{"title":"An exploration of the relationship between member openness and perceived organisational openness at a particular point in the co-operative lifecycle","authors":"Noreen Byrne , O. McCarthy , D. O’Loughlin","doi":"10.1016/j.jcom.2023.100218","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Co-operatives are essentially relational entities which are jointly co-created by members and the co-operative. This relational co-creation is particularly important in the founding years of the co-operative and at points of crisis and regeneration in the co-operative lifecycle. This paper explores the relationship between member openness towards relational engagement and their perception of the co-operative’s openness to that input (perceived openness) in a credit union context, prior to a major period of restructuring. Perceived openness is examined from two distinct perspectives, that is, awareness of right of involvement as owners (which in this paper we equated with co-operative member ownership structure) and possibility of involvement or perception of organisation openness (which in this paper we equated with co-operative process). It was found in the multivariate Logistic model that possibility rather than right of involvement is related to member openness. This suggests that the process of co-operation in a co-operative plays a greater role than the organisational structure of that co-operative in facilitating member input. This is a significant finding and suggests that greater attention needs to be given to process and openness in co-operative research and practice. It also suggests that co-operatives cannot just draw on their member ownership structure, in building member engagement at time of crisis.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":43876,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213297X23000216","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Co-operatives are essentially relational entities which are jointly co-created by members and the co-operative. This relational co-creation is particularly important in the founding years of the co-operative and at points of crisis and regeneration in the co-operative lifecycle. This paper explores the relationship between member openness towards relational engagement and their perception of the co-operative’s openness to that input (perceived openness) in a credit union context, prior to a major period of restructuring. Perceived openness is examined from two distinct perspectives, that is, awareness of right of involvement as owners (which in this paper we equated with co-operative member ownership structure) and possibility of involvement or perception of organisation openness (which in this paper we equated with co-operative process). It was found in the multivariate Logistic model that possibility rather than right of involvement is related to member openness. This suggests that the process of co-operation in a co-operative plays a greater role than the organisational structure of that co-operative in facilitating member input. This is a significant finding and suggests that greater attention needs to be given to process and openness in co-operative research and practice. It also suggests that co-operatives cannot just draw on their member ownership structure, in building member engagement at time of crisis.