Cooperative arrangements from the perspectives of embeddedness and transaction cost economy: a case study

Abstract

The creation of cooperative arrangements is a strategy increasingly used by organizations around the world as a way to be more competitive in highly dynamic markets. Thus, it becomes increasingly important to understand these new organizational structures. This article analyzes the formation and development of two partnerships established through cooperatives of shrimp producers in the state of Rio Grande do Norte: Coopercam and Unipesca. Both were analyzed from the perspective of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Embeddedness. Gulati’s work (1998) was used to identify the steps needed to understand the creation and development of cooperative arrangements: the decision to start an alliance and the choice of partners, the decision about the governance structure, the evolution of the alliance and the performance of the companies which established the partnership. The research methodology used was the case study (Yin, 2005). The data collection was of exploratory and qualitative nature. For purposes of data analysis, the methodology used in the case study was the content and document analysis proposed by Bardin (1977). The survey results showed that the partnerships brought improvements in competitiveness in both cases. However, these gains were more relevant to Unipesca due to the smaller number of partners in this cooperative, which enabled an increase in social ties and trust between partners. In the case of Coopercam, this was limited by the large number of members.

Key words: partnerships, transaction cost economics, embeddedness.