Governance Structures in Cooperative Strategies

This chapter follows five phases in the process of examining governance structures in cooperative strategies. First, key concepts such as governance and governance structures are defined before presenting the theoretical framework comprised of the transaction cost economics (TCE), resource-based view (RBV), resource-dependency (RDT), agency, stakeholder, and institutional theories. Second, principles guiding governance structures are examined to suggest the adoption of legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and participation as building blocks of trust, the vital ingredient in cooperative strategies. Third, the theoretical framework and the literature examined supports the identification of twenty-six types of governance structures across eight perspectives through rationales behind their diverse typology and differentiation. Fourth, this chapter recognizes the imminent presence of risks that cooperative strategies face before presenting the fifth and last phase where I conclude with key takeaways and suggestions for further research.