IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v34y2020i6p965-984.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resisting Colonization: Worker Cooperatives’ Conceptualization and Behaviour in a Habermasian Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Frédéric Dufays

    (KU Leuven, Belgium)

  • Noreen O’Shea

    (ESCP Business School, France)

  • Benjamin Huybrechts

    (emlyon business school, France; Liège University, Belgium)

  • Teresa Nelson

    (Simmons University, USA)

Abstract

This article contributes to understanding the role and position of worker cooperatives in society, providing a socio-political explanation to their existence as well as conceptual tools that can be used to imagine and implement economic democracy practices. It uses and complexifies Habermas’s social theory and its separation between system and lifeworld to show that cooperatives may act, intentionally and idealistically, at the interface of these two domains. This positioning enables cooperatives to participate in resisting colonization of the lifeworld by endowing individuals with resources favouring communicative action and by redefining institutional arrangements within the system. This article identifies factors explaining the varying degrees of resistance to colonization by cooperatives. It also contributes to theorizing the potential effects of organizing work in an economically democratic way.

Suggested Citation

  • Frédéric Dufays & Noreen O’Shea & Benjamin Huybrechts & Teresa Nelson, 2020. "Resisting Colonization: Worker Cooperatives’ Conceptualization and Behaviour in a Habermasian Perspective," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(6), pages 965-984, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:6:p:965-984
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017019895936
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017019895936
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017019895936?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dow,Gregory K., 2003. "Governing the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818537, September.
    2. Teresa Nelson & Dylan Nelson & Benjamin Huybrechts & Frédéric Dufays & Noreen O’Shea & Giorgia Trasciani, 2016. "Emergent identity formation and the co-operative: theory building in relation to alternative organizational forms," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3-4), pages 286-309, March.
    3. Malleson, Tom, 2014. "After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199330102.
    4. Hansmann, Henry, 1988. "Ownership of the Firm," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 267-304, Fall.
    5. Benjamin HUYBRECHTS & Sybille MERTENS, 2014. "The Relevance Of The Cooperative Model In The Field Of Renewable Energy," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(2), pages 193-212, June.
    6. Teresa Nelson & Dylan Nelson & Benjamin Huybrechts & Frédéric Dufays & Noreen O'Shea & Giorgia Trasciani, 2016. "Emergent identity formation and the co-operative : theory building in relation to alternative organizational forms," Post-Print hal-02312324, HAL.
    7. Izaskun AGIRRE & Pedro REINARES & Amaia AGIRRE, 2014. "Antecedents To Market Orientation In The Worker Cooperative Organization: The Mondragon Group," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(3), pages 387-408, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karoline Anita Anderson, 2024. "Cisnormative symbolic colonization and transgender and gender nonconforming individuals in the workplace," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 1-15, January.
    2. Damion Jonathan Bunders & Agnes Akkerman, 2023. "Commitment issues? Analysing the effect of preference deviation and social embeddedness on member commitment to worker cooperatives in the gig economy," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(4), pages 1007-1026, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaetano Cuomo, 2015. "Imprese cooperative e democrazia economica," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(116), pages 5-38.
    2. Curtiss, Jarmila & Latruffe, Laure & Medonos, Tomas & Ratinger, Tomas, 2007. "Investment Activity and Ownership Structure of Czech Corporate Farms," 104th Seminar, September 5-8, 2007, Budapest, Hungary 7826, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Anassaya Chawviang & Supaporn Kiattisin, 2022. "Sustainable Development: Smart Co-Operative Management Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-25, March.
    4. Paul Walker, 2016. "Simple Models of a Human-Capital-Based Firm: a Reference Point Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 7(1), pages 219-247, March.
    5. Gabriel Burdín, 2016. "Equality Under Threat by the Talented: Evidence from Worker‐Managed Firms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1372-1403, August.
    6. Alves, Guillermo & Burdín, Gabriel & Dean, Andrés, 2016. "Workplace democracy and job flows," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 258-271.
    7. Cecilia Navarra & Ermanno Tortia, 2014. "Employer Moral Hazard, Wage Rigidity, and Worker Cooperatives: A Theoretical Appraisal," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(3), pages 707-726.
    8. Ferretti, Thomas, 2022. "Measuring freedom: towards a solution to John Rawls’ indexing problem," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116861, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Dow,Gregory K., 2019. "The Labor-Managed Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107589650, September.
    10. Silvia Sacchetti & Marco Faillo, 2017. "The notion of social responsibility across different types of nonprofit and for profit organizations," Econometica Working Papers wp61, Econometica.
    11. Jose Garcia-Louzao & Gabriel Burdin, 2023. "Employee Owned Firms and the Careers of Young Workers," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 113, Bank of Lithuania.
    12. Carmen GUZMAN & Francisco J. SANTOS & María de la O BARROSO, 2020. "Cooperative Essence And Entrepreneurial Quality: A Comparative Contextual Analysis," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 91(1), pages 95-118, March.
    13. Tortia, Ermanno, 2014. "L'impresa come bene comune," AICCON Working Papers 131-2013, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    14. Navarra Cecilia & Tortia Ermanno, 2011. "Employer’s moral hazard and the emergence of worker cooperatives," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201103, University of Turin.
    15. Tortia, Ermanno C., 2017. "The firm as a common. The case of the accumulation and use of capital resources in co-operative enterprises," MPRA Paper 76735, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Alper Duman, 2009. "Comparative Analysis of Organizational Forms in the Software Industry and Legal Services," Working Papers 0903, Izmir University of Economics.
    17. Tortia, Ermanno, 2005. "The accumulation of Capital in Labour-Managed Firms: Divisible Reserves and Bonds," AICCON Working Papers 23-2005, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    18. Gregory K. DOW, 2018. "The Theory Of The Labor-Managed Firm: Past, Present, And Future," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(1), pages 65-86, March.
    19. Ermanno C. Tortia, 2011. "The firm as a common. The case of accumulation and use of common resources in mutual benefit organizations," Department of Economics Working Papers 1112, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    20. Ermanno C. Tortia, 2018. "The Firm as a Common. Non-Divided Ownership, Patrimonial Stability and Longevity of Co-Operative Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:6:p:965-984. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.