Social capital is defined as the shared knowledge, trust, and culture, embodied in the structural forms of networks and other stable inter-agent relationships. Social capital has been shown to be more difficult to build than economic capital, and to have greater beneficial effects for community...

All over the globe, cooperatives are plagued by pervasive member heterogeneity problems that are induced by the radical and dynamic changes in the business environment. Most current solutions to these problems emphasize strengthening member loyalty and commitment. Yet, many of these solutions...

The economic nature of agricultural cooperatives is explained by means of a logical continuation of the organizational economics rationale for family farms. The traditional explanations of the importance of family farms is discussed, and embedded in a broader framework which considers their...

This article explores the cross-fertilization potential that exists between the economic theory of agricultural cooperatives and that of nonprofit organizations. A number of central ideas in the agricultural cooperative theory are shown to generate two novel insights pertaining to the nonprofit...