Management in worker cooperatives: Democracy vs. dissonance, and possible overcoming approaches

Abstract

Since early 19th century -and practically along with capitalism´s consolidation- cooperativism has been one of the main references in the pursuit of materialization, at the economic-organisational level, of political conquests obtained since the Enlightenment times. In particular, worker cooperatives have evidenced a remarkable resilience in offering a functioning Economic Democracy alternative, based on egalitarian schemes of worker-members’ common ownership. Supposedly, common ownership ensures democratic and participatory management, based on the “one person, one vote” principle. However, implementation of this ideal clashes with a dual and conflicting reality. On one side, the space for governance and strategic delimitation -the general Assembly- assumes democratic and participative dynamics. On the other side, most of the remaining areas of organizational management usually adopt the typical bureaucratic chain of command scheme, as the arrangements in classic authority relations are considered unavoidable elements when it comes to achieving coordination in daily work. Such circumstances lead to the emergence of Cooperative Dissonance, a concept that refers to the dual and contradictory nature of the set of work experiences: from Assembly meetings with democratic equality to everyday work processes with autocracy and inequality in the distribution of decision-making power. Theoretical proposition of this dissonance in worker cooperatives’ management, a review of some of its main manifestations in specialized literature, and an indication of some possible overcoming approaches constitute the main contribution of this article.