Unternehmerische Entscheidung im Innovationskontext genossenschaftlicher Organisationen: Eine fallstudienbasierte Analyse[Entrepreneurial decision-making in cooperative organizations - a case study research]

In the context of innovation activitties, the process of new product development and their implementation in the internal structure of the organization requires knowledge communication and decision-making on different levels of the cooperative network. The functions of entrepreneurship are not any longer limited to a single firm but are divided up into different parts along the cooperative network. In our paper we address the question how the requiered market knowledge can be perceived and incorporated in the complex structure of cooperative organizations. The methodological approach of the paper is related to the idea of theorizing by meands of case study research. Therefore we introduce a modified concept of the innovation process with six idealized phases. The results are integrated in the framework by the illustration of three selected practical examples of innovation activities carried out by a German cooperative in the past.