Cooperatives in IT sector: theoretical and practical aspects

Information technologies are developing rapidly. The number of people envolved in IT sector is also growing fast. Users, freelancers, software developers, IT companies create various formal and non-formal interest groups: community, hackathons, co-workings, hackerspaces, IT-clusters, and others. IT-cooperative is one of these new, very promising, but yet little-known forms. The article reveals the features of cooperative as a unique form of business based on solidarity and ethical principles. The article shows the reasons of cooperatives emergence, their types and varieties, features and extent of development in the world and in separate sectors of economy of different countries. The basic cooperative principles, which make coops unique and distinguish them from other forms of business activity, are analyzed. The experience and activity of individual IT-cooperatives in different countries are generalized. The emphasis is made on the benefits cooperative business model can provide the IT specialists with. Several possible promising models of IT-cooperatives are developed. There is not information about existence of such models yet, but they can be created potentially.