How are regulative institutions used to curb members’ opportunism in a heterogeneous cooperative while facing external shocks? This question is posed in a paper by Damion Bunders and Tine De Moor from the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The paper, titled “Using the institutional grammar to understand collective resource management in a heterogenous cooperative facing external shocks”, is published in the Journal of Regulation & Governance and can be found here.

The study explores how Smart, a Belgian worker cooperative for freelancers, adapted its rules between 2017 and 2022, covering two external shock events: the COVID-19 pandemic and a new cooperative law. Building on the institutional grammar methodology, Bunders & De Moor analyze 412 rules of Smart. The study shows, amongst others, that external shocks with sudden resource scarcity (like COVID-19) do not necessarily motivate rule changes, while external shocks without an effect on collective resources (new national legislation) can motivate rule changes. Additionally, the study provides support for the notion that cooperatives with a heterogeneous membership design rules to prevent members from overusing or under-contributing to collective resources. This paper also develops the institutional grammar’s ability to measure institutional meaning.