Steward ownership and cooperatives

A comparison

Cooperatives are legal entities owned and democratically controlled by its members. They are usually established to serve the economic, social and cultural needs of its members. The following table shows the main differences between cooperatives and steward-owned companies.

Summarized, cooperatives do not automatically legally implement the principles of steward-ownership (self-determination / purpose-orientation). While it depends on the regionally specific attributes of the cooperative legal form, in many jurisdictions, company shares or business decisions held by the cooperative can theoretically be sold by decision of the cooperative members with economic benefit for the cooperative members. Also, dividends can often be distributed to cooperative members. While the principles of steward-ownership could be included in the legal statutes of the cooperative, the statutes could be revised again by the cooperative members at a later point in time. However, if the principles of steward-ownership are written into the cooperative statutes and can only be changed if all members agree, with a large number of cooperative members there is a sort of social security in the long run. Similarly, there are ways to combine veto-share, foundation or trust models with cooperatives.