Social housing providers feature as important social economy actors across Europe. There is a variety of forms that social housing organisations can take, such as cooperatives, non-profit organisations and (semi)governmental organisations. Some of these housing organisations can be described with traditional ‘state’, ‘market’ or ‘civil society’ labels, but many correspond in fact to hybrid organisational forms, encompassing characteristics of state, market and civil society organisations. This group could be referred to as social enterprises.

“COOPERATIVE GROUPS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE”

Rosalía Alfonso Sánchez, PhD. Lecturer in Commercial Law. University of Murcia (Spain). rosalia@um.es

The present paper aims to suggest some ways in order to organise what it could be known as the “governance of cooperative groups”.

Credit cooperatives were institutionalized in India in the beginning of the twentieth century to help the rural peasantry meet its genuine credit requirements by promoting member driven and self governed institutions. In the initial design, it was conceived that ‘peer pressure’ which the members bring on each other rather than the ‘material wealth’ of the members, is key to the success of cooperatives. In the post independence period, Government viewed cooperatives as an instrument of rural development.

Cooperative Legislation´s Role in Cooperative Survival: Balancing Integration, Flexibility and Differentiation

Carlos Vargas-Vasserot, Associate Professor of Commercial Law, University of Almeria, Spain and Cynthia Giagnocavo, Ph.D.

El estudio muestra los aspectos teórico-metodológicos y los resultados preeliminares del Prototipo de la Cuenta Satélite de la Economía Social, Solidaria y Popular en Venezuela realizado por el Banco Central de Venezuela. Este prototipo es una investigación estadística, cuyo objetivo general es conocer el aporte que realiza el sector a la economía nacional.

Place based enterprise often find expanding beyond their home community problematic. Local development motivations seem to be at odds with expansion beyond the region. This is particularly highlighted in some of the rhetoric around the social economy which locates the root of and solution to regional decline within local communities. Place-based social enterprises are presented as ways for communities to amass their own resources to address their own problems. There are other models, such as fair trade coops, which - almost by definition - need to be embedded within global commodity chains.

The potential of cooperative enterprise to promote gender equality derives from the special nature of cooperative enterprise itself: from its democratic organization and its values of social responsibility and equity. The presence of women is very extensive in diverse cooperative sectors. Nevertheless, cooperatives are generally still managed by men at the executive and governance levels (Apelqvist, 1996).

One of the sectors in which the cooperativism has a greater weight and strength in the Spanish agriculture is the virgin olive oil sector, which assembles the third part of the produced oil. This is a situation which does not occur in the final market where the presence of cooperatives in the sale of virgin olive oil, bottled with brand, is vastly inferior.

This research is a part of doctoral thesis and it aims to draw the sociological profile of Portuguese Consumers’ Cooperatives managers.

This contribution sorts out the opportunities and the threats of government interference in cooperative life. It proves to be a delicate balance between directing the economic and social forces without suffocating them. Since the independence era, most African governments have developed an ambiguous stand toward the cooperative movements in their countries. They embraced cooperatives as carriers of their economic and social policies while at the same time cooperatives were to some extent invaded by government officials.