Call for Papers
Cooperatives as a Fortress of Participation?
32th EGOS Colloquium, Sub-theme 55
7.-9. Juli 2016; Naples, Italy
Convenors: Irma Rybnikova, Christopher Land, Ronald Hartz
In the face of the current financial crisis a vivid revival of interest in alternative organizational forms, including cooperatives, can be observed in the literature (Cheney et al., 2014). Cooperatives are mainly considered as an alternative way of organizing in the shadow of private and public sectors which is often presumed to be able to respond to economic challenges and at the same time to maintain social values, such as organizational participation and democracy.
The sub-theme invites contributions addressing a range of issues, including but not limited to the following topics:
- Different forms and initiatives of participation in cooperatives
- The mutual relationship between the (ascribed) identities of cooperatives‘ members and participation practices
- The interlink between the participation of members and of employees in cooperatives
- The relationship between direct and representative participation in cooperatives, including the role of trade unions and works councils in these organizational contexts
- Country-specific legal and institutional contexts of cooperatives and their impact on participation practices
- Conceptual contributions to the analysis of participation in cooperatives, e.g. exploring the appropriateness of democratic theory or concepts of organizational participation in the context of cooperatives
- Methodological and methodical issues of empirical undertakings in this field, such as critical discussion of suitable research methods or approaches for theory generation
Deadline for the submission of short papers: 11.1.2016