Project
Two PhD Researchers - Entrepreneurship and/or Governance
The research project aims to gain a better understanding of the governance of cooperatives. Cooperative enterprises are value-driven member-owned and controlled organizations that operate primarily and philosophically outside of the traditional profit to capital owners’ model. Because of this non-capitalist orientation and distinctive governance, cooperatives are enterprises of the social economy, sometimes now coined social enterprises. Governance is often set forth as the most distinctive element of cooperatives through two characteristics: member ownership and democratic control. However, cooperatives are confronted with several pressures that challenge the nature of their governance and which this research project intends to investigate.