Multiple Entrepreneurial Motivations

Submitted by Joe on

Christina Clamp's presentation at the 2008 ACE Institute on innovations in worker coopertive development begins by outlining answering "Who are the founders of worker co-ops?".  There are multiple entrepreneurial motivations, including:

  • Ideological cooperators - fair trade, anticorporate, cooperators
  • Labor Intervention by cooperative developers (plant closing, anti-labor move by owner
  • Developer led Antipoverty intervention
  • Opportunistic self help groups

Comments

I have been trying to find a

Submitted by Joe on

I have been trying to find a constant to measure these together, and I think "entrepreneurs" works as a substitute for "the founders." My interpretation here creates 3 groups.

  • Entrepreneurs. I think this is what she means by opportunistic self-help groups (which is not that flattering). Some might say DIY.
  • Social Entrepreneurs. For instance labor entrepreneurs, antipoverty entrepreneurs, fair trade entrepreneurs, anticorporate entrepreneurs. These are people using the cooperative model to achieve a social good.  I'm not sure why antipoverty is not incuded in her ideological category.  
  • Cooperative Entrepreneurs. Is this an ideology?  Yes, and it has some impressive adherants, but it can be a somewhat nerdy platform to organize around.  This group can articulate cooperatives for their own merits but more often then not needs to be partnering with the efforts of the previous two groups to thrive.

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