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When less is not more: Restraining internal opportunistic behavior in cooperatives

Theo Benos et al.

Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management2025https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcom.2025.100260article
AJG 2
Weight
0.41

What the paper says

In the European Union’s agri-food sector, where most farm businesses are small and the opportunistic behavior of powerful chain actors is a major market challenge, cooperatives substantially reinforce their members’ bargaining position. However, opportunism is also common within cooperatives, a dominant form of which surfaces when members side-sell to competing chain actors. As side-selling jeopardizes cooperatives’ viability and persists, we aim to explore novel antecedents that might also inform solutions. Motivated by the dual nature of cooperatives as a social group and a business enterprise, we examine the restraining influence of two social phenomena that explain why humans cooperate - trust and gossip - on members’ illegal side-selling behavior. With survey data from 170 members in 48 cooperatives, we find that perceived negative gossip curbs illegal side-selling, and trust has an indirect preventive effect through perceived member benefits. Taken together, our study’s findings advance the knowledge of internal opportunism in cooperatives and may prove valuable to crucial stakeholders for the development of the European Union’s agri-food sector. • We consider cooperatives’ business-social nature but focus on the social side to explore novel antecedents of side-selling. • We examine the restraining influence of two social phenomena - trust and gossip - that explain why humans cooperate. • Perceived negative gossip by others in the cooperative (e.g., other members) hinders illegal side-selling. • Trust within the cooperative curbs illegal side-selling, albeit through its positive impact on perceived member benefits. • Cooperative leaders might complement formal arrangements with relational governance elements to tackle side-selling.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcom.2025.100260

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@article{theo2025,
  title        = {{When less is not more: Restraining internal opportunistic behavior in cooperatives}},
  author       = {Theo Benos et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcom.2025.100260},
}

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When less is not more: Restraining internal opportunistic behavior in cooperatives

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Evidence weight

0.41

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.25 × 0.4 = 0.10
M · momentum0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.