Are Cooperatives Hybrid Organizations? An Alternative Viewpoint
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This paper questions the designation of cooperatives as hybrids of market
and hierarchy on the grounds that cooperatives possess more differences
from these governance mechanisms than commonalities with them. It is
argued that the definition of a governance mechanism’s hybridity depends
on the definition of the governance continuum, with the conventional
market-hierarchy continuum failing to accommodate the specificity of the
cooperative organization. Utilizing the logic of the property rights theory of
the firm, the paper develops an alternative continuum for cooperative,
hierarchical, and market organization. These governance mechanisms are
shown to exhibit growing difference in the extensiveness of property rights
assigned to the involved contractual parties. This continuum does not imply
the hybridity of cooperatives; rather, it locates hierarchy between market and
cooperative organization. The empirical validity of the new continuum is
confirmed by the results of a survey of members of several Ukrainian rural
cooperatives.