Introduction: Cooperative Governance Fit to Build Resilience in the Face of Complexity

2015 by Novkovic, S., & Miner, K. for International Cooperative Alliance – Co-operative Governance Fit to Build Resilience in the Face of Complexity. 

Novkovic and Miner argue that large organizations need to break complexity down into manageable units and decompose decision-making into a network for independent control centres- in other words, polycentric or network governance.

1. Humanism- People centered approach – people are intrinsically motivated social beings, balancing personal and group interests
2. Joint Distributed Ownership and Control- Distribution of ownership rights equally among all members; holding assets in non-divisible reserves
3. Democracy (self governance) – autonomous, democratic decision making

This article contributes strongly to the overall idea that democratic member control and member economic participation serves as a strong foundation in which cooperatives can apply to improve their resilience.