El objetivo del estudio fue comprender la dinámica organizativa y el potencial de las organizaciones de base de recolección de residuos en el área metropolitana de Santiago de Chile para pasar de una situación de informalidad, asociada a la idea de economía popular, a la capacidad de incorporarse como organizaciones más estructuradas en el contexto de la economía social y solidaria. Read More
Mancur Olson and Robert Putnam provide two contrasting views on the effect of involvement in voluntary associations on their members. This paper aims to examine the different models by involving a sample of members of different types of associations, from different age groups and educational levels, and a demographically comparable sample of non-members. Read More
The cooperative movement underwent in 2012 a renewed impulse with the declaration of the “International Year of Cooperatives”. In this paper we present the results of the interviews conducted with international experts of the sector, who belong to national organizations following the Delphi methodology. Read More
In the first part of the paper we study the pricing policies of a customer-owned firm in the absence of external regulation. The main result is that the effect of self-regulation generally ensures the dominance of customer ownership over investor ownership in terms of welfare, although in neither rule is sufficient to achieve first-best in equilibrium. Read More
This paper describes the role of social enterprises and social cooperatives as a type of nonprofit economic organization that is assuming an increasingly central role in Europe (as demonstrated, for example, by the Social Business Initiative recently launched by the European Commission), contributing to its economic and social growth. Read More
In the European and Italian landscape, community enterprises are emerging, under different institutional forms, as key players in urban regeneration processes. The paper proposes an analysis of the Italian context proceeding from institutionalized organizations to less formal ones: community cooperatives, social enterprises and urban commons linked to social movements. Read More
The implementation of projects producing external effects is often a source of disagreement and conflict between hosting and non-hosting communities. The paper focuses on the impact of participatory ownership on conflict resolution and social welfare in the presence of asymmetric information and imperfect quality monitoring. Read More
The paper deals with the mediating role of immaterial satisfaction between substantive organizational substantive features, defined as resources by on-the-job autonomy, involvement, teamwork and workload pressure, and organizational performance, defined in terms of improvements in product quality and innovation. Read More
Using a stochastic frontier approach, in this paper we analyze the imposition of financial sustainability requirements on the traditional social mission of microfinance--reaching out to the poor. In addition, we ask whether the way ownership is organized and practiced affects the costs of microfinance delivery. Read More
Using a variety of sources, this paper reconstructs the size and proposes an analysis of the economic function of Italian agricultural cooperation, including through a comparison with corporations and with a specific focus on the wine sector. Read More
To address the lack of clarity around the concept of community cooperatives this paper aims to develop a definition consistent with its evolution and the classification of cooperatives we have identified. Read More
Building on evidence from the literature, the paper systematises and highlights some of the potential problems in the governance of cooperative firms concerning the accomplishment of cooperative mutualistic aims. In exploring the internal conditions that may affect cooperative performance, we focus in particular on the role of rules and incentives towards such aims. Read More