IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/trn/csnjrn/v2i2p1-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

All firms are cooperatives – and so are governments

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Hansmann

    (Yale Law Schoo)

Abstract

The emergence of social co-operatives cannot be understood without a more detailed analysis of the worldwide fast-growing interest toward social enterprise and social entrepreneurship since the mid-1990s. Much more than US-based schools of thought, a major European conception of social enterprise actually fits the co-operative tradition, and even more precisely, the “world standards of social cooperatives” as formulated by the Organization of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Co-operatives (CICOPA). Placing social co-operatives in a longer historical perspective shows that new waves and/or new types of co-operatives generally emerge in times of deep transformations of the whole economic system when some basic conditions are met.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Hansmann, 2013. "All firms are cooperatives – and so are governments," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 2(2), pages 1-10, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:csnjrn:v:2:i:2:p:1-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://jeodonline.com/jeod_articles/invited-paper-all-firms-are-cooperatives-and-so-are-governments/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    2. Hansmann, Henry, 1988. "Ownership of the Firm," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 267-304, Fall.
    3. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    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. Maria Bastida & Alberto Vaquero García & Luisa Helena Pinto & Ana Olveira Blanco, 2022. "Motivational drivers to choose worker cooperatives as an entrepreneurial alternative: evidence from Spain," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1609-1626, March.
    2. Mikami, Kazuhiko, 2018. "Are cooperative firms a less competitive form of business? Production efficiency and financial viability of cooperative firms with tradable membership shares," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 487-502.
    3. Ville Pönkä, 2018. "The Legal Nature of Cooperative Membership," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 7(2), pages 39-61.
    4. 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.
    5. Gaetano Cuomo, 2014. "Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 4(8), pages 34-43, August.
    6. Simone Poledrini & Florence Degavre & Ermanno Tortia, 2018. "Editorial: Background and Further Perspectives on Social Innovation in Social Enterprises," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 7(1), pages 1-13.
    7. Gaetano Cuomo, 2015. "Imprese cooperative e democrazia economica," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(116), pages 5-38.

    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. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    2. Thomsen, Steen & Rose, Caspar, 2002. "Foundation ownership and financial performance. Do companies need owners?," Working Papers 2002-3, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Finance.
    3. Gaetano Cuomo, 2014. "Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 4(8), pages 34-43, August.
    4. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, September.
    5. Magali Fia & Lorenzo Sacconi, 2019. "Justice and Corporate Governance: New Insights from Rawlsian Social Contract and Sen’s Capabilities Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 937-960, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    8. Gaetano Cuomo, 2014. "Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 4(8), pages 34-43, August.
    9. Leshui He, 2010. "The Ownership of the Firm under A Property Rights Approach," Working papers 2010-23, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    10. Dow, Gregory K. & Putterman, Louis, 2000. "Why capital suppliers (usually) hire workers: what we know and what we need to know," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 319-336, November.
    11. Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta, 2010. "Editors’ Introduction," Chapters, in: Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Surajeet Chakravarty & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2006. "Construction Contracts (or “How to Get the Right Building at the Right Price?”)," CESifo Working Paper Series 1714, CESifo.
    13. Oliver Hart, 2013. "Noncontractible Investments and Reference Points," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-20, August.
    14. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2021. "On the optimality of outsourcing when vertical integration can mitigate information asymmetries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    15. Nathan H. Miller, 2008. "Competition When Consumers Value Firm Scope," EAG Discussions Papers 200807, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    16. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2006. "Book Review," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 162(3), pages 535-542, September.
    17. Markus Solf, 2004. "Unternehmenskooperationen als Folge von Informations- und Kommunikations-technologieveränderungen: Eine theoretische Analyse," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 146-167, March.
    18. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    19. Xu, Chenggang & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2009. "The evolution of Chinese entrepreneurial firms: Township-village enterprises revisited," IFPRI discussion papers 854, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    20. W. Bentley MacLeod, 1997. "Complexity, Contract and the Employment Relationship," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 342., Boston College Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cooperatives; nonprofit organizations; entrepreneurship; public enterprises; private enterprises; governance; firm organization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • L32 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Enterprises; Public-Private Enterprises
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:trn:csnjrn:v:2:i:2:p:1-10. 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: Barbara Franchini (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/euricit.html .

    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.