Organizational choice and behaviour : a framework for analyzing decision-making in co-operative organizations
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This thesis proposes a conceptual framework to analyze the choice of organizational form and assess the shifts in organizational behaviour and form. This thesis argues that the choice of organizational form is an outcome of an individual’s or group’s mode of identification within the dominant organizational form and property rights structure of society. The framework places/situates the investor-owned firm (IOF) in a position of identification with the dominant ideology and property rights structure of society. The state-owned enterprise (SOE) occupies a position of counter-identification with the dominant ideology and property rights structure of society. The co-operative, on the other hand, represents a dis-identification with both the IOF and the SOE as this form works on and against the ideologies and property rights structures associated with the two former organizational forms.Further, the thesis argues that endogenous and exogenous pressures may cause some organizations to shift their organizational behaviour and form. The researcher examines how internal problems in co-operative organizations (i.e., horizon and principal-agent problems) can exacerbate exogenous pressures (i.e., increasing competition and/or government deregulation) from the market and/or state causing the co-op to imitate the strategies or property rights structure of the IOF in order to cope with these issues. Profiles of the formation of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries Limited and the conversion of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool are used to illustrate the conceptual framework and support the arguments made in this thesis.
Description
Keywords
organizational theory, bounded rationality, property rights, isomorphism, social movements, social cohesion
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Interdisciplinary Studies
Program
Interdisciplinary Studies