Inclusive governance in non-profit organisations

The study of private non-profit enterprises that offer general interest services is only at the start. The understanding of existing organisations resists an inclusive, public interest view of governance. This contribution aims at providing a reflection on specific features that non-profit enterprises should have, and outlines four main justifications for including stakeholders in production governance: 1) access to knowledge and other resources, 2) trust creation, 3) internal efficiency, 4) external efficiency. Conclusions elaborate on Hansmann’s classic theory of the firm to suggest that governance solutions need to be assessed on the basis of total costs, considering also the lower level of social costs that is created when governance includes relevant stakeholders. Our model highlights that when social costs are high, even an enterprise with costly decisional processes, such as the multi-stakeholder, can be the most efficient solution amongst other possible alternatives

The creation of new entities: stakeholders and shareholders in 19th century Italian co-operatives

The numerous studies made of the persistence of the co-operative movement during the course of the 20th century, have often distinguished between economic efficiency and the ethical values (or ideologies) in questioni, as if the two were separate phenomena moving in parallel directions. However, over the past fifteen years at least two approaches have led to an interweaving of the cultural aspects of co-operation with the question of economic efficiency: the Putnam’s concept of social capital and the property rights model based on the work of Henry Hansmann. In associating myself with an approach, where efficiency is linked with “culture”, I wish to examine the cultural components of the Italian co-operative movement which emerged from three different socio-cultural traditions: liberalism, catholicism and socialism. Despite their differences, all three seem to share what we refer to here as the “ideal of community happiness”, that is the ideal of a collaboration among citizens for the improvement of the standard of living of the whole community. In this paper we will measure the popularity of this culture in the various Italian regions by per capita welfare expenditure in 1880 and 1900. At that time everything spent for helping people in need was given by friendly societies, catholic charities and local councils and nothing came from the central state. Therefore only the spreading of non-profit societies and a proactive attitude by local councils could generate high per capita welfare expenditure. Indeed, such indicator would seem to be closely linked to co-operative expansion during the second half of the 19th century, and would thus appear to provide an explanation for the non-homogeneous geographical distribution of Italian co-operatives. The main conclusion of this essay is that in the early stages the link with the political and cultural movements was crucial not only for the emergence but above all for the viability of cooperative enterprises by reducing the costs associated with collective decision making.

Logiche dell'azione collettiva: un'analisi evolutiva

L'azione collettiva e' essenzialmente una faccenda di cooperazione. La teoria economica propone una teoria della cooperazione molto parsimoniosa: oltre alla cooperazione che emerge sulla base del calcolo dell'interesse individuale non riesce ad arrivare. Per l'economia neoclassica standard, ad esempio, un soggetto non dovrebbe mai cooperare in un Dilemma del Prigioniero non ripetuto. Se in laboratorio poi si osserva che anche nel gioco one-shot alcuni giocatori cooperano, l'interpretazione e' semplice: hanno giocato male, o non sono stati razionali. La cooperazione ha invece una sua logica, sempre per l'economia standard, quando il gioco si ripete: allora, come dice il folk theorem, possiamo cooperare sulla semplice base del calcolo razionale: non occorre ipotizzare nessuna forma di "preferenze sociali" (come fa invece la scuola di Zurigo di Fehr e il suo gruppo), basta l'interesse personale. In questo studio noi proponiamo una teoria della cooperazione meno parsimoniosa, che cerca di dar conto di logiche di cooperazione diverse da quella standard in economia. Al tempo stesso, la nostra proposta non sposa neanche la versione delle "preferenze sociali". Cerca invece di prender sul serio entrambe queste visioni dell'azione collettiva, ma di guardare oltre, e in luoghi non ancora sufficientemente esplorati dalla teoria economica e sociale.azione collettiva; cooperazione; calcolo razionale; interesse personale; analisi dinamica; gioco one-shot

Measuring Social Capital: Culture as an Explanation of Italy's Economic Dualism.

