Co-operatives, territories and social capital: reconsidering a theoretical framework
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose This paper promotes a critical approach to co-operative studies by contributing new theoretical insights. The aim is to propose a new view on the co-operative firm as a socioeconomic phenomenon embedded into the local contexts in which it is situated. Sociological and economic analyses have mainly explored the relationship between co-operative members and the organization, the economic performance of co-operatives or compared co-operatives with other firm types. Less attention has been given to the co-operative–territory relation, which can reveal insights into members' collective actions, a co-operative's origins from specific social groups or how they establish relationships with certain community stakeholders over others. Design/methodology/approach The paper begins with a literature review of academic studies that situate co-operatives in relation to community, with a focus on how social capital theory has been deployed to understand this relation. It then proposes a theoretical examination of two fundamental authors in the field of social capital theory: Robert Putnam and Pierre Bourdieu. Drawing on findings from the literature review and considerations derived from the theoretical dialog between Putnam and Bourdieu, the paper proposes a revised social capital-based framework for analyzing key relations and expected outcomes of the co-operative–territory relation. Findings Reconsidering the role of social capital theory for co-operative studies, this article unfolds a dual reflection. First, it underlines the necessity for research that more closely considers co-operatives' territorial relationships. Second, it critically interrogates and pushes forward social capital theory as a framework for examining the social relations that embed co-operatives and their capacity to activate territorial economies. Originality/value The paper highlights the necessity for a further examination of the co-operative–territory relationship. It presents an innovative framework for improving sociological understanding of co-operatives as organizations embedded into their local socioeconomic contexts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.051 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.015 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".