Cooperation and Effort, Reciprocity and Mutual Supervision in Worker Cooperatives

Abstract

This paper formalizes the determination of effort in work teams as a social dilemma, adding a mutual-monitoring activity and reciprocity motivations to the formal model of effort provision in cooperatives. It turns out that the cooperative solution is viable in a work group in which the workers frame effort as a reciprocal gift, and if they do frame effort in this way in worker cooperatives, this could explain the observed tendency of cooperatives to attain higher productivity.

Citation

McCain, R.A. (2007), "Cooperation and Effort, Reciprocity and Mutual Supervision in Worker Cooperatives", Novkovic, S. and Sena, V. (Ed.) Cooperative Firms in Global Markets (Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 185-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-3339(06)10007-1