Food Coop in metaphors: The uneasy task of describing alternative enterprises

This issue of M@n@gement’s Unplugged – Voices presents four essays on organizations that are not conventional in relation to their governance, their economic model and their consumer relations. Although they are not new to the economic landscape, “alternative organizations” have a growing presence in the academic management literature (e.g., Dorion, 2017; Meyer & Hudon, 2017; Parker, 2017; Parker & Parker, 2017). The recent financial and economic crises and environmental crises such as climate change and loss of biodiversity have helped to make these organizations more visible (Parker, Cheney, Fournier & Land, 2014). In this context, there has been renewed interest in the original model of the Park Slope Food Coop (PSFC) in New York, with numerous projects replicating this participatory supermarket model in Western Europe and North America. The PSFC is an alternative organization in that it is a cooperative and is therefore member-owned, member-controlled and benefiting its members (Mamouni Limnios, Mazzarol, Soutar & Siddique, 2018). It was created in 1973 in the USA, around the time of the counterculture (that is, the peace movement, anti-corporate movement, hippies, etc.) that was happening then (Jochnowitz, 2001).