The paper presents a quantitative test of the oft-repeated view that Italy's backward and poor South suffered from low "social capital", a tendency to defect from co-operative engagements. The problem with such assertions is that they run the risk of taking as evidence in favour of the hypothesis the very observations that need to be explained. The analysis carried out in this work tries to break out of this impasse by analyzing the conditions under which it was ex ante welfare-improving for farmers in early 20th century Italy to join an unlimited liability rural co-operative bank which would give them access to cheaper credit but also exposed them to the risk of their neighbours' defection.POVERTY ; CULTURE ; SOCIAL CAPITAL

Financial Deregulation and Economic Distress: Is There a Future for Financial Co-operatives?

The last years have witnessed a wide reshaping of the banking scene. According to researchers and authorities, the aftermath of these developments include an increased risk of demarketing of the conventional banking system towards certain customer segmentations and marginal areas and activities. Recently the banking scene has deteriorated, especially at the local level, as the financial crisis increased the scarcity of readily available, sufficient and reliable services. Behind the current crisis seems to be the influential corporate governance of dominant financial institutions, which introduced innovative products that resulted in less transparency and created uncertainty and a lack of trust toward and within the financial system. The present paper argues that this new reality can be thought of as giving new opportunities for financial co-operatives to increase their importance among the market and areas that they historically serve. The paper bases its analysis on the development pattern of the financial co-operatives of Italy and Greece and outlines the critical path that the financial co-operatives should follow in order to provide efficient (and crucial for local development banking) services and products. It is argued that these changes can be exploited only if the financial co-operatives would be able to transform without losing their basic values. Further, this route goes through the development of new strategies and in certain cases of the modernization of their services. The authors also stress and define the risk of failing that might hinder the co-operative movement, as the huge potential of co-operative endeavors are rarely “translated” to gains automatically.Credit cooperatives, local banks, Greece and Italian financial cooperatives, financial systems, financial crisis

COOPERAZIONE E COOPERAZIONE DI CREDITO. QUALE FUTURO?

Il settore delle imprese cooperative è stato oggetto di profonde riforme da parte del gislatore nazionale che ha distinto tra cooperative a mutualità prevalente o meno.Nel comparto creditizio la riforma è stata ancora più incisiva per le banche popolari e per le banche di credito cooperativo, in vista di esigenze più generali di rafforzamento del sistema per adeguarsi alla disciplina europea.La disciplina del Codice Civile e quella del Testo unico bancario sono state oggetto di una opportuna razionalizzazione

Bureaucratized management of paid care-work

Paid elderly care-work in Italy: the case of not-for-profit private organizations, social cooperatives which provide domiciliary services and employ mainly migrant women in the cities of Milan and Reggio Emilia

Co-operative and Alternative Finance for Agricultural/Food Communities : European Developments

Publisher PD

Mergers and Acquisitions Between Mutual Banks in Italy :An analysis of the effects on performance and productive efficiency

The paper is aimed at testing the hypothesis that the M&A wave over the past ten years has increased the level of efficiency of co-operative credit banks (CCBs), both in terms of overall performance and productive efficiency. The logical development is hinged on two steps: 1) an explorative analysis which is based on the observation of balance sheet ratios by quantiles, 2) a DEA application for estimating productive efficiency scores. The analysis refers to 94 CCBs which have been involved in M&As over the period 1995-1998 and is carried out on both merged and non-merged banks, either before concentration or in the subsequent years.

Dalla Cooperazione Mutualistica alla Cooperazione Sociale

Nel dibattito economico si possono individuare tre filoni interpretativi delle motivazioni della nascita dell'impresa cooperativa. Il primo vede nella cooperativa un'impresa generalmente meno efficiente dell'impresa di capitali (perche' manca lo stimolo del profitto) e che puo' avere una qualche utilita' nelle situazioni di crisi (soprattutto di tipo macroeconomico). Secondo questo approccio l'impresa cooperativa e' destinata ad essere marginale e puo' svilupparsi solo per periodi di tempo limitati. Inoltre, ha bisogno di sostegni pubblici sistematici per compensare il gap di efficienza che la caratterizza. Questo approccio sembra essere debole e limitato perche' si indirizza esclusivamente ad una categoria specifica di cooperative, sottostimandone le potenzialita'.Impresa sociale; Modello cooperativo; Modello di Ward; Hansmann