Collective Entrepreneurship: An Emerging Phenomenon in Producer-Owned Organizations

This paper introduces and defines the concept of collective entrepreneurship. A review of the defensive single-level rent-seeking objective of traditional agricultural cooperatives is introduced followed by an analysis of recent studies documenting a shift in the objective functions of producers jointly integrating toward more multiple-level rent-seeking entities. This process of shifting from market failure-ameliorating collective action mechanisms toward rent-seeking group action organizations is labeled collective entrepreneurship. The justification for introducing this concept is based on the Olsonian premise that rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests without coercion or selective incentives.