Regional Co-operation: A Strategic Network Perspective on a Customer-owned Organisation

Terhi Uski, Iiro Jussila, Juha-Matti Saksa

In recent years, the concept of network has been of interest to many scholars in the fields of management and sociology. The research on networks has focused on the benefits of networking and the relationships between network actors. Co-operative organisations have received only little academic attention in network research, despite of the fact that they seem to be closely related to the concept of network. In this article, we build on literature on co-operation and networking to analyse the strategic importance of formal and informal networks on a co-operative organisation. The empirical part of the article is based on thirteen qualitative in-depth interviews of the case co-operative managers and other focal actors of the network of a regional S Group co-operative (Finland). According to our analysis both dimensions of the network are of significant strategic importance to the co-operative.