From Theory to Practice: Social Capital in Agricultural Cooperatives in Flanders, Belgium

Cooperatives are considered resilient enterprises in times of crisis, partly due to their social logic as eminent through cooperative values and principles, such democratic governance. Increasingly, capital theory has been applied study cooperatives’ relationships. In this chapter, we focus on the organizational level (Leana Buren Academy Management Review 24:538–555, 1999), asking how three dimensions identified by Putnam (Making democracy work: Civic traditions modern Italy. Princeton University Press, 1993) further recognized Ostrom Ahn (Foundations capital. Elgar, 2003), i.e. (i) trust, (ii) networks, (iii) norms rules, manifesting across agri-food cooperatives particular. Extant literature thus far explored either large, homogeneous producer cooperatives, or exclusively recently emerging, rather alternative multistakeholder cooperatives. Overcoming dichotomy from literature, used purposive sampling investigate a maximal diversity agricultural Flanders, Northern Belgium. Analyzing 26 semi-structured interviews, first characteristics “typical cases” develop typology distinctive subtypes Flanders. Second, interpretations were explored, revealing considerable overlap with “live” embed principle Third, matrix was developed link these different which turn held theoretical practical implications for humanistic management practices (Melé Journal Business Ethics 44:77–88, 2003; Pastoriza et al. 78:329–341, 2008)