Who Needs a Boss?

Post by wolfgke » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 2:10 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #21

I, for one, need a boss. I don't necessarily need that person to tell me what to do, but I do need someone to remind me that the things that I do, whatever they may be, should be in the best interests of our company and its revenue stream. And I need someone to give me positive and negative feedback on my work, so I can improve my own productivity. What I really don't need is owners that are not personally involved i…

Post by epochwolf » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 2:19 PM UTC

aestra wrote: post #20

>Meanwhile, credit unions — another form of cooperative — face stringent regulations on business lending. This was thrown as an aside, but I'm wondering what they exactly mean by that. What are these regulations? Are they government imposed or member imposed? What exactly do the regulations say? I wish the article didn't just throw out "there's regulations" without explaining what said regulations are and how they ef…

Post by aestra » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 2:30 PM UTC

jorleif wrote: post #18

dragonwriter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are the workers, those interests are balanced differently.

It is certainly true that workforce reduction is just one possibility, but what I still wonder is when coops work and when they don't. Somehow it seems to me that they only work when the business is not too scalable, but profit is directly related to work input.

Post by nomadcoop » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 2:40 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #4

A worker co-operative seems like the ideal corporate structure for the typical consulting software shop. It can be set up to be very corporate-like or it can be set up as a loose group of freelancers who pooled together to share a health insurance plan, or anything in between.

Post by dsbmac » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

jorleif wrote: post #10

While I think co-ops can work very well in some cases, I wonder how well they cope with significant change for the worse in their environment. If you need to lose a third of the workforce suddenly, can a co-op decide on that kind of thing or will it lead to some unproductive compromise, or even worse, denial?