Mutual aid societies appeared in Europe between the 19th and 20th centuries. This is one of the first forms of working class solidarity - anti-elitist, free from state control and self-managed - established to address the costs of illness, death and unemployment. Based on a study of the Italian situation, the paper deals with the role that mutuality can play today in response to the welfare crisis. Read More
The future scenario highlights a Western leadership challenged while the geo-economy seems to be moving back to a pre-Industrial Revolution setup. Against this possible background, we outline various considerations along which that scenario will increase the need for credit cooperatives to shape a more sustainable economy. Read More
The aim of this report is to assess the performance of rural banks in Trentino compared to an ideal model of a "good rural bank" by developing and applying an indicator system, in order to provide recommendations for improvement and optimization of banking practices. Read More
The social cooperative is a passionate enterprise, a business with soul, but above all a form of organization that has stood the test of time and accumulated useful knowledge and experience to face even the uncertain future of our country and its welfare. This book discusses social cooperatives, 20 years after the founding law No. 381/91. Read More
This paper aims to measure the technical efficiency of agricultural enterprises in Italy during the period 2003 – 2007 by applying a stochastic frontier analysis to panel data. The developed two-sectored model distinguishes between agricultural production function and non-agricultural production function. Read More
The essay aims to study the organizational structure, i.e. the integration between companies developed by social cooperation in Italy over its thirty years of history. In fact, to best carry out their tasks, social cooperatives make use of the Consortium, an entrepreneurial entity that almost never operates in the final part of the supply chain, rarely places itself on the finished services market, preferring to be in the middle: to produce services for businesses . Read More
One of the most relevant sectors where the cooperative offer has established itself is undoubtedly that of credit. If we consider the importance of its role, for the development of other sectors and of the territories and communities where it operates, and the economic and political power that it can consequently confer on those who manage it, some problematic aspects typical of organizations become crucial here. not-for-profit. The latter are discussed in theoretical form in the first part of the work, while in the second the first applications and the debate that accompanied them are analysed. Read More
The paper explores the way the work of classic institutionalist authors can inform modern nonprofit economics. From the perspective of Thorstein Veblen, nonprofit organisation is explained as an institutional consequence of the pecuniary-industrial dichotomy. Read More
We investigate what is behind the profit/not for profit wage differential by comparing judgments on job characteristics of workers who voluntarily or involuntarily moved from the first to the second sector. Our findings support the differential profit/nonprofit compensation hypothesis and shed light on mechanisms that go beyond the work-donating behavior of intrinsically motivated workers. Read More
Italian worker cooperatives tend to accumulate a high share of profits in indivisible reserves, a fund that is unavailable and cannot be appropriated by members. The research investigates the reasons for this practice, after discussing the most frequently used interpretations. The hypothesis that is formulated is that indivisible reserves play an important role in protecting the stability of employment in cooperatives. Read More
The paper examines the main limitations of the orthodox and institutional theories and comes to assert the need for creating and testing a new theoretical framework, which considers the way in which diverse enterprises pursue their goals, the diverse motivations driving actors and organizations, and the different learning patterns and routines within organizations. Read More
Recent years have seen a broad reshaping of the banking landscape. This article argues that this new reality can be thought of as an opportunity for financial cooperatives to increase their importance in the market and in the areas they historically serve. Read More