Membership: an Organizational View

This study examines the membership structure of a large centralized cooperative from an organizational workability view. Structure is created by dividing membership organizationally, i.e., assigning different roles and tasks to different groups of members, as well as to individual members, and bringing coordination to these differentiations. The membership structure of the case cooperative was found large in number of members, highly differentiated, and well coordinated. The structuring, i.e., creating a division of labor among the membership, and the coordinating of these divisions is done in response to conditions in the membership environment.