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Abstract
Groups of individuals throughout time have worked together in pursuit of common goals. The earliest forms of hunting and agriculture required a great deal of cooperation among humans. Although the word "cooperative" can be applied to many different types of group activities, in this publication it refers to a formal business model. Cooperative businesses are found in nearly all countries, in numerous and varied sectors of the economy. As Ivan Emelianoff (1942, 13), a respected cooperative scholar, once remarked, "the diversity of cooperatives is kaleidoscopic and their variability is literally infinite." As a consequence of this diversity, no universally accepted definition of a cooperative exists. Two definitions, however, are commonly used.
Parent Publication
Citation
Zeuli, Kimberly. 2006. What is a cooperative?. In: Jakes, Pamela, ed. Forestry cooperatives: what today''s resource professionals need to know. Proceedings of a satellite conference; 2003 November 18. Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-266. St. Paul, MN: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station. 13-19.
