Toward an Organizational Theory of Membership Structural Design

Various events have led to the development of highly complex cooperative operationsand to concepts for understanding operations. However. development ofmembership structures and concepts for understanding these structures haslagged. This paper imports organizational design and contingency theory into themember control literature. Membership structure is understood as organization-like,producing a service (Le., member control). Member control structure is understoodas having three aspects (representation, policy making, and oversight) andtwo environments (the members themselves, and management and operations).Building from cooperative principles and following the development of cooperativesfrom simple to complex organizations, this paper develops a series of axiomaticpropositions for understanding and designing membership structure. Only someof the propositions are testable, and still others are meant only to give continuityand relevance to the propositions as a group (as a theory). Such work should helpdevelop a language for understanding and furthering discussion and research ofmembership structure and member control in agricultural cooperatives.