Job quality in worker cooperatives: Beyond degeneration and intrinsic rewards
通过分析意大利三个行业合作社的工作质量，发现恶劣工作条件并非市场压力所致，而是合作社通过降低劳动成本和提高灵活性实现扩张的关键原因。
Abstract While there are normally positive expectations concerning job quality in cooperatives, many studies have described a more complex picture. The extant literature has, however, found it difficult to deal with evidence of poor working conditions in these organisations. Some contributions downplay the relevance of this issue, arguing that poor extrinsic aspects of job quality are compensated by intrinsic rewards, as confirmed by higher levels of job satisfaction. Others focus on external market pressure and interpret bad labour conditions as a form of degeneration of originally good employment practices. Through a qualitative analysis of job quality in cooperatives in three sectors of the Italian economy (social services, hotel cleaning and meat processing), we advance a different argument: we contend that employment practices associated with poor job quality are not the result of difficult market conditions but are rather the key explanation for the quantitative expansion of this form of economic organisation, which has moved from being an instrument for promoting good employment to a way of ensuring lower labour costs and higher flexibility within outsourcing relationships.