Cooperatives and cooperative behavior in the context of family businesses

Acknowledging that cooperatives and cooperative behavior play an important role in the context of family businesses, we introduce and tease out the implications of articles that were selected for publication for a special issue dedicated to this topic. The collection of articles represents a broad range of philosophical underpinnings, national context, and methods. Overall, the research articles included in this collection suggest that family businesses are better at cooperating, and better at governing cooperative activity. The short communication piece offers several areas of intersection between family businesses and cooperatives-including the investigation of development of solidarity among members, curbing "politicking" in the context of developing a democracy among people with varying degree of talent and ability, and retaining/motivating unique and highly productive members. The "Practitioner's Corner" article reinforces many of these themes, along with providing an example of how family businesses, consistent with their values, can collectively be a force for social change.