Collective entrepreneurship and cooperatives principles: configurations for achieving social and economic goals in cooperatives

Cooperatives, particularly those comprising small- and medium-sized enterprises, are crucial in collective entrepreneurship due to their blend of social and economic goals. Mainstream management research often overlooks cooperatives, deeming member-based ownership arrangements as limiting competitiveness. This study uses data from 68 New Zealand cooperatives to examine how different configurations of cooperative principles and knowledge-sharing practices affect entrepreneurial orientation. First, we challenge the notion of the degeneration thesis, which assumes that cooperatives must sacrifice economic performance for social missions. Second, we show that not all principles are equal. By identifying multiple successful configurations of cooperative principles, we show that adherence to cooperative principles is dynamic and contingent on the cooperative’s competitive strategy. Third, our findings highlight the necessity of knowledge sharing to complement the principles and to achieve such competitive strategies. Taken together, we contribute to ongoing discussions about sustainable organisational forms and collective entrepreneurship by highlighting the value of the cooperative form.