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Cooperatives and Employee Ownership

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International Encyclopedia of Civil Society

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Definition

For our purposes the essential features of cooperatives are given by enterprises that have the following characteristics: (1) ownership is not determined solely by investment in shares, but the owners have another transaction relationship with the enterprise (as employees, suppliers, or customers); (2) voting rights are not divided in relation to capital but equally between members.

A wide variety of firms can be listed under the cooperative umbrella, including agricultural, credit, and consumer cooperatives. One form that has proved to be of particular interest to researchers is the producer or worker cooperative, in which the position of the worker is crucial so that membership is restricted to worker-members in the business who effectively own and control the firm.

Employee ownership also encompasses a wide variety of types, notably employee stock ownership plans, employee stock purchase plans, and stock options. For some employee ownership is seen as part of “shared...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, USA

    Derek C. Jones

  2. Department of Economics, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

    Panu Kalmi

Authors
  1. Derek C. Jones
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  2. Panu Kalmi
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Correspondence to Derek C. Jones .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Regina A. List

  2. Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Helmut K. Anheier

  3. Schar school, George Mason University, ARLINGTON, VI, USA

    Stefan Toepler

Section Editor information

  1. Hamburg, Germany

    Regina A. List

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Jones, D.C., Kalmi, P. (2020). Cooperatives and Employee Ownership. In: List, R., Anheier, H., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_73-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_73-1

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