Multiple entrepreneurial ecosystems? Worker cooperative development in Toronto and Montréal

Abstract

The emergence in practice of worker cooperative ecosystems, which draws on the entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) concept, has been largely ignored in academic research. Contrasting worker cooperative development efforts in Toronto with Montréal, we affirm there are multiple and multiscalar EEs in each region, including both a dominant capitalist and a worker cooperative EE. Productive enterprises like worker cooperatives, operating with a different logic than investor-owned firms, not only construct their own EE, but the relational connectedness of the worker cooperative EE to other EEs also plays a role in outcomes. Worker cooperatives have been less successful in navigating these dynamics in Toronto than in Montréal. Future research might seek to more fully specify the relational and multiscalar configuration of regions’ multiple EEs.

Employee-Owned Businesses’ Responses During the Pandemic: Economic, Non-Economic Goal and Democratic Resilience and Their Link to Ownership, Control and Benefit

“…However, disbenefit did not suggest a single bottom line but was positively linked to some aspects of non-economic goal and democratic resilience and predicted both job protection and democratic resilience actions As well as being more economically resilient, longer standing EO also robustly predicted prioritisation of non-economic goal objectives. This lends support to Birchall's dual bottom line thesis (Birchall, 2013), suggesting that as EOBs mature the salience of a "more than capitalist" (Spicer and Zhong, 2022) organisational purpose increases. The consequence of more mature EOBs' adaptive resilience (Martin and Sunley, 2015) is important when we consider the significance of non-economic goals, such as wellbeing, decent work and employment protection highlighted by the humanitarian and economic impacts of the pandemic (van Barneveld et al, 2020).…”

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Mechanisms

“…This is linked to the notion that outputs of entrepreneurial ecosystems evolve over time (Buratti et al, 2022). This is, however, not limited to the overall ecosystem but nested sub-systems or clusters with ecosystems can produce different outputs (Scheidgen, 2021;Spicer & Zhong, 2022). These sub-systems can be based on social capital (Neumeyer, Santos & Morris, 2019), other organizational-and individual-level factors (Neumeyer & Santos, 2018), or centered around digitalization and digital technologies (Cornet, Bonnet & Bourdin, 2022).…”

Another organization is possible: New directions in research on alternative enterprise

“…(2021), for example, used the case of the Brazilian solidarity economy movement, which incubates various forms of social and alternative enterprises there, to identify the various organizational‐level, community‐level, and macro‐level entities which collectively constitute the organizational ecosystem for alternative enterprises, showing how they collectively provide the glue of action, as well as organizing and engaging in action. Spicer and Zhong (2022), meanwhile, contrast worker cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystems in Toronto and Montréal, showing how the comparative failure of worker cooperatives in the former reflects not only a weak set of internal ecosystem elements, but also reflects poor connections to the broader capitalist and social economy ecosystems in that city‐region. Beyond the primarily case‐based research reviewed above, other emerging research, which engages at both the macro and meso scales simultaneously, is also beginning to address this question, arguing that alternative forms of organizing the economy may be incongruous with certain macro‐level field and institutional arrangements (Mair & Rathert, 2020, 2021; Spicer, 2021), a point further discussed below.…”