Sustainability of Worker Co-Operatives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The implication of the study in the abstract is not stated clearly.

2. The introduction should explain the main aim of the article, the problem. The introduction section is not providing much insight information of the problem. Authors should include the specific objectives in the introduction. The contribution and importance of this paper are unclear and insufficiently explained.

3. In the Conclusion section, the policy implications of the results are dealt with in superficial way. Some policy recommendations could be offered and can be related to the specific SDGs.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have replied in the attached document. If we have left out any information, please let us know. 

Sincerely,

Andrea, Karin & Cilla  

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article  "Sustainability of Worker Co-operatives" by  Preluca et al.  consists of two substantially distinct parts: a qualitative analysis of the characteristics of a small number of co-operative enterprises and their possible role in a doughnut-structured economy.

I have some serious reservations on both.

As far as the empirical analysis is concerned, the size of the sample considered is far too small for any general conclusion to be drawn. Similarly, it is not specified whether the number of members includes actual workers or simple subscribers (volunteers in the Authors' notation) interested in minor fringe benefits. For instance, COOP Italy has an astonishing 7,429,847 members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_(Italy) : obviously nearly all of them are just customers who, by paying a yearly subscription, have access to some price reduction.

Furthermore, it is practically impossible to verify the soundness of the analysis of the data employed, mainly based on interviews of unspecified content. Whether they are significant (the self-proclaimed commitment to social and environmental goals by co-operatives might not differ from the stated missions that can be found on the web sites of even the most polluting and predatory enterprises) cannot be verified. Similarly, the interpretation is carried out using sophisticated methods: template approach, cross-case patterns analysis, interpretivist philosophy. Again, the correctness of the analysis cannot be proven (I suspect a straightforward sentiment analysis as provided by several widespread software packages would have been more suitable).

As to the resulting sustainability, I am afraid the outcomes of the Authors' analysis do not provide a clear-cut picture: legal form, governance structure, finance, and limited transparency on environmental goals do not seem that distant from those that can be found in enterprises based on the maximization of shareholders' profit. Motivation and workplace democracy (and consequently efficiency) seem to prevail in small co-operatives where like-mindedness is an important factor. Obviously, this impairs diversity (as mentioned by the Authors), which might result in a further  ghettoization of society ( a burning issue in the Authors' country).

Which brings us to a key issue: traditionally, co-operatives have been successful when they constitute market niches. When they increase in size, two different outcomes are likely to emerge. (In the Conclusion the Authors pledge to analyze additional examples, however, they have not considered important examples of the past). The first outcome is simply the default of the enterprise due to the free-rider effect, based on the well known prisoner's dilemma. The typical example is the collapse of the industrial structure in the former Yugoslavia where the so-called рабочее самоуправление was introduced by President Tito (which is also a proof that co-operatives do not necessarily require (and/or favour) a democratic environment). The second outcome is the substantial transition to a structure hardly different from that of other enterprises with the added danger of political interference (and consequently corruption). COOP-Italy, for instance was sentenced by both Italian and European courts for illegal public financing. Even a mitigated form of co-operative structure, such as the German Mitbestimmung, has given rise to serious corruption cases: the trade unions' representatives in the board of directors were occasionally bribed into accepting policies in favour of the shareholders.

Last, a few comments on DE. While, I regard it as a useful conceptual framework (although far inferior to the 50-year old "Limits of Growth" and Forrester's related dynamic systems), I can hardly consider it an operational tool (admittedly, I was not aware of the existence of a DE Laboratory, but to the best of my knowledge no real life analysis has been published). First, the outer boundary depends on rigorous physical laws as well as on global policy factors and agreements (whose validity can be shattered from one day to another as shown by the recent tragic events). Second, the inner boundary largely depends on national (and consequently potentially ambiguous) choices: how much must be spent on food, health, housing? is gender equality considered at all in some cultures?  Can it be ruled out that the doughnut is not an empty set if what we consider minimum requirements for global environmental and national social welfare are considered? A further difficulty in the DE is the absence of time-dependent variables exogenous to both the outer and inner boundaries, typically the population explosion which has led to a fourfold value of population with respect to the sustainable value estimated by Ehrlich.

While I appreciate the general structure of this paper, I am afraid I cannot recommend it for publication due to the several methodological shortcomings.

 Minor comment: have the Authors obtained the necessary permission to include fig. 1 without infringing any copyright?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions. We have replied to You in the attached document. 

All the best,

Andreea, Karin & Cilla

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction: Line 65 - distributive business: wealth basically is positive - please check whether you consider wealth in terms of "capitalism" in the understanding the shareholder value maximizing the individual owning of capital?

Co-operatives - line 68ff:

How you described a start-up is co-operative as well until degenerative practice (line 125ff). Please consider this from Co-Working in terms of "entrepreneurship". Can Entrepreneurs be co-Worker?

Theory: Co-Operatives remains still in farmers world. In today's Russia the "Kolchose" (Large-scale agricultural enterprise organized on a co-operative basis) still works. In East Germany after reunion there were privatized to the economic reason (productivity). Today farmers organized in Co-operatives to optimize the use of agricultural equipment

Is there any learning out of it?

Case study - line 157ff

The case is reduces to trading worker co-operatives: maybe this should be addressed in the title.

