Challenging the degeneration thesis: the role of democracy in worker cooperatives?

Langmead, K ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2980-5107, 2016. Challenging the degeneration thesis: the role of democracy in worker cooperatives? The Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, 5 (1), pp. 79-98. ISSN 2281-8642

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Abstract

This paper uses data collected through written narratives, focus groups and participant observation in three small UK worker cooperatives to investigate the role of democracy in maintaining cooperatives’ dual social-economic characteristic and resisting degeneration. More specifically, it adds to limited empirical literature countering the degeneration thesis by arguing that ongoing processes of individual-collective alignment, understood as central to the practice of democracy, help cooperatives to: balance varying and conflicting needs and aims; challenge the assumption underpinning the degeneration thesis; and transform degenerative "risks" into creative and productive spaces where new meanings and practices can be formed.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: The Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity
Creators: Langmead, K.
Publisher: European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (Euricse)
Date: 2016
Volume: 5
Number: 1
ISSN: 2281-8642
Identifiers:
Number
Type
10.5947/jeod.2016.005
DOI
Divisions: Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by: Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added: 07 Jan 2019 09:59
Last Modified: 07 Jan 2019 09:59
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/35476

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