Diversités des organisations dans les économies de marché, rôle des coopératives et des entreprises sociales

Abstract

To date, the dominant economic approaches have downplayed and marginalised the role of co-operative and social enterprises in contemporary market economies. This insufficient attention derives from the limited applicability to the case of co-operative and social enterprises of two of the main assumptions of orthodox microeconomic theory: the presence of self-interested individuals and profit-maximisation as the only possible firm objective. The mismatch between theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence has led to the underestimation of the growth potential, weight and role of co-operative and social enterprises. An explanation for the persistence and growth of these organisational types has not been provided by institutionalism either. We thus maintain that the assumptions of the main theoretical models must be enlarged to consider firms as coordination mechanisms of economic activities, whose stakeholders are driven by a plurality of motivations and display complex preferences. In order to mange motivational and behavioural complexity, co-operative and social enterprises develop specific organisational routines. Consistently, their objectives are not univocal: they can contemplate private appropriation, mutual benefit goals and public benefit aims supported by altruistic preferences. 1.