This thesis seeks to answer the question as to how the Colville Cooperative
Society has withstood social and economic change where many other rural
businesses offering similar services, in similar rural communities have failed.
Joint entrepreneurship is a demanding form of entrepreneurship. Democracy
is manage and difficult to sustain.
What role does the organisation's cooperative principles and community
ownership play in its sustainability? The research seeks to expand the
knowledge of community-owned cooperative business as a viable alternative
for community economic development; expand the New Zealand research on
cooperative models; provide insight for cooperative member's to reflect on
past successes and challenges in order to improve practice; and share
knowledge about what makes a community-owned business work.
The study found that the sustainability of the Colville Cooperative was
dependant on several key factors. First amongst these is that the enterprise
provides what the community needs. This is the basis of support for the
enterprise and can overcome structural disadvantages. Vision and leadership
that cleaves to the cooperative's principles, aims and objectives was just as
important. To bring to expression and sustain these there had also had to be
adequate business skills, and business continuity.
It is the thesis of this research that the sustainability of the cooperative rests
partly in the core beliefs and organising skills of the people who started it,
partly in the resilience of cooperative forms of enterprise, and partly in the
willingness and capacity of the community to sustain it. It is argued this type
of community owned cooperative, where assets and shares are effectively
held in trust on behalf of the community, can create a common wealth which
frees communities from unsustainable sources of income, and creates viable
enterprises that are independent of changing government policy fashions