Iiro Jussila

The Determinants of Membership in Cooperative Banks: Common Bond versus Private Gain

Membership in organizations has been rarely studied by economists. We study the determinants of membership in financial cooperatives, organizations that have significant economic and social presence in many countries. By identifying economic and non-economic incentives to be members of cooperatives, our conceptual framework is novel. Our empirical work analyzes panel data from 2001-2009 for Finnish cooperative banks and compares two empirical concepts of the membership ratio. We find evidence that monetary incentives are important reasons to join, but also the size of the community from which members are recruited plays a role. Over time, monetary incentives have increased and this may have contributed to faster growth in membership in cooperatives based in larger municipalities after these changes. Cooperatives attracting new members primarily on the basis of monetary rewards is also consistent, over time, with a reduction in the role of the common bond.

The Start of Team Start-Ups: Collective Dynamics of Initiation and Formation of Entrepreneurial Teams

This study aims to describe and understand the start of team start-ups through answering why and how team entrepreneurship (TE) is initiated, how teams form, and what kinds of criteria are used in team building. While the above topics have been examined by many scholars, we aim to elaborate new insights into understanding the very first steps of initiating a new venture by an entrepreneurs’ collective. We employ a qualitative multiple-case study approach and analyze individual and group interview data from four high-technology team start-ups through inductive thematic analysis. We find that TE starts with an impetus established by a collective desire, collective value orientation, collective demand, and collective encouragement to TE. The impetus concretizes in coming together of team members where one or some need to take initiative to form the team, and search for members with specific criteria for membership that include not only technical but social-psychological dimensions. The study suggests that emergence of entrepreneurial opportunities at the collective-level might be distinctive from the individual-level. It contributes to researchers, prospective entrepreneurs, investors, policy-makers, and educators’ understanding of TE as a versatile and dynamic phenomenon where individual and group levels of analysis and technical and social-psychological aspects intertwine.

The Socio-psychological Challenges of Succession in Family Firms: The Implications of Collective Psychological Ownership

One of the most distinct challenges that family businesses face is succession. Several researchers have recognized that it is not a single event, but a process associated with social and psychological challenges. This chapter advances knowledge on these challenges drawing on the theory of collective psychological ownership (CPO). More precisely, we present the socio-psychological challenges in succession and the main factors related to them, and discuss how CPO affects this relationship. This work serves as an analytical framework for future research on the topic.

Life’s Ownership Experiences: An Introduction to Psychological Ownership

Think of the word ownership. What does it mean? For most people that we encounter our students in particular, initial thoughts focus on ownership in terms of having, holding, and belonging to oneself. Ownership is a legal right of possession. This emphasis upon the word ‘right’ expands, such that ownership can be seen as entailing a ‘bundle of rights’ relating to control over, information pertaining to, and a fi nancial stake in the target of ownership (that is, rights to a ‘piece of the rock’). These three rights are commonly associated with and are the most often recognized in modern societies as to the meaning of ownership. Upon refl ection, it is common for us to express our relationship with objects by employing the personal and possessive pronouns, such as – mine, my, ours, and theirs. In recognition of this mindset, Heider (1958) wrote that ‘attitudes of ownership’ are common among people. Similarly, it was Etzioni (1991, p. 466) who commented that ownership is a ‘dual creation, part attitude, part object, part in the mind, part “real”.’ These views are consistent with the thesis, off ered by economic psychologist Leon Litwinski (1942) and social psychologist Lita Furby (1991), that a ‘psychology of mine and property attaches itself to objects.’ As a psychological state, the existence of ownership is present within the individual, it attaches to objects that may or may not be owned legally, and its accompanying rights and responsibilities are defi ned by the individual and not the legal system. Taking a ride ‘back in time’ reveals that the meaning of ownership varied dramatically dependent on time and place. The works of Rudmin (1999) and Dittmar (1992), among others, point out that there has been little consensus on the ‘true basis of ownership.’ Classical philosophers, drawing arguments from both religion and politics, debated whether ownership should be conceptualized as private or common, and whether it should be treated as primarily objective or subjective phenomenon (cf. Rudmin, 19991). While taking a neutral stance to these debates, we note that there appears to be widespread agreement that it is common