Future of Cooperatives: A Corporate Perspective

Over the past twenty years the theory of the firm, and of organization more generally, has grown into a substantial field of economic research. Yet, peculiarly little attention has been spent on understanding the role of cooperatives and other non-corporate forms of organization. It has simply been assumed that most firms are business corporations and that this is so because having investors own and control firms is an inherently superior arrangement. Professor Hansmann, in a laudable departure from the mainstream, has reminded us that these generally held presumptions are false; that many competing forms of firm organization exist, including cooperatives; and that understanding the full panoply of firm organization is essential for appreciating not only the outstanding variety, but also the distinctive virtues of the corporate form itself. His excellent book ”Ownership of Enterprise” has gotten economists interested in non-corporate forms of organization and helped them see these organizational forms, not as anomalies, but as competitive institutions that form an integral part of a healthy market economy. LTA 4 / 9 9 • P . 4 0 4 – 4 1 7