Classifying the degree of cooperative multinationality: Case study of a French multinational cooperative

In recent decades, the largest European worker cooperatives, and those that are the most emblematic in their countries, have been transformed into multinational companies. This article examines workers’‐cooperative multinationality by providing a classifying tool based on the interaction between con...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnals of public and cooperative economics Vol. 94; no. 4; pp. 1061 - 1084
Main Authors Errasti, Anjel, Bretos, Ignacio, Marcuello, Carmen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2023
Subjects
Case studies
Cooperatives
Employee benefits
labor relations
multinational enterprises
subsidiaries
Up Group
Worker cooperatives
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Summary:In recent decades, the largest European worker cooperatives, and those that are the most emblematic in their countries, have been transformed into multinational companies. This article examines workers’‐cooperative multinationality by providing a classifying tool based on the interaction between control rights and return rights held by foreign employees in the subsidiaries of multinational cooperatives. We illustrate our matrix of cooperative multinationality by classifying an internationalized historical cooperative, Up Group (formerly Chèque Déjeuner, SCOP). In the last few decades, the French cooperative Up has become a hybrid multinational player in the employee benefits industry by setting up capitalist subsidiaries both in France and overseas. The case study also reports on Up's innovative attempt to produce a global cooperative or a more democratic multinational enterprise through converting subsidiaries’ employees into associates.
ISSN:1370-4788
1467-8292
DOI:10.1111/apce.12450