Different together: How workers' co-operatives networks contribute to sustaining workers' participation as an institutional differentiation

TOPIC 12 – STAGE 3 – MESO Workers’ participation, as other alternative economic practices, is a way for some organizations to differentiate themselves from economic actors following institutionally expected behaviors.... [ view full abstract ]

TOPIC 12 – STAGE 3 – MESO


Workers’ participation, as other alternative economic practices, is a way for some organizations to differentiate themselves from economic actors following institutionally expected behaviors. Workers’ co-operatives, as enabling environment for participation, allow the emergence and development of divergent practices at the margin of existing institutions. Institutional differentiation, however, prevents such organizations to benefit from the legitimacy traditionally granted to organizations conforming to institutional demands.

In this article, we suggest that by gathering into inter-organizational networks, institutionally differentiated organizations –such as workers’ co-operatives– can sustain a certain degree of autonomy and therefore preserve their alternative practices over the long run, despite mutually reinforcing pressures towards the adoption of more hierarchical and standardized decision-making modes. Workers’ co-operative networks, by providing a space in which member organizations can experiment and nurture alternative practices, enable organizations to deal with the necessary trial-and-error processes and engage into multi-lateral sharing and learning. Networks also enable the construction of a common identity, defined by shared values and motivations, reflected in theorized and systematized practices, bounded by codes of conduct and reporting systems, and related to real-life achievements.

By endorsing a third-party role and mobilizing the collectively constructed identity, networks have the ability to justify institutional differentiation in front of dominant actors of the field. By doing so, networks secure the minimum level of legitimation necessary for individual organizations to survive. We suggest a framework in which identity and legitimacy are interconnected. Moral legitimacy derives from the normative approval of workers’ co-operative values and norms, which must be perceived as compatible with values and norms predominant in the society in which the co-operative is embedded. Cognitive legitimacy derives from the comprehensibility of the concept of workers’ participation, as well as its boundaries, in the eyes of external constituencies. Finally, pragmatic legitimacy derives from the self-interests and benefits that surrounding actors perceive in the existence of workers’ co-operatives.

If sufficiently convincing in acquiring and defending their members’ legitimacy, networks can thus prevent individual organizations from being sanctioned for not complying with the institutional demands, or pressured to align with them. Hence, they enable individual organizations to survive over time while maintaining their institutional differentiation.