A Theory of the Integrated Collaborative Enterprise
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Source Publication
Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management
Link to Published Version
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003449850-9/theory-integrated-collaborative-enterprise-david-kristjanson-gural?context=ubx&refId=81edef2b-cdd8-4050-b5ee-0dd01be03144
Publication Date
Winter 2024
Editor
Jerome Warren; Jamin Hubner
Publisher
Routledge
City
London
Volume
1
Edition
1
ISBN
9781003449850
First Page
96
Last Page
116
Department
Economics
Description
Worker cooperatives overcome exploitative capitalist wage relationships by giving workers, as enterprise members, the right to claim new value created by their work effort. However, in doing so, they exclude stakeholders from decisions that directly affect their interests. Worker cooperatives thus create an apparent conundrum between the workers’ right to claim the new value they create and the stakeholders’ right to have a say over decisions that affect them. I draw on Marxian class analysis to provide a framework that foregrounds the production, appropriation, and distribution of new value, offering a novel institutional structure that resolves this conundrum. I use the framework to illustrate how various types of enterprise structures – stakeholder, worker-owned, worker self-managed, non-profit, and cooperative – handle the appropriation and distribution of new value. I then combine features of stakeholder and worker cooperative enterprises to define a new enterprise structure – the integrated collaborative enterprise – embedded in a governance structure like that of Mondragon, which includes multiple enterprises. I conclude by proposing a revision to the ICA principles for worker coops that seeks to highlight and move cooperative advocates and practitioners toward (i) the elimination of exploitation at the enterprise level and (ii) the development of supportive governance structures for multi-cooperative networks.
Recommended Citation
Kristjanson-Gural, David, "A Theory of the Integrated Collaborative Enterprise" (2024). Faculty Contributions to Books. 323.
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_books/323