Line 303ff: regenerative and distributive by design: does the design consider only to be sharing without maximizing the generating income. I believe it can be combined! Co-Working companies must follow market mechanism as well. Maybe you liked to address this with "... centralization of value and wealth...". I would recommend to address than directly.

Discussion - line 603

You are addressing very much the sharing of knowledge as a strong position. Is this a requirement for successful Co-Worker within DE?

Sample "Calvert": is this since it was founded (1977) been development towards today's requirements? It was founded for financial purpose. And the decision process: is this more given by organizational structure less on "Co-Working" how you defined it today and how does it goes in relation of today's  sharing economy?

Conclusions - line 740:

In your conclusion you are describing the boundaries (e. g. "...they are not without fault.") Be more critical in terms of the well chosen cases. There you could reach good sample of "newly founded companies" versus traditional companies where driven by fairness and financials... In the 1970's sustainability was only know by the forest workers. Reading your good text: it is a matter of cultural change in there as well.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have replied to Your suggestions and questions in the attached document. 

Sincerely,

Andreea, Karin & Cilla

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

See comments in the file attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Plese find our rebuttal document with replies to your comments (attached). 

 

Copy of rebuttal document:

 

 

Rebuttal for Reviewer 2

 

Thank you for taking the time to re-review our amended manuscript (June 17, 2022). Some of the suggestions and comments you have made are not possible to address – simply because we have made other methodological choices, based on a different understanding. However, we have tried to reply to your comments and suggestions in the rebuttal table below.

 

Comment	Our understanding	Adjustments made in the manuscript
1The data is not available at the link cited in the References. See Google error report (Edge and Firefox report similar errors).	The data is available in the thesis document in reference [36]. The link opens correctly when opened in the browser, perhaps the error you get is because you are Google searching the link rather than opening it.	No changes have been made.  We have opened the links in various browsers, and it works well.
2 I still believe algorithms in current use would have been more suitable than an approach that cannot be analysed.	We appreciate your input and recognise that research approaches vary from researcher to researcher based on their epistemology and research objectives.	The approach is not changed. It is a qualitative approach.
3 The Authors seem to agree that co-operatives can thrive as niche markets. If that is so, isn't their "contribution to a more sustainable world" (line 9) irrelevant?	Co-operatives can be somewhat considered a niche market in the sense that they are not as mainstream as other forms of organisation, that is our understanding as well. However, they are more prevalent than one might expect.   In the UK there are over 7 thousand independent co-operatives (less than 1% of UK businesses, thus still a niche market), which together contribute £38 billion to the UK economy, with a membership of 14 million (per the 2021 Co-op Economy report from Co-operatives UK). Globally, 12% of the population are members of a co-operative (not only worker co-operatives), and there are around 3 million co-operative enterprises worldwide (see material from the International Cooperative Alliance).   These numbers indicate that although co-operatives are not a large percentage of the total number of businesses, they engage a large number of people, they contribute significantly to the economy, and are worth researching as alternative, functioning business models.	The contribution lies in alternative organisational structures compared to IOFs, and these co-operatives represent a considerable number of firms.
4 The Authors maintain they do not want to generalise nor to consider time dependency ("just a snapshot"). I wonder. Sentences like " disrupt the hegemony of the profit-driven IOF" "Co-operatives can be considered representative of alternative economic theories" " The overarching implications of this enterprise model for sustainability SHOWS how a business founded in shared ownership can provide a decent life for employees and the community where it resides, without jeopardising ecological health."  point to the contrary	Our conclusions are based on the conducted case studies – and conclusions are only made for these case studies. An insightful reader with a lot of understandings may be able to generalise but we do not make an empirical generalisation in our article.   The citations you make are all supported with references, as part of a problematisation. It is customary to read up on what has been done by other authors, and that is what is stated in the two citations: " disrupt the hegemony of the profit-driven IOF" "Co-operatives can be considered representative of alternative economic theories"   The last citation you make, about implications pertain to the studies units of analysis only. We are not generalising the results, suggesting that the DE model is suitable for studies of all worker co-operatives with sustainability ambitions.	No alterations are made. We have used references to support the problematisation. The conclusions are made concerning the studied units of analysis.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

In my previous review, I had pointed out that even a revised version of this paper could hardly make me change my evaluation. As I see, the revision is actually a rebuttal. In other words, what I feared (an acrimonious discussion between authors and reviewers with different opinions) has happened.

 In my opinion, the decision about the publication of this manuscript boils down to whether a contribution that considers a market niche, is based on 7 (seven!) interviews, does not discuss key issues such as free rider effects, historical evidence, absence of diversity, political meddling and corruption phenomena in larger companies, employs unspecified (even if alluring) analysis techniques and despite these shortcomings claims to provide "alternative business models to disrupt the hegemony of the profit-driven IOF" is enough for publication in Sustainability. In my opinion, it isn't.

Obviously, this is a decision for the Editor to make.  

 

Author Response

Dear Academic reviewer,

Thank you for providing additional suggestions for improving our article. We have identified and downloaded the suggested literature to make a second round of assessment how the suggested literature might be of use in the manuscript. The outcome of our work is accounted for in the rebuttal table (attached). 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf