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Abstract
Various events have led to the development of highly complex cooperative operations
and to concepts for understanding operations. However. development of
membership structures and concepts for understanding these structures has
lagged. This paper imports organizational design and contingency theory into the
member control literature. Membership structure is understood as organization-like,
producing a service (Le., member control). Member control structure is understood
as having three aspects (representation, policy making, and oversight) and
two environments (the members themselves, and management and operations).
Building from cooperative principles and following the development of cooperatives
from simple to complex organizations, this paper develops a series of axiomatic
propositions for understanding and designing membership structure. Only some
of the propositions are testable, and still others are meant only to give continuity
and relevance to the propositions as a group (as a theory). Such work should help
develop a language for understanding and furthering discussion and research of
membership structure and member control in agricultural cooperatives.