conclusions suggested by comparing the case studies in light of the literature examined in Chapters Two through Four.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of California, Davis, 1973. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-160).

No abstract provided / Dissertation (M Inst Agrar (Pasture Science))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Plant Production and Soil Science / unrestricted

A thesis submitted to the Faculty Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Development Studies in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2017. / The study hopes to bring about the enlightenment to the operations of agricultural cooperatives at Nkomazi municipality namely ward 7, 25, 29 and 30. The study therefore assess the operations of agricultural cooperatives while identifying the operational processes of cooperatives; examining the management techniques of cooperatives; determining membership participation and commitment to cooperatives and identifying the measures adopted in the monitoring and evaluation of agricultural cooperatives. The research method that was used to gather data was qualitative research approach, the design adopted descriptive research design and the research method used is multiple case study method. The research data collection tools comprises of structured and unstructured interviews, policy document analysis, structured observations and this was done using a questionnaires an instrument for a sample size of 40 agricultural cooperatives. A non-probability sampling was used and the type on non-probability that is both purposive and convenience sampling to sample the respondents. The results showed that 75% of the respondents are employed by the agricultural cooperatives. Significantly, 90% agricultural cooperatives have members depends on agricultural cooperatives for income. It is noted that 10% of the agricultural cooperatives were established during the year 1993 and before significantly 8% (3) was operational in that particular year. Astonishingly, the results show statistically a constant growth by 45% of established and operational agricultural cooperatives in the year 2015 to 2016. The results shows that the operations of the agricultural cooperatives depended massively on the main activities associated and other several operational events such as funds, human resources and raw material.The outcome of the study was evident that even though some cooperative operate without proper management and monitoring and evaluations techniques, the cooperatives still contribute massively the local food nets and to the local economy within the study area.