Crafting alternative work organisations: Paradoxes of workplace democracy and emancipation in worker-buyout cooperatives
基于对两家员工收购合作社长达十年的追踪研究，发现员工所有制并未自动带来民主和解放，反而通过剥削非成员员工来维持内部解放，揭示了合作社解放潜力的悖论性质。
Drawing on an interpretative study primarily based on two waves of interviews, the authors traced two cooperativisation experiences over 10 years from an actor-centred approach. The shift to worker ownership did not automatically lead to workplace democratisation and workers’ emancipation. Indeed, the early development of the cooperativisation experiences was marked by internal conflict and worker-owners’ dissatisfaction. Over time, a paradoxical alternative workplace was consolidated, in which worker-owners’ emancipation was ultimately sustained through the exploitation of non-member employees. The study makes a twofold contribution to the cooperativisation literature. First, it moves beyond utopian or sceptical perspectives to provide a more nuanced view of worker-buyout co-ops, emphasising the paradoxical nature of their emancipatory potential. Second, the study’s longitudinal analysis of co-ops formed out of financially sound firms, rather than bankrupted ones, advances knowledge of the diversity of cooperativisation experiences and the mechanisms that contribute to the longevity and sustainability of worker-buyout co-ops.