Hey everyone, I'm just starting up this topic so perhaps we can get a discussion going about something near and dear to my heart: co-ops. I'm in college in the US, and my campus has eight businesses that are completely run by students. I work at one of them.

It's completely cooperatively run, which means that all 14 employees have an equal position as co-managers and and equal say in how the business is managed. We form small committees to deal with specific tasks like purchasing food and equipment, getting catering jobs, handling disciplinary issues, and promoting the business through marketing. Once a week we meet as a big group and report out on all committees so everyone knows what's going on with everything else. We also discuss issues like raising revenue, purchasing problems, and various other things. Our meetings are also what you could call cooperatively run. We have a different person facilitate (or lead the meeting) each week, and we can only pass motions if everyone votes yes or stands aside passively.

Anyway, enough of me babbling about the job. In my opinion, co-ops (at least smaller ones) are the way to go. I'm not sure how HUGE corporations could work like my little business does, but I certainly like working at my co-op more than for a boss. I guess I just think there's a lot more diversity and a lot more ideas can be heard and acted on for the good of the business if it's cooperatively run. What do you guys think? Does anyone else work at a co-op? Have you ever been to one or learned the inner workings? Let me know!

I'd imagine huge corporations would crumble from the weight. Co-ops are only really productive in small groups/businesses.

I don't really have any issues with co-ops. Seems like a fun way of getting started in the business world.

Kevin is right, co-ops work well with a small community of members. A step up from that is employee-owned and operated businesses. The only one that comes to mind that fits this while being somewhat successful is Central Transportation Systems, Inc. of Texas.

It would be interesting to study their current management model. It makes you wonder if they appoint a board to run things or if they handle a lot through employee polling.

Yep, I'm curious to see how things would work out with bigger companies that try to run themselves cooperatively. I know that when just 14 of us have something to discuss, it can go on for several weeks at our all-staff meetings if we can't reach agreement. That would be a nightmare with a bigger group of people!