Use of a Cooperative to Interlock Contingencies and Balance the Commonwealth

Cooperatives are systems organized along key principles to balance the distribution of wealth across organizational members. The cooperative movement has an extensive history and has contributed to the design and operation of a large variety of endeavors that seek to maximize returns to a maximum number of stakeholders. While cooperatives are ubiquitous in commerce and community organizations, the designs of the contingencies that define a cooperative have rarely been subject to behavioral analyses. We report a large-scale examination of a safety incentive program enabled by cooperatives of small businesses that applied some of their financial resources to an incentive system organized to sustain active safety management within co-op members. The evaluation indicated that the frequency, severity, and cost of work-related injuries were reduced when safety incentives were applied. High return on investment indicates that the program was cost effective. User satisfaction with the procedures was also high, and the program became an enduring feature of the operation of the safety cooperatives.