Cooperative Firms in Global Markets : Incidence, Viability and Economic Performance

A number of competing views are swirling around the literature concerning the impact of globalization on the ability of cooperatives to survive. This 10th volume of the "Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms" series wants to understand some of these elements in the evolution of cooperatives in a world where globalization seems to be the driving force behind innovative forms of organization. In keeping with the main focus of the economics literature, the volume is focused on worker and producer cooperatives. This issue contains eleven papers and is organized into three parts: the first part collects empirical studies on producers cooperatives in Israel, Italy, Spain and Canada. The second part focuses on theoretical advances in the literature on cooperatives with the objective of understanding the conditions that explain co-ops longevity. Finally the third part documents the expansion into the global markets of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation. It contains original research on cooperatives. It focuses on the impact of globalization on the cooperatives performance and survival. It contains a mix of empirical and theoretical research.