Member Value in Co-operatives

Until today there is a research gap considering the question, what motivates a member to enter or leave a co-op, resp. what are the reasons to stay in a co-operative. The majority of studies about this topic mainly focus on economic factors and the rational behavior of the member. However, co-ops also have other purposes not associated with financial goals. The presented paper is proposing a new perspective on membership in co-operatives, which combines the German-speaking as well as the Anglo-American line of research, and is a first attempt for an interdisciplinary member value approach. The member value approach focuses on the individual member, but does not ignore the co-operative character all the same. Members have got different expectations towards the co-op whereas latent preferences, based on the nine basic needs by Max-Neef (1991), and economic goals must be distinguished. Member value arise as a result of the match between the latent preferences and economic goals of the members and the latent and manifest benefits provided by the co-op, therefore member value is not a statistic, but a dynamic concept